Top Spin 4

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $32.00
Sale Price: $13.78
Today's Bonus: 57% Off

*ANOTHER UPDATE AS OF: 14/4/11 : INFO ABOUT A NEW PATCH RELEASED AT THE BOTTOM*

(Disclaimer: There are people who like short reviews and dislike long reviews, and vice versa. So I'll just say something simple, and if you want to keep reading, read pass the line.)

After playing this for 2 days, I realized it was really quite a good game! The online play isn't laggy for the most part, and when it is, it's still kind of easy to keep up! It's fun and addictive, and it makes me feel like I'm really playing a Tennis match! And the AI is great, they don't just stand there and watch the ball go by (though, I do play on Hard). So this is actually worth the $60 to buy, I'm glad I bought it and will be playing for a while!

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This Tennis experience really has given me something new. After playing Virtua Tennis 2009 ( I know there really is no comparison, because they are 2 very different games ),and playing this, I feel so much better playing this. With the inability to hit Forced/Unforced errors on VT, it really made me upset. But on Top Spin 4, if you make it to a ball at a wrong time, then try to lob it as well, you'll end up getting some kind of error! I never played Top Spin 3, so I can't say what is or isn't better about this one, but I did play the demo. I didn't like the demo anymore after playing this... The controls were to light and it didn't feel like I was controlling my character. But on Top Spin 4, it's completely different.

The controls are nice, however, they are, at many times, clunky. I like how if you're running right and the ball is coming left, and you have to stop with the momentum and try to catch it, it's really nice. But even though they are nice, it kind of still feels like I'm not controlling my character. I really don't even know, because sometimes if I just push the left analog stick in the direction of the ball, it seems like the character will run to the ball and get in position all by their selves. And it really makes it seem like all you, as a player, are doing within this game is aiming a ball.

My problem is this, when I accept the fact that the character automatically runs to the ball, that's when he/she stops doing that. With serves, I just try to start aiming, but the ball goes right past you. It's not even Ace-quality, your character will simply just not move or get into position. It's really frustrating to see a ball go right passed you, and all you're doing is standing there.

That's my main annoyance with the game, but other than that it's great. There are 25 playable characters,

MEN PROS

Roger Federer

Rafael Nadal

Novak Djokovic

Andy Murray

Andy Roddick

Nikolay Davydenko

Stanislas Wawrinka

Gilles Simon

James Blake

Bernard Tomic

WOMEN PROS

Serena Williams

Caroline Wozniacki

Ana Ivanovic

Vera Zvonareva

Jelena Jankovic

Dinara Safina

Eugenie Bouchard

LEGENDS:

Boris Becker

Björn Borg

Patrick Rafter

Ivan Lendl

Pete Sampras

Andre Agassi

Jim Courier

Michael Chang

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The players look like themselves for the most part. What ruins them is their expression. It seems 2k Sports just put random expressions on the character for no reason, they smile and laugh, but do they really do that in a real Tennis match? At least not as much as they do in the game! So it kind of messes the characters up, in terms of looks. I'm not too familiar with how all of their real-life counterparts play, but the few that I do know seem to be replicated well enough.

This game has a nice array of modes:

OFFLINE:

Career Mode Create a player and get to work. You start in the Professional circuit, not amateur, but you still won't be playing the top ranked seeds anytime soon. The best part about this is

that you can, at any time, change the gameplay format. (You can choose whether you want to play tie breaker matches in tournaments, 3 games/3 set matches, or Real Tennis:

Best 2 out of 3/ 3 out of 5. And you can change it at anytime through Options while you're in this mode.

Exhibition Choose your settings, player, and court, and start playing.

King of the Court Pick 4 players, 1 for you, and 3 computers (or 3 other players in your house) and each round, the first player to get 3 points wins. The winner moves on to the next player,

and the loser loses. Whoever wins 5 matches(3 points) wins the game

Top Spin Academy Learn how to play Top Spin 4, with instructions on how to hit certain types of balls, etc.

ONLINE:

Player Match Online version of Exhibition. Pick your character, create a match/join a match.

World Tour The online equivalent of the offline Career. Create a character and play against other people as you rise in the ranks.

2k Open Like World Tour, only you play with a Pro instead of a created character. The ranks go like this. You, the character, can be ranked #1/#2/#3 if a lot of people earn a lot of

points playing that character. So their ranks are totaled up with all the points people have gained by playing with them. And you also have a separate rank for the player (you)

themselves. If I have a total of 500 2k Points, and the next guy has 400, it means I'm the highest. You get points by playing matches. So you have 2 ranks, your Characters rank,

and your rank.

The customization is quite unique, it's pretty in-depth, even though you can't make someone look EXACTLY how you want, you can make them look nice. There's a wide array of clothing/accessories to choose from. Imagine my shock when I (in real life) just bought Adidas Barricade 6 tennis shoes, and then found them on this game! They have real clothes from Adidas, Nike, Fila, and more! And you can unlock more and more by participating in tournaments sponsored by that brand. (Not sure if this works for World Tour, but it does in Career).

You can hire coaches which give you special bonuses (Said coach might give you +4 Power/Forehand skills if you complete their objective / other might give you more XPs for hitting passing baseline strokes). XPs is like EXP, you get it after matches. And with it, you can upgrade your character through 3 fields: Serve and Volley, Offensive Baseline Play, and Defensive Baseline Play. Every time you upgrade one of the styles, the XPs cost to upgrade either style goes up. And also, your characters have levels. 20 being the max, all pros start from this level, and all created characters start at Lv.1

This is a really nice game, and though the movement is clunky n' chunky, it still has a nice and smooth gameplay, with no lag (screen or connection) as far as I've come across.

PROS:

*Smooth, Easy-to-learn Game play

*Rather nice Character Customization

*Online play isn't laggy at all (when it is laggy, the screen just pauses for a few seconds, and then starts back. So if it is laggy, you still have a chance at hitting the ball back)

*Pretty environments, and a great selection of Tennis courts. (I like how they have even the minor tournament courts, even one that's located near me!

*That there aren't many cons, and the few that are there aren't game-changing.

*Overall it's worth buying, and it's really fun and engaging

CONS:

*Clunky movements even though realistic, it's still annoying when a ball comes right passed you and your character doesn't respond to any button.

*Can't play Doubles matches online. (You can, but it's only 2 controllers from your house, 2 controllers from their house. You can't play with a partner that's located somewhere else, only with

a partner that's sitting right next to you!)

That's pretty much it.

I enjoy this game greatly and am glad I bought it. I hope you enjoy it as well!

*EDIT*

I also forgot to add, this is one of the CONS to me, but, it's the fact that being a Tennis game, the Tennis Players have so many different styles of play, yet during character creation, you can only choose 2 stances (2 or 3, I forgot). But being such a few amount of different styles, all the created characters will ultimately end up looking exactly the same when they hit. I thought this was a very bad thing for 2k to do, I would have loved a bigger variety in different character poses and postures. But it failed big time on that part.

*PATCH UPDATE*

They released a patch that...well, the description wasn't that easy to understand; something about they tweaked some of the Player Skills like Power Serves or, different skills I believe. But the main part of the update was that they incorporated the D-Pad (Directional pad:left side of controller) to be able to use to move with, instead of just the analog stick..

Also, something unannounced, but I seemed to notice, is that the controls don't seem AS clunky anymore. I was still unable to hit a few easy shots due to this, but it seemed to happen less frequently after the patch!

Click Here to Read More Reviews >>

Here's the thing. You're going along with your created character playing in career mode, wondering why they made it so ridiculously easy. Seriously, you basically just have to suffer your way through a bunch of insanely easy matches, waiting to unlock the big tournaments so you can go and play in those. So, you enter a major tournament--let's say the Australian open. And again, the first few rounds are ridiculously easy. Rafael Nadal? He's got nothing on you. Federer? Feh. But then, you get to the semi-finals. And all of a sudden, whoever you're playing channels their inner Clark Kent. You hit a winner into the corner? Nope, they've managed to run about 40 feet in half a second, and somehow hit it cross-court at full power, with all their momentum carrying them away from the ball, and no energy left. You manage to get to the ball, time everything right and... your player hits the ball well past the baseline for really no reason whatsoever.

Basically, this game could be a good tennis sim, and instead it seems like it was programmed by someone who never bothered to play it. The difficulty goes from four year-old to Zeus with nothing in between, and it's just not fun. You're either destroying your opponent, feeling bored, or you're destroying your controller, feeling furious. A good game should be challenging, but beatable. This game is neither. I quite literally go from shutting out my opponent in the quarter-finals (sometimes without losing a single point) to getting shut out in the semis.

Also, a secondary point given how terrible the difficulty settings are, but the career mode has some ridiculous design flaws. Rather than develop individual skills (e.g. forehand, backhand, serve) as in most comparable games, you're forced to develop styles (offensive baseline, defensive baseline, or serve & volley), which require specific point allocations. I really like the style idea as an alternative if you don't want to deal with every single point, or for people who know less about the sport. But seriously, give me the option. Furthermore, the game gives you 20 opportunities to upgrade your created player, and that's it. You can't keep going until you have a super-player, as in most games, which I don't necessarily mind. But you can't even keep going until you're more than say the fifth or sixth best player (attributes-wise) in the game. So you very quickly reach a point where there's no incentive to keep playing--your player can't get any better and the computer is impossible to beat.

I almost never review products on Amazon, but I'm taking the time to review this one. Seriously, save your 30 bucks, or at least wait until they fix the difficulty settings. They defeat the purpose of the game.

Buy Top Spin 4 Now

First thing first, this game is not designed for move and if you play it only using move controllers you will be greatly disappointed. Lucky I am nowhere close to a casual player so I enjoyed playing this game almost like how I enjoy playing real tennis. I liked top spin 3 and this new installment just blew that one away with excellent graphics and gameplay controls. I am a 4.5 tennis player and spend averagely 6-10 hours every week playing outdoor tennis. Top spin 4 is the closest thing to the real tennis. The online world tour mode is a blast and you feel you are really playing the grand slam matches. Give it some time before you really master the game play and you will be happy about what you see. I noticed some sound glitches during the game (it happened a few times when the sound become broken and after I reset the game the problem fixed itself), but this does not hold back the fact that this is by far the most enjoyable tennis game I have played.

Read Best Reviews of Top Spin 4 Here

Though I don't consider myself a gamer, I do consider myself a tennis aficionado and was pleasantly surprised that Top Spin 4 was released. I have Top Spin 3 and this is probably the game I play(ed) the most on my PS3. I grew up on the original Nintendo and Atari games so too many controls freak me out and though it took a minute to get used to the buttons and timing in TS3, I feel the controls are mainly the same (a few noticeable differences noted below) for TS4 and didn't have any trouble at all getting right into it using the dual shock controller. This review will compare TS4 to TS3 when possible.

After playing a bit more than 30 hours of Normal mode in TS4, I find that it equates to the Easy mode in TS3. I have only played Normal in TS4 and mainly in Career mode though Exhibition mode is great and with a diverse set of characters much deeper than TS3.

Pros and Changes:

Environment: The graphics are amazing and I feel improved upon the already goodness that TS3 possessed. The characters have great movement and when the racket hits the ball, the sound is extremely realistic.

More Immediate Character Options: When first creating a character in career mode, there are now more immediate clothing options available. TS4 no longer uses money to purchase items so new characters have more clothing, shoe, and racket choices up front. The longer you play the more clothing options and brands you receive. Still not quite sure why you would want to dress your character in a jacket and long pants for a match though.

Leveling: In TS4, the goal is to get your character to level 20 by earning experience playing matches and doing special events. Your character will have several different rankings while you play: top spin ranking (real-life ratings), season rankings (ranking during the calendar year), and fan base ranking (how many fans you have). Each month, instead of only being able to play one tournament, as in TS3, you can now do two types of activities each month: one tournament and one special event. These events include corporate challenges (to gain more clothing), exhibition matches (experience and fans), and various other choices to gain experience and fans. For some reason, you still gain experience after level 20 not sure why. When leveling your character, you have 3 areas to spend your experience on: serve and volley, offense, and/or defense. These 3 will then upgrade the corresponding categories (forehand, backhand, serve, stamina, etc) you actually incremented yourself in TS3. I really like the new TS4 approach because it simplifies the leveling process. One tip if you level up while playing a tournament, wait until after the tournament is done versus right after your match. I've found that if you level up during the tournament, the next match is a bit more challenging.

Coaching: When playing characters in career mode, you are now able to hire bronze, silver, and gold coaches. I like this new type of feature because the coach will give goals that you have to meet during a match (tournament or exhibition). Once the goals are complete, bonuses will be applied to your character's skills. It definitely helps you get used to certain shots through repetition: do 20 drop shots or do 30 top spin serves or do 15 inside out winners. The coaches that are available are dependent upon the style of play you want your character to have.

Play: The game play is very realistic and I like this the most. The play alone deserves 5 out of 5 stars. It allows you to actually play tennis like a chess match by outwitting the opponent the way tennis is actually played (moving your opponent off the court, lobbing when they come to net, serving to their backhand, etc.). TS4 has also added timing for your shot. When you hit the ball, you will see 1 of 4 different messages: too late, too soon, good, or perfect. I thought this would be distracting, but actually felt it helpful to get the timing right for the power shot, control shot, or normal shot. Executing the drop shot (R2 and square button) and the lob (triangle button) are different than in TS3. In TS4, I haven't quite figured out the full serving functionality though I can serve top spin, flat, back spin, or a hard serve, but I haven't figured out how to serve a hard top spin, a hard flat, or a hard back spin as I could in TS3.

Cons:

Long load times: the long load times are sometimes frustrating, especially if all you want to do is keep playing matches.

Freeze: Probably the worst con I've only played about 30 hours and already the game has frozen on me twice. Both times I've had to turn the PS3 off to get it to restart. When I get it back on, my character in career mode has kept the level they had right before the crash, but all matches that I've played have been lost so I had to start all over from the last save. I'm taking 1/2 a star off for this because if I'm paying $60 for a game, it should not crash.

Rankings: When playing in career mode, I've noticed the Top Spin rankings from the other players don't always add up. I noticed this after playing in the Dublin Open (TS' version of Wimbledon). I was #5, Roger was #1, and Rafa was #2. I lost to Roger in the semi-finals (see below) and Roger beat Rafa in the finals. After the month was over and the new rankings came out, Roger fell 2 spots to #3 (even though he won) and Rafa went up to #1 (even though he lost). I'm not quite sure how this happened and though it's just a small part, I have to take 1/2 star because it's such a simple thing that should be fixed. This has happened with different characters that I've played so I know it wasn't a fluke and sort of removes the realism.

Grand slam hardness: I realize that in real life, Grand Slams are harder and that the players play with more dedication. So, in TS4 (as in TS3) I think it's fair that the Grand Slams do become harder, BUT this is a bit ridiculous. All is going well until the semifinals and then the game goes from Normal play to Impossible play. You know you're going to have a hard time when the opponent starts serving harder then it gets almost impossible to beat the player. No matter how good your shot is, the opponent will get to it and most likely hit a winner even when his stamina has been drained. I wouldn't mind if the game goes up to Hard from Normal, but going to Impossible (and unrealistic) makes for a frustrating first few outings in the Grand Slams. I have to take 1/2 star off for this to because of the severity of the jump in hardness. Especially since I can beat these players easily in the other tournaments.

In conclusion, I really enjoy this new version and love the versatility of the shots and the creation of your own character, including the face morphology, options, and new menus. I give the game play a 5 out of 5, but overall 3.5 out of 5 stars due to a few cons.

Want Top Spin 4 Discount?

As a descendant of the "Best tennis simulation game", Top Spin 4 is well made and it won't disappoint those who enjoyed the series. Here however I'll focus on sharing my experience on playing the game with PS Move, as there're already sufficient reviews about other aspects of the game, and the PS Move part is really starting pissing me off.

Playing this game with a Move controller and navigator is completely new so I went to the training sessions to get started. It felt interesting at first I swung my arm and I did hit the ball! And I began thinking that I can play it like in the really world. But soon I found out it was so NOT realistic especially when you serve the ball.

I don't know if other players have got the same frustrating problems as I do in the serve training session, but it was really miserable for me. Start with the "normal serve", well if you do this as you do in the real world, you may never pass this session you raise your arm and pong! you performed a power serve! And it kept telling you to do a normal serve! It took me a while to figure out that you can just shake your hands to pass this session. I passed the "power serve" session easily and ahhhh! the "top spin serve". Can you imagine spending more than an hour swinging the controller in almost every way you can think of and you still cannot perform a correct top spin serve? Yeah, that's what I did. What exactly is "prepare backward and downward, and swing forward and upward"?! One serious problem is that if you follow your moves as you do in the really world, the controller can easily be blocked by your own body or reach out of sight of the camera! And once it fails to keep track of your move controller, your moves afterwards will be automatically ignored, and you'll never perform a right move! While sometimes your move will be recognized as some kind of signal and it will do the serve before you do! Plus it is really frustrating when your trainer shouts out like "Really?" "Come on!" each time you fail. Somehow I got lucky and passed the serve training session with some awkward and ridiculous postures and I felt so exhausted it's only part of the "basic" training!

It really feels not so good that you have to act in a way that the machine have you to do instead of the way you want it, the natural way. Returning balls basically works with simple swings with the move controller, but it hardly works accurately. It feels like the machine is trying to recognize some kind of patterns from your moves and translate them into signals to make the move rather than tracking your real moves. Maybe that's because the game has a mature and well made system using buttons to control the moves and they intended to take advantage of it when they added the PS Move feature to the game, but unfortunately they screwed it up.

To sum up, basically you can play it with PS Move. It's kind of interesting, but you can't expect much of it. It will be really amazing if someone can master the game with PS Move. Don't take it seriously, take it for fun. If you want to play it in a hardcore way, go with the old fashioned controller. As for other parts of the game, as I said, you like the series and you'll like it.