Top Spin
Posted November 25, 2003
Competition is fierce in sports gaming, and not just between determined players and the ingenious A.I. that developers deftly incorporate into these games. Store shelves are inundated with sports titles, and for good reason: it can be astonishingly profitable. To name one recent example, EA's NBA Live 2004 pulled in an estimated $25 million in sales in just a couple of weeks in October, according to the analysts at NPD Funworld. There isn't any shortage of basketball, football, soccer, hockey, or extreme sports games on the market, but since the demise of the Dreamcast, there's been a dearth of particularly compelling tennis titles on the three major consoles. Half-hearted efforts like Tennis Master Series 2003, WTA Tour Tennis, and Agassi Tennis Generation were met with a tepid reception, and even the better liked titles to emerge still seemed to be unfavorably compared to the legendary Virtua Tennis. Although Sega appears to have tossed its racket on the clay and shifted its attention elsewhere, Microsoft and developer Power & Magic have succeeded where many others have tried and failed. Top Spin has netted the same sort of near-universal praise that surrounded Virtua Tennis, and its incredibly addictive gameplay makes for one of the season's most essential sports purchases.
Gameplay:
The game's controls are simple and powerful, although it did take me close to an hour to discover how to best use them. The flat stroke is the most reliable shot but the least powerful, a solid starting point for players before moving onto slices, lobs, and topspins from there. The exact stroke and its direction are determined by the left thumbstick. The moves controlled by the triggers -- a drop shot and a devastating risk shot -- also require a bit of skill and quick timing, displaying a moving meter that the player has to hit dead-on in the center. If hit properly, there's a good chance that it'll immediately lead to a score, but if not, there's the strong possibility that the shot will miss and wind up costing a point. To increase the chances of those riskier maneuvers succeeding, there's a meter at the top of the screen that shows how "In the Zone" the player is, and a more amped-up athlete has a higher chance of pulling off tougher shots. Better performance and effective use of some of the tougher shots edge the meter up, and showboating after a successful shot for a crowd reaction can boost it further.
There are a variety of game modes, both online and off. Beginning with the single-console component, players can create customized exhibitions, able to determine the gender of the players, if the match is singles or doubles, the number of games per set, the number of sets per match, and the difficulty. Many of the best known tennis players in the world are at players' fingertips, each with different statistics that impact gameplay. The Exhibition mode is the recommended starting point for the uninitiated, giving new gamers a chance to hone their skills, and it's also the quickest and most convenient way for multiple players to hop in for a quick match. For those looking for a more substantial multiplayer experience, custom tournaments can be created, featuring all of the above options and the ability to set the number of rounds in the tourney. The tournament mode can be played by a single human, with the remainder rounded out by the CPU, though in that case, I'd just as soon opt for the robust Career mode.
The Career mode is definitely the focus of the single player game. Creating a career also involves creating an athlete, and the tools at players' disposal are exhaustive. The process begins by selecting a gender and a DNA sample, which prefills some default features. I've always been sucked in by the Create-A-Player features in games like the Tony Hawk series, but the exceptionally comprehensive customization offered in Top Spin eclipses anything I've seen to date. The size, shape, and color of virtually every aspect of the character can be heavily altered and tweaked, down the bridge of the nose. Yes, if it's been your unresolved dream to be an 8' tall tennis player, that's just a couple of button presses and thumbstick spins away. Name, nationality, and stats are determined before settling into the meat of the mode. These characters, along with the skills they earn throughout Career mode, can also be imported into the other portions of the game, even when pitted against other gamers online.
Career mode is fairly straightforward and action-oriented. The game plops the newly-created athlete in his or her home continent with a few thousand bucks and a tennis racket in hand, clawing at the bottom of the ranks. The goal, not surprisingly, is to become the number one ranked player in the world. That's accomplished by playing -- and winning, of course -- tennis tournaments across the globe. While jetsetting from continent to continent, the player can also earn skills along the way. Top Spin divvies out fourteen Career Stars that can be dedicated to serves, forehand swings, backhand swings, and volleys. Those stars are applied by tossing a stack of cash towards a coach and completing series of related challenges. To get the money you need to boost your stats, you can participate in tournaments, which is a greatly beneficial cycle. The more tournaments you win, the more money you earn for training, and the more you train, the better you perform in tournaments. Players can also become better funded by teaming up with any of the number of sponsors featured in the game, all of whom also offer mini-games like hitting targets or winning an exhibition match. Both types of mini-games wore out their welcome quickly, and I played them more out of a sense of obligation than whatever slight amount of enjoyment they may have presented. Sponsors aren't particularly interested in no-namers in the bush leagues, and for your mug to be plastered across televisions nationwide and to snag those five figure checks, you'll have to prove yourself on the court. A la Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball, your player can also hit the salon or shops around the world, but when you dig into your sports bag, those items -- at least in the case of racquets -- aren't purely cosmetic.
One of the big selling points of Top Spin is its online play. There's a System Link option, but the most notable aspect is its XBox Live support and the game's integration into Microsoft's fledgling XSN Sports network. There are three types of matches that can be played. 'Exhibition Match' is a carryover from the offline mode, and for players seeking out a quick set, that's the most convenient option. There are also tracked official matches, and both the exhibition and official matches have the option of using OptiMatch to home in on a game meeting a player's exacting specificiations. As is usually the case, though, the more specific a match you're looking for, the less likely it is that you'll find much of anything from which to choose. XSNSports.com, as its domain name so subtly suggests, is the hub for XSN, and players can communicate with one another, eye each other's stats, and establish password-protected tournaments. Other online options include a scoreboard and lists of friends and recent players.
There's definitely enough replay value that I'm not the least bit hesitant about recommending Top Spin as as purchase. I popped the game into my XBox immediately after work one afternoon and found myself playing for six and a half hours straight. I'm not really the type to opt for marathon gaming sessions, and it's exceedingly rare for me to play that long on a weekday. I played that first night until I wore my thumbs down to a nub and immediately went back to it the following evening. The two distinct genders in Top Spin will compel many gamers to tear through the Career mode twice, and I plan on experimenting with combinations of the virtually unlimited number of variables in Player Creation to gauge their effect on gameplay. I've noticed that some of my favorite XBox Live games have burned brightly and died out quickly. Midtown Madness 3 was teeming with players when I reviewed it in July, but now it's practically a barren wasteland. I did have some trouble consistently being able to find competitors for my custom-created female player, but where Top Spin's greatest online presence seems to lie is through the tournament modes that can be created through XSNSports.com. I found the site to be kind of cumbersome to navigate, but hopefully that'll be streamlined in the coming months.
I have two gripes with Top Spin, though its flaws are kind of like being around a charming, hopelessly beautiful girl with an annoying laugh -- kind of inconsequential overall, but just grating enough that I feel obligated to mention them anyway.
I have a decent sized XBox collection, but I'm fairly confident that I haven't played a game this generation with load times as hefty as Top Spin's. They seem almost interminable, and even if they're only twenty seconds each, that's a virtual eternity when perched on a couch, waiting impatiently to see something on the screen other than an extended pan around a court or a spinning tennis ball. The load screens are silent, aside from the sounds of the XBox's internal components chugging along, with no music or conversation via the XBox Live communicator to liven up the monotony. Whatever data the game copies to the hard drive apparently doesn't stay there long, either. Even attempts to replay the exact same match with the same players in the same venue requires wading through another lengthy loading screen. Despite the load times, there are still intermittently brief stutters in the game's ambiant sounds before some matches, though thankfully none of these hiccups intrude into the actual gameplay.
My other complaint is the lack of any sort of remotely robust training mode. Maybe I'm just spoiled by other XSN titles -- I thought NFL Fever 2004, for instance, did a great job acquainting me with the controls and various options. Top Spin does have a "Tennis School", though it's virtually useless, rattling off what happens with a button press but offering little else. Something more interactive and in-depth would have been greatly appreciated. There are also training exercises in the game's Career mode, though they aren't really any more useful. These mini-games build your athlete's stats and, at least in theory, help the player behind the controller become more adept. The glaring problem is that these exercises require accomplishing tasks that aren't at all clearly defined in terms of gameplay, and the only way I could manage to complete them was though trial and error. I went into the game with my familarity with tennis limited to having seen Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train and that goofy Enrique Iglasias video where he slobbers all over Anna Kournikova, and when I was asked to do a series of backhands or smashes, I was hoping to stumble upon a note in the manual or an introductory screen pointing out what the necessary button combinations were. No such luck. The goals are tolerable once I figured out what it was I needed to do, but having to fumble my way through those first few times was maddening. It's even more annoying since participating in these goals requires shelling out cash acquired from sponsorships and tournaments, and on the more difficult challenges, your athlete's bank account can dwindle quickly if there are any missteps. I personally picked up on the gameplay by experimenting throughout a series of exhibition matches. The learning curve isn't all that steep, but Top Spin does next to nothing to make those early sets as painless as possible.
One complaint I've seen noted about the online play is that although doubles matches are widely available over XBox Live, they can't be spread across four different consoles. If I wanted to play a doubles match against someone, I'd have to have a friend (or someone similarly unfortunate) sitting next to me, and the same goes for my opponent.
Again, these sorts of quibbles are exceedingly minor, and hopefully they'll be addressed in a future installment in the Top Spin series. I usually shy away from sports games, preferring to play rather than memorize a stack of rules, coordinate scores of players, and fumble with complicated controls. Top Spin has sucked me in like few games of recent memory have, and I can't recommend it enthusiastically enough.
Graphics:
Top Spin looks almost as great as it plays, supporting progressive scan for HD-capable displays, though there is no accompanying widescreen mode. By far the most eye-catching element is the smooth, lifelike character animation. Players dart and skid across the court, and however Power & Magic captured and duplicated those movements really raises the bar. There are a number of nice details lurking in the background to further flesh out that sense of realism, and both the players and the environments are richly detailed and nicely rendered. The only weak point is the crowd, differentiated only by a handful of shirt colors and prone to applauding in perfect synchronicity. That is, of course, a laughably minor detail and has no impact whatsoever on gameplay.
There are two camera perspectives available in the game. The default is "Zoom", anchored just a few feet behind a player's back. I initially preferred this view when serving, but for whatever reason, I found myself unable to return serves with any remote proficiency, switching back and forth to the more distant "Far" mode before settling on the latter entirely. The "Far" mode more closely approximates the screenshots I've seen of Virtua Tennis, and it's the one I'd imagine would be preferred by most players.
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is handled well, if inherently limited in scope, realistically rendering the sounds I'd expect to hear on the court. For starters, the game's background audio is tailored to particular settings. In Career mode, different continents on the world map feature different kinds of music, including a Blues Traveler-ish harmonica-driven rock number stateside, danceable synth-pop in Europe, a Latin flavor, and Eastern-inflected sitar. The title menu also unexpectedly features the Vines' "Get Free", which I've pretty much committed to memory as I've played. Moving away from music, the ambiance during sets is particularly striking. In the playground, there are passing cars and chirping birds, and on the complete other end of the spectrum, packed coliseums boast an impressive roar from the crowd, engulfing all four primary speakers and rattling my subwoofer. The center channel is reserved for menu sounds, the thump of the ball before a serve, and the like. Different sounds emerge from different speakers, creating an impressively immersive experience that easily bests what I'm used to hearing from sports events in stereo on television.
There's also no running commentary, which is extremely welcome after enduring a few nights of NFL Fever 2004. The most frequently heard voice work comes in the form of announced points and errors, and some of the sets in career mode are preceded and followed by an announcer providing a television-style voice-over. Like other recent XSN games, quiet little exclamations burst out from the background intermittently. The game is also peppered, of course, with grunts from the players.
Conclusion:
I've seen a lot of criticism, apparently not entirely undeserved, of Microsoft's sport outings, with reviewers and forum-addicted gamers noting that the company's relatively young franchises can't compare to the more mature offerings from EA and Sega. Don't let those sorts of comments taint your perception of Top Spin, though; this is one game that Microsoft nailed on its first try, and I hope this is just the first in a long, long series. Top Spin is unbelievably fun, and its variety of online and offline options should keep this game spinning in the consoles of many XBox owners for quite some time to come. Highly Recommended.
Gameplay:
The game's controls are simple and powerful, although it did take me close to an hour to discover how to best use them. The flat stroke is the most reliable shot but the least powerful, a solid starting point for players before moving onto slices, lobs, and topspins from there. The exact stroke and its direction are determined by the left thumbstick. The moves controlled by the triggers -- a drop shot and a devastating risk shot -- also require a bit of skill and quick timing, displaying a moving meter that the player has to hit dead-on in the center. If hit properly, there's a good chance that it'll immediately lead to a score, but if not, there's the strong possibility that the shot will miss and wind up costing a point. To increase the chances of those riskier maneuvers succeeding, there's a meter at the top of the screen that shows how "In the Zone" the player is, and a more amped-up athlete has a higher chance of pulling off tougher shots. Better performance and effective use of some of the tougher shots edge the meter up, and showboating after a successful shot for a crowd reaction can boost it further.
There are a variety of game modes, both online and off. Beginning with the single-console component, players can create customized exhibitions, able to determine the gender of the players, if the match is singles or doubles, the number of games per set, the number of sets per match, and the difficulty. Many of the best known tennis players in the world are at players' fingertips, each with different statistics that impact gameplay. The Exhibition mode is the recommended starting point for the uninitiated, giving new gamers a chance to hone their skills, and it's also the quickest and most convenient way for multiple players to hop in for a quick match. For those looking for a more substantial multiplayer experience, custom tournaments can be created, featuring all of the above options and the ability to set the number of rounds in the tourney. The tournament mode can be played by a single human, with the remainder rounded out by the CPU, though in that case, I'd just as soon opt for the robust Career mode.
The Career mode is definitely the focus of the single player game. Creating a career also involves creating an athlete, and the tools at players' disposal are exhaustive. The process begins by selecting a gender and a DNA sample, which prefills some default features. I've always been sucked in by the Create-A-Player features in games like the Tony Hawk series, but the exceptionally comprehensive customization offered in Top Spin eclipses anything I've seen to date. The size, shape, and color of virtually every aspect of the character can be heavily altered and tweaked, down the bridge of the nose. Yes, if it's been your unresolved dream to be an 8' tall tennis player, that's just a couple of button presses and thumbstick spins away. Name, nationality, and stats are determined before settling into the meat of the mode. These characters, along with the skills they earn throughout Career mode, can also be imported into the other portions of the game, even when pitted against other gamers online.
Career mode is fairly straightforward and action-oriented. The game plops the newly-created athlete in his or her home continent with a few thousand bucks and a tennis racket in hand, clawing at the bottom of the ranks. The goal, not surprisingly, is to become the number one ranked player in the world. That's accomplished by playing -- and winning, of course -- tennis tournaments across the globe. While jetsetting from continent to continent, the player can also earn skills along the way. Top Spin divvies out fourteen Career Stars that can be dedicated to serves, forehand swings, backhand swings, and volleys. Those stars are applied by tossing a stack of cash towards a coach and completing series of related challenges. To get the money you need to boost your stats, you can participate in tournaments, which is a greatly beneficial cycle. The more tournaments you win, the more money you earn for training, and the more you train, the better you perform in tournaments. Players can also become better funded by teaming up with any of the number of sponsors featured in the game, all of whom also offer mini-games like hitting targets or winning an exhibition match. Both types of mini-games wore out their welcome quickly, and I played them more out of a sense of obligation than whatever slight amount of enjoyment they may have presented. Sponsors aren't particularly interested in no-namers in the bush leagues, and for your mug to be plastered across televisions nationwide and to snag those five figure checks, you'll have to prove yourself on the court. A la Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball, your player can also hit the salon or shops around the world, but when you dig into your sports bag, those items -- at least in the case of racquets -- aren't purely cosmetic.
One of the big selling points of Top Spin is its online play. There's a System Link option, but the most notable aspect is its XBox Live support and the game's integration into Microsoft's fledgling XSN Sports network. There are three types of matches that can be played. 'Exhibition Match' is a carryover from the offline mode, and for players seeking out a quick set, that's the most convenient option. There are also tracked official matches, and both the exhibition and official matches have the option of using OptiMatch to home in on a game meeting a player's exacting specificiations. As is usually the case, though, the more specific a match you're looking for, the less likely it is that you'll find much of anything from which to choose. XSNSports.com, as its domain name so subtly suggests, is the hub for XSN, and players can communicate with one another, eye each other's stats, and establish password-protected tournaments. Other online options include a scoreboard and lists of friends and recent players.
There's definitely enough replay value that I'm not the least bit hesitant about recommending Top Spin as as purchase. I popped the game into my XBox immediately after work one afternoon and found myself playing for six and a half hours straight. I'm not really the type to opt for marathon gaming sessions, and it's exceedingly rare for me to play that long on a weekday. I played that first night until I wore my thumbs down to a nub and immediately went back to it the following evening. The two distinct genders in Top Spin will compel many gamers to tear through the Career mode twice, and I plan on experimenting with combinations of the virtually unlimited number of variables in Player Creation to gauge their effect on gameplay. I've noticed that some of my favorite XBox Live games have burned brightly and died out quickly. Midtown Madness 3 was teeming with players when I reviewed it in July, but now it's practically a barren wasteland. I did have some trouble consistently being able to find competitors for my custom-created female player, but where Top Spin's greatest online presence seems to lie is through the tournament modes that can be created through XSNSports.com. I found the site to be kind of cumbersome to navigate, but hopefully that'll be streamlined in the coming months.
I have two gripes with Top Spin, though its flaws are kind of like being around a charming, hopelessly beautiful girl with an annoying laugh -- kind of inconsequential overall, but just grating enough that I feel obligated to mention them anyway.
I have a decent sized XBox collection, but I'm fairly confident that I haven't played a game this generation with load times as hefty as Top Spin's. They seem almost interminable, and even if they're only twenty seconds each, that's a virtual eternity when perched on a couch, waiting impatiently to see something on the screen other than an extended pan around a court or a spinning tennis ball. The load screens are silent, aside from the sounds of the XBox's internal components chugging along, with no music or conversation via the XBox Live communicator to liven up the monotony. Whatever data the game copies to the hard drive apparently doesn't stay there long, either. Even attempts to replay the exact same match with the same players in the same venue requires wading through another lengthy loading screen. Despite the load times, there are still intermittently brief stutters in the game's ambiant sounds before some matches, though thankfully none of these hiccups intrude into the actual gameplay.
My other complaint is the lack of any sort of remotely robust training mode. Maybe I'm just spoiled by other XSN titles -- I thought NFL Fever 2004, for instance, did a great job acquainting me with the controls and various options. Top Spin does have a "Tennis School", though it's virtually useless, rattling off what happens with a button press but offering little else. Something more interactive and in-depth would have been greatly appreciated. There are also training exercises in the game's Career mode, though they aren't really any more useful. These mini-games build your athlete's stats and, at least in theory, help the player behind the controller become more adept. The glaring problem is that these exercises require accomplishing tasks that aren't at all clearly defined in terms of gameplay, and the only way I could manage to complete them was though trial and error. I went into the game with my familarity with tennis limited to having seen Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train and that goofy Enrique Iglasias video where he slobbers all over Anna Kournikova, and when I was asked to do a series of backhands or smashes, I was hoping to stumble upon a note in the manual or an introductory screen pointing out what the necessary button combinations were. No such luck. The goals are tolerable once I figured out what it was I needed to do, but having to fumble my way through those first few times was maddening. It's even more annoying since participating in these goals requires shelling out cash acquired from sponsorships and tournaments, and on the more difficult challenges, your athlete's bank account can dwindle quickly if there are any missteps. I personally picked up on the gameplay by experimenting throughout a series of exhibition matches. The learning curve isn't all that steep, but Top Spin does next to nothing to make those early sets as painless as possible.
One complaint I've seen noted about the online play is that although doubles matches are widely available over XBox Live, they can't be spread across four different consoles. If I wanted to play a doubles match against someone, I'd have to have a friend (or someone similarly unfortunate) sitting next to me, and the same goes for my opponent.
Again, these sorts of quibbles are exceedingly minor, and hopefully they'll be addressed in a future installment in the Top Spin series. I usually shy away from sports games, preferring to play rather than memorize a stack of rules, coordinate scores of players, and fumble with complicated controls. Top Spin has sucked me in like few games of recent memory have, and I can't recommend it enthusiastically enough.
Graphics:
Top Spin looks almost as great as it plays, supporting progressive scan for HD-capable displays, though there is no accompanying widescreen mode. By far the most eye-catching element is the smooth, lifelike character animation. Players dart and skid across the court, and however Power & Magic captured and duplicated those movements really raises the bar. There are a number of nice details lurking in the background to further flesh out that sense of realism, and both the players and the environments are richly detailed and nicely rendered. The only weak point is the crowd, differentiated only by a handful of shirt colors and prone to applauding in perfect synchronicity. That is, of course, a laughably minor detail and has no impact whatsoever on gameplay.
There are two camera perspectives available in the game. The default is "Zoom", anchored just a few feet behind a player's back. I initially preferred this view when serving, but for whatever reason, I found myself unable to return serves with any remote proficiency, switching back and forth to the more distant "Far" mode before settling on the latter entirely. The "Far" mode more closely approximates the screenshots I've seen of Virtua Tennis, and it's the one I'd imagine would be preferred by most players.
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is handled well, if inherently limited in scope, realistically rendering the sounds I'd expect to hear on the court. For starters, the game's background audio is tailored to particular settings. In Career mode, different continents on the world map feature different kinds of music, including a Blues Traveler-ish harmonica-driven rock number stateside, danceable synth-pop in Europe, a Latin flavor, and Eastern-inflected sitar. The title menu also unexpectedly features the Vines' "Get Free", which I've pretty much committed to memory as I've played. Moving away from music, the ambiance during sets is particularly striking. In the playground, there are passing cars and chirping birds, and on the complete other end of the spectrum, packed coliseums boast an impressive roar from the crowd, engulfing all four primary speakers and rattling my subwoofer. The center channel is reserved for menu sounds, the thump of the ball before a serve, and the like. Different sounds emerge from different speakers, creating an impressively immersive experience that easily bests what I'm used to hearing from sports events in stereo on television.
There's also no running commentary, which is extremely welcome after enduring a few nights of NFL Fever 2004. The most frequently heard voice work comes in the form of announced points and errors, and some of the sets in career mode are preceded and followed by an announcer providing a television-style voice-over. Like other recent XSN games, quiet little exclamations burst out from the background intermittently. The game is also peppered, of course, with grunts from the players.
Conclusion:
I've seen a lot of criticism, apparently not entirely undeserved, of Microsoft's sport outings, with reviewers and forum-addicted gamers noting that the company's relatively young franchises can't compare to the more mature offerings from EA and Sega. Don't let those sorts of comments taint your perception of Top Spin, though; this is one game that Microsoft nailed on its first try, and I hope this is just the first in a long, long series. Top Spin is unbelievably fun, and its variety of online and offline options should keep this game spinning in the consoles of many XBox owners for quite some time to come. Highly Recommended.