Tennis. What a beautiful sport. It combines the physical, the mental, grace and elegance. In the past, tennis video games adopted an arcade style approach by putting an emphasis on simple controls and the action of the sport. Top Spin 3 for the Xbox 360, developed by PAM Development and published by 2K Sports, takes an entirely different approach. With the goal of simulating reality, the game contains a completely reengineered control system that is refreshingly innovative. With several gameplay modes, detailed design functions and online capabilities, PAM Development has pushed video game tennis in the right direction with Top Spin 3, chalking up another notch in the genre’s evolution.
There are several game modes in Top Spin 3. Like most other tennis games, there are Exhibition, Career and Tournament modes. The Career mode requires you to build your own player using the player creator, which goes into an extensive amount of detail. You can customize virtually every facet of your player, including the ability to mold his or her face manually. So if you feel like you’re the next Michelangelo, you can spend a fair bit of time trying to sculpt your masterpiece. After finishing the design process, you begin your career as an amateur until you win enough matches to turn pro. Winning matches rewards your player with development points that allow you to improve your player’s specific skill set such as the forehand, backhand or service as well as others.
Once you have made your character and built them to your preferences, you can try your luck on Xbox Live with the World Tour mode. Each tour lasts half a month, and people from around the world compete in real tournaments to crown a champion. If you ever get tired of the normal Career mode against computer opponents or you just like to play against other people in a competitive setting, this online World Tour is a great feature that goes beyond the also available random online matchup. But before you start your quest for competitive tennis domination, it is important to learn how to play, and that is where the Top Spin School mode comes in to teach you everything you need to know.
The tutorial is extensively detailed, and a solid amount of practice time is recommended in order to play the game well. At its core, the controls are designed to accurately simulate tennis. To hit the ball, you have to hold down a button corresponding to the stroke you want, position yourself for the ball and let go at the appropriate time. Because of the nature of the controls, timing and positioning, like in real tennis, are key things to keep in mind. At first, learning the controls might be a little frustrating, but if you put in the work, you won’t regret it.
From a visual perspective, Top Spin 3 is a treat. Many of the venues found in the game are based on the courts used in real tournaments. For the tennis fan, you’ll find Roland Garros, Flushing Meadows and Melbourne Park; although, the All England Tennis Club is mysteriously absent from the selection. All of the courts look as they do in real life, and it is immediately apparent that painstaking care was taken in making the environments as realistic and as detailed as possible. The use of dynamic elements such as shadows, dirt and cloud cover keep the courts from looking dull while adding another layer of authenticity to the venues. But while the venues look great, the players, unfortunately, do not. Many of the famous faces found in the game are meant to look like their real-life counterparts; unfortunately, none of them really do. At best, there is a faint resemblance, but looks aren’t everything. However, what Top Spin 3 captures fairly accurately are the players’ movements. Andy Roddick’s service motion in the game is spot on, and Andy Murray’s backhand might be mistaken for the real thing. And while this might not be of interest to anyone but the true tennis fan, it helps to underline just how much effort went into this game.
The music and sound of Top Spin 3 is fairly standard for a sports game. There is a sparse amount of music that is confined to the menus mostly made up of pop songs designed to help ease the dullness of menu navigation. On the sound front, you’ll find the standard score announcer, crowds, footwork and racquet sounds. Tennis was never an immersive sound experience to begin with, and the game does its job of accurately recreating the auditory landscape of the sport.
Loading during the game is fairly quick, and the game saves you from suffering through loading screens by giving you overhead shots of the selected venues as well as tip sheets. This is a nice touch, but it comes with a couple of problems. The overhead shots always suffer from lag and judder while the tip sheets appear and disappear so fast you can’t even read them. But in the end, these are negligible glitches that don’t affect the gameplay or the overall enjoyment of the game.
With several different modes and online features, there’s plenty to do in Top Spin 3. The game contains all the important elements needed for a great sports game, namely impressive graphics, design and controls. Getting over the gameplay learning curve will take some effort, but once you do, it’s a lot of fun. So if you can’t play tennis outside on a rainy day, or you just don’t feel like getting the exercise, play it inside, and swing, baby, swing.
