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Great Tennis Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 19
Date: May 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

If you're a tennis fan, then this is definitely a game to get. You have a wide variety of real life stars to choose from, or you can custom design your own to match your playing style.

Your character selection is great - 24 names including Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova, Andy Roddick, Roger Federer and much more. You can custom create your own character with the hair style and look that matches you.

As you play, you earn stars which you can apply to a variety of skill types. You can buy training and enter in low level tournaments to hone your skills. Sure, some of those beginning tournaments might be on questionable courts with only a few audience members - but once you begin to prove your talents you can work your way up to the larger scale arenas.

I really appreciated the fine detail in each court. You don't start out in large, lush arenas. You start out on concrete courts with cracks, with barely a dozen people watching. Random passer-bys walk or bicycle along the court's edge. Take heart, though - after months of hard work and practice (in game time) you'll be wowing the larger audiences.

My boyfriend used to play tennis quite seriously and was quite impressed with the accuracy of much of the game. The different types of shots actually sound differently. The characters move very fluidly for the most part and react as a real tennis player would. There are stumbles as they chase the ball, racquet spins while they wait for a shot.

They try to give you an "environment feel" with the sound. For example, when you're playing a tournament in Japan you get asian style music. As mentioned, the tennis shot sounds do actually sound like the ball would in various situations. Really, other than that, you get audience clapping. What else do you want to hear in tennis?

If you've never really played tennis before, you might really come to appreciate just how much strategy is involved in a game of tennis. If you're a tennis player, you can really hone your strategic skills by playing this, seeing what works and what doesn't work depending on the court type and situation.

Well recommended!

Terric. Must-have for any tennis fan

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: May 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Top Spin 1 for the original XBOX was probably the game that I played the most, more than Halo 2 even. Top Spin got boring after a while because the customization of players in career midewas too simple with only 4 categories with 14 possible stars to max out and 4 special shots. Now, Top Spin 2 has 11 categories with 60 stars possible to max out and then to upgrade (granted you get stars easier so this doesn't take forever). You also learn "special shots" as the career progresses.

Graphics:
- probably the weakest point of the game. They don't maximize the potential of the 360 and aren't a huge step from Top Spin 1, but they are effective.
-the courts look very nice and react as they should to certain shots
-Only 2 camera angles which is disappointing. The cool mega-close-up angle from Top Spin 1 was also removed so now you have "zoom" and a far camera angle. I suggest using zoom because with the other angle, you move to the other side of the court and the controls are upside down (to make a shot go short, you press forward on the control stick which is the opposite on the other side of the court). Unfortunately, zoom angle isn't available for doubles which is a shame.
-When creating players, it is difficult to make your player look normal if you customize him yourself. Better to select a DNA and make minor changes.

Sound
-Players grunt and you can even customize when they grunt when creating a character

Gameplay
-Some groundstrokes look awkward like one where the player stands in open stance and kind of slaps at the ball
-Even with the vollie skill maxed, players miss extremely easy vollies and overheads. There really isn't a huge advantage to maxing out vollie because, as far as I can tell, have a 10 vollie player is only a little better than a 5 star vollie player. It's a bad idea to sacrifice other important skills for vollie skills
-AI is rather weak all around. I have no problem winning every match without much difficulty except when playing Guillermo Coria (he is kind of like the Michael Chang of this version, but not as bad)
-ability to sim is VERY important so you don't have to waste 15 minutes beating some minor tournament when trying to improve your ranking. Don't, under any circumstance, try to simulate games vs. your rival (some guy from your country who messages you occasionally and makes stupid remarks when you win) because you will lose most of the time. The game doesn't think highly of you vs. most players so you should win a game or two and then simulate the rest of the match once you have "proved your dominance".
-One way to gain stars it to train. It costs money and you get to do mini-games. For instance, you have to hit 3 big balls with shots and try to get them to cross the base line. A problem is presented when one of the big balls bounces funny and is stuck way up front, so you can't really hit it with any shot except for a drop shot. This gets annoying.
-Another problem with the training system is that you HAVE to take the stars rewarded to you when you complete an exercise. For instance, I wanted to add stamina, forehand, and backhand stars to one of my guys. I had him complete the exercise that works on forehand, backhand, and spins. I maxed out my forehand and backhand at 10, but the game made me use the extra stars from the exercise on spins, even though I didn't want to. The only way to prevent this, that I know of, is to purposely fail the exercise so you only get 1 star, and repeat. This makes you lose lots of money though

I feel like I am ragging too much. This really is a terrific game and is very immersive. You will have a great time progressing through your career and making unique players who specialize in different things. I have created 4 players, all very different, and all very fun to play with.

Don't forget, you can play on Live too, singles and doubles!

Best tennis game out there, but could still be improved...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: November 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

PROS:
1. Character Design- one of the most fun aspects of the game is creating new characters and designing everything about them right down to the last detail.
2. Inclusion of Pro Characters- finally they added some current stars to a tennis game (Federer, Roddick, Venus, Sharapova, Hewitt, Blake, Davenport)
3. Graphics- some of the best backgrounds and rendering that I've seen in a tennis game
4. Tournaments- you can actually play in real recreations of major tournaments (Australian Open, Wimbledon, US Open, etc)
5. Career Mode- much improved over the original Topspin, with the ability to play on a week to week schedule over the course of several years.
6. Variety in players abilities- I love that you can design all of a characters skill and strenghts and not just a few.

CONS:
1. Player Movement- some of the moves that the players do is a step backwards from the original in terms of realism. Also, what happened to the miss-hits off the racket and blocking serves back from the original?
2. Player Sounds- the grunts from the players are limited and very unrealistic.
3. No More Replay- one of the cool features about the original was being able to watch a good play over in slow motion. Why did they take that away?
4. Serve Return Too Easy- my biggest gripe is that it's way too easy to return difficult serves. There is no way an opponent should be able to swat back a 140mph serve at nearly the same speed.
5. Career Span- the span of a created persons career should be longer than 5 years. Most pros go at least 10 years now (or some even longer).
6. Where are Nadal, Serena, Safin, Clijsters and Henin-Hardenne?

Fun for all skill levels!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Topspin is an awesome sports game! I had the original and loved it so much that I decided to upgrade when I got the 360. Its a game that can be played by people of all skill levels and the simplicity of the swing types matched to buttons is something that I love. The "A" button is a safe shot and will always be inside the strips, "B" is the Topspin shot, "Y" is the lob shot and "X" is a slice shot. As you get advanced and used to playing the game, you can add in the Right Trigger button with the above shots to do advanced versions of each.

When You start out the game, you have minimal skills and ranked 200th in the world. Each week of the season you can perform one of two or sometimes three actions.

You always have the option of training. This will provide you with a short drill that changes based on type of training and the level. The task ranges from serving to specific areas of the court to knocking over walls and bowling pens. These can be quite fun in themselves and really don't take a lot of time.

The second action you can take is to participate in a tennis tournament. These include small tournaments up to Grand slam events. There are four levels of tournaments and each one gets progressively harder and more rewarding. Some tournaments require your rank to be above a certain level or for you to go through a qualifying round.

The final action isn't always available but is often very beneficial. I have seen challenges from Top Ranked Players, Fund Raisers and even managed to get invited to the National Team for my country! After completing the fund raising challenge, I had the luxury of having a Tennis school named after me and was rewarded with several silver and gold stars! These are used to increase your skills by first adding bronze, then silver and finally gold stars in increments of 10.

As you compete in tournaments, you'll start to achieve rank and earnings. These will also unlock new coaches, sponsors and clothing that you can take advantage of during the course of your career. Coaches allow different levels of training, sponsors offer you rewards for achieving certain milestones etc.

Multiplayer options include 2 player at the console or 2-4 on xbox live. There are doubles matches, singles matches and several variations on tennis for playing with friends called "party games"

All in all this version of Topspin is as good and even better than the original. My only complaint is with the load times as there tends to be quite a bit of load screens in the game.

I highly recommend this game if your remotely interested in tennis!

A good tennis game, but disappointing in some aspects

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 19, 2006
Author: Amazon User

First off, let me say that I am a huge tennis fan. When I first starting to purchase console systems, I would pluck out every tennis game I could find.

When I finally came upon Top Spin (the original) I was blown away at the gameplan. The graphics were solid, but the movements of the players, their strokes, the stadiums, were amazing!

So when I heard about Top Spin 2, I rushed to get it. Overall, it is a small upgrade to the original, with some really annoying flaws.

Pluses:

Great selection of players, including Venus Williams, Davenport, Sharapova

Stadium design is much improved, you can plan in awesome settings, with great details like fan interactions

Graphics are a better than the original

Single player campaign is very fun

Negatives:

You are forced to use the joystick for movement. This is incredibly annoying, as the original Top Spin allowed you to use the lower pad

Learning curve is very steep. It is MUCH easier to hit balls out of bounds, which is not fun for friends coming over and just picking up the controller and playing. After about 10 minutes, it will get frustrating for a beginner player with no experience.

Summary:

Overall, I will always love all tennis games, but because of the tougher controls, and tough learning curve, this is not the upgrade I was hoping for.

If you are a huge tennis fan, definitely pick it up for the graphics, and stadium settings. If you cannot dedicate a lot of time to this game, or want to play it casually, I would pass, or look for it in the sale bin.

Best Tennis Game Available .... With Room for Improvement

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: June 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

First let me start by saying that this is hands down the best tennis game available at the moment. So, if you want to play tennis on a console there's no need to read further, since you've found your game.

If you've played previous versions of Top Spin and wonder whether this game is worth the purchase, I would say yes as well. The button controls have remained consistent, so you can pick up the new version quickly. There are a two enhancements, which I think are worth mentioning: (1) graphics and (2)ability to control spin, slice and lob shots.

In addition, there are much more tournaments available than in previous versions and the career mode has also been expanded. My only gripe with this game is that I lost interest after I reached the #1 position and built up my custom player's attributes. Once I reached that point most matches became too easy. However, the game did provide a good amount of game time leading up to that point. It's also a shame that there is no commentary.

Overall I would probably give it a 9.4 out of 10.

Kids loved it

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: July 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have two teens that I bought this for. They have played this game longer than any other sports game I have bought. They have friends over to have tournaments and make a party out of it. Plus it has renewed their interest in real on the court tennis. Great Game!

great game, better than original for x-box

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: April 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

this game is awesome in all aspects. that graphics are great, the players in the game look like the real life players. the feel and play of the game is awesome and the control is good. all-in-all this game is great. i highly recommned this game for anyone who is even thinking of buying this.

Still the best tennis game ever made

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 13
Date: April 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I got this game 4 days ago and I like the fact that they didn't change anything on the game they did add some more players like Venus Williams but Serena isn't on here the graphics are cool their not 2 far off from top spin 1 but graphics don't make the game the controls are smooth they twicked them a little but if you know how to play top spin you can get used 2 it in career mode after you create a player you have to do weeks of training before you can actually play a tournament its still the fun game all the modes are there and the price is reasonable well worth ya money at $39.99 if you have a 360 this is a must have especially if you like sport games picked this up you want be disapointed

dont like tennis but love this

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: September 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

when i first got Top Spin 1 it was addictive, i was afraid they would screw this one up but they did a better job, i highly recomend this game

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