When I first put Top Spin in my Xbox and began to play I thought back to the
Days of Virtua Tennis and it’s two incarnations on the Dreamcast. Top Spin,
although not from Sega seems to carry on the great tradition with another superb
tennis game for fans of the Virtua Tennis series; adding updated graphics, Online
Play via Xbox Live, and XSN Sports. XSN Sports is the new innovative feature
from Microsoft that they put into their version of sports game starting this
year which allows you to setup or join tourneys online via the web. Top Spin
offers a good variety of clay. grass, turf, and hard courses on all continents
across the globe for gamers to play on.

You can either take one of 16 Male and 16 Female Pro Tennis stars such as Pete
Sampras, Michael Chang, and one of the cover people the lovely Anna Kournikova,
and take them online OR you can make a character from scratch and go through
career mode and earn skill points through various drills that test your Serve,
Backhand, Forehand, and Volley and take that character online to see if you
got the stuff to be number one.

Gameplay
When you first get into Top Spin you realize that the controls are easy to begin
with, but take some time to master. With Virtua Tennis you need only 2 buttons
to do all the racket swinging action with Top Spin you use all the buttons including
the L and R triggers. The triggers are used to perform either a sharp drop shot
(L trigger) or a real power shot (R trigger), but be careful when you use these
meters since you have to get it right in the middle of the bar for they can
be used otherwise your shot will go out, and in some cases for me cost me the
match which makes mastering the controls that much more important. Like I mentioned
in the intro you can choose from 16 pro tennis from each Gender for either Exhibition
play with your buddies offline or take them online for some global gaming goodness
or take a character that you made through Career Mode to see if your number
one on the global tennis court. The players wether they be the Pro players or
you custom players all move really well and the animations are simply amazing
in Top Spin. It’s almost like your there for the actual tourney.

Career Mode is a fun idea since you can take your personalized character through
the different tourneys to win some cash to buy new clothes and get groomed,
buy different racquets from different companies, do drills to raise his/her
skill points, and also do sponsor challenges to get more money to buy stuff,
and get sponsor related gear from clothes to better racquets.

Xbox Live
Since this is the maiden voyage for a tennis game on Xbox, Top Spin is well
done online not only with the XSN feature but general online play. This game
is almost a lag-free experience but there are the occasional bits of lag that
can make for some tense moments, of course this will vary with your connection.
The XSN feature is new idea that was implemented into this year’s version
of Microsoft’s online sports games which gives you a good way to find
out if you’re number one or just another number for everyone else. You
can either play 1 on 1 or you can gather up to 4 people on 4 Xboxes for some
doubles play which is really cool and makes for a great party games as well.

Control
As mentioned before Top Spin’s controls are easy to get into for a quick
game here and there, but to get the full potential out of the game and to be
a dominant force offline and online you have to master the controls. The mastery
of the controls shouldn’t take that much time though which makes for a
problem free experience for the most part.

Graphics

Graphically Top Spin is arguably the best looking sports game that Microsoft
has to offer this year. The skids you make on the courts look real nice and
they don’t disappear until you run over them many times making for a more
realistic feel to the game. The crowd is not just something that was thrown
in to the game they interact with the players i.e. Shout outs approvals etc…
The crowd also reacts on the various rallies that you can have from a simple
clap for just winning the rally to a standing ovation for winning a long battle.
Microsoft went to great lengths to make this a real eye appeasing video game
and it shows.

Top Spin Screenshot

[ Additional Screenshots Temporarily Unavailable, Sorry. ]

Audio
The sound in Top Spin is simply awesome from the way the ball comes off the
racquet to the way it bounces on the various courts that are offered. The sounds
are so lifelike it is REALLY hard to tell if you’re watching a tennis
match on TV or playing Top Spin on the Xbox yes it’s that good.

Replay Value
Top Spin has a lot of good things to offer; Career Mode, online play with either
XSN or normal play with your friends. This game will keep you hooked for months;
unless you got Links then it’s a toss up since they both have that addicting
appeal to them. Microsoft did well on its maiden voyage into the world of online
tennis, let’s just hope they don’t screw it up when next year’s
version comes out.

Reviewer's Additional Comments
Top Spin is arguably the best sports game from Microsoft this year. If you were
even a remote fan of Virtua Tennis you’ll definitely like this game, and
personally this game has a place on my Xbox sports games shelf.

Overall Score
Overall Score: 9/10 [Not an Average]

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