Game - Top spin 4

After criticising quite severely the other tennis game I tried on ps3 (Virtua tennis 4), today's the turn for Top Spin 4.

This game is more demure graphics, but the animations are a lot better and more fluid than Virtua's.
Players have more varied animations in their victories, though one can notice a few repetitions, they are less so than Virtua's. Players have more personality, as well.

Let's start with the first screen 

Once you click the start button you get to this one offering access to game modes, the PS network, player zone (where you create your characters), the list of unlocked material (thus far, merely clothing and a few extra game types), and options 

Let's have a look at the game modes 

The exhibition mode is great to get a practice without having a huge impact on your career, because in the latter mode, you go on tournaments and when you lose it, you have to take the next one, whereas exhibition matches give you the handle of gameplay. 
You can chose between singles and doubles, and then you chose your players either from the roster or you can use one of your user-made. There are 3 levels of difficulty which you can set for each of the players, including your computerized partner (the hardest means that they'll play at their best and make fewer mistakes). 

King of court is a kind of super-match to the best of 10, 20 points, so it's a different kind of feel, as you have to beat a series of opponents at the best of your ability, in faster paced matches than a full match.

The academy is where you learn from basics to more expert gaming the mecanics, but can be a bit annoying at first while you try to figure what's requested. It's less silly than Virtua's minigames. Here's the look of that academy, you'll see at the time of taking the photo, I wasn't done 

This game does present the same issue of gender disparity in the roster (7 women and 18 men), even slightly worse in comparison to Virtua Tennis 4. However, all players are available right from the start ; you don't need to un-lock anyone and the same goes with the courts. You had to unlock 16 and had only 11 in Virtua, and here you have 39 courts! 
You can select them in exhibition mode, but in career, you must wait until you level up for your player to reach a high enough level to un-lock access. The full list is here.


The only downfall in comparison to Virtua is that Top spin allows only 4 user-made players

Here are my 2 players thus far 

Top spin 4 gave me a LOT of fun hours of matches, mostly in exhibition but also in career mode. I use my 2 players at un-even rates, and each has unique styles of play through the leveling system and choices I made in my path to stardom (there are numbers of fans and XP points depending on your match wins & losses), and different personality traits when they were created, thus they have different reactions to situations of frustration (because, yes, players who lose too much will smash their rackets, but not change, it gets automatically fixed and there are no penalties, nor for taking your time in serving). 

However, when you go online, your player will automatically serve, so don't play if you are going to be distracted or have to go somewhere. Your opponents can just win during your absence. 

For online 1VS1, you may have to wait a while to get an adversary, because the game is a bit old now and by the time I bought it and played online, I think fewer people are into it.

For 2VS2, you need, as I said earlier, a physical person with you, hooked and ready, and the same for your VS2. 

In the career mode, you automatically get normal tennis matches (must win at least 6-0 per set and all those rules) and number of sets depend on the tournament (win 2 or 3 sets in case of grand slam). 

In exhibition, you can choose how many sets and how many games per, and to have a tie-break, super tie-break, or none. 

So, Top spin is a LOT of fun, but it has one major caveat : it was released too fast, without proper beta testing and correcting one major flaw, which occurs at times. The players just get stuck like here

Or, and this isn't my video but I also got this problem, where a ball kinda gets lost and then, all players kinda run everywhere but it doesn't get fixed, not even in update. You just have to shut the pS3 down, and it doesn't auto-save to come back, you lose, even if you were on the last ball to win! And when that happens, it sucks! 

Lucky for me, it only happened in exhibition matches. But it takes away the overall score to a 6/10 instead of 8 (the other points are that the players all have crossed-eyes and the gender disparity). 

Such a shame it wasn't fully tested & fixed!