Top Spin 2 review

Gamestyle had an idea when writing this review - we'd publish a paragraph, and then make you wait a day for the next few lines, feeding you the whole text piecemeal over a whole week. Even though you'd already read the introduction, if you wanted to re-read it we'd still make you sit there, twiddling your thumbs, for at least an hour first. Now, were not suggesting the loading times are around the 60-minute mark on Top Spin 2, but theyre bad enough to make Gamestyle scream on a number of occasions. On Career mode, where you'll be taking part in 20-30 second training mini-games, you'll spend far longer waiting for menus to load and the training to appear than you will playing it. Its easily the worst-optimised 360 game we've seen in terms of load times.Which isn't the nicest way to start a review, but it's what hits you first and never lets up unless you're in the midst of a tournament where each match happily appears instantly without even a whisper of the disk drive. There's certainly nothing happening with the hard drive here, a concern many had when Microsoft announced the two different 360 packages. However, with that out in the open, we're happy to report that the rest of the experience is a mostly positive one, with some stand-out features unique to Top Spin 2.The first is the accessibility - subtly integrated so it's not at the expense of a difficulty curve if you want it. Essentially, the A button acts as a 'safe' shot which never goes out and is roughly aimable to where the left thumb-stick is pushed. This means your Granny can pick up Top Spin 2 and, providing she can move the player, will be able to take part without any issues. Thankfully, the developers know that we don't all play against ageing pensioners every day so those wanting more of a challenge can make use of the following extra controls: holding A makes the shot more powerful, and the same applies to the use of B, X and Y. These all offer different kinds of shots - slice, top spin and lob, and to balance out their extra power, a mis-timed hit or a too-forceful one will push the ball out of play.Players are then rewarded with a series of increasingly potent 'special' moves applied with the left trigger, which acts as a 'shift' key and the available options are governed by the ability and attitude of the on-screen character, with a base-line teasing lob being Gamestyle's particular favourite. Further controls include a right-trigger power shot which takes practice to pull off consistently and some useful serve modifiers that use the same principles. The game starts you off with the ability to 'play along' but encourages use of the more advanced functions - it's a welcome gesture and one that evidently works out best in the long-term.The aforementioned Career mode is where most players will spend the majority off their off-line time with Top Spin 2: starting out as a nobody seeded 200 in the world, you must take part in training games, tournaments and special events - one per game fortnight - for five years. Succeeding in the different mode gives you RPG-style points which can be spent improving your skill levels in various areas, plus money received from tournaments is best re-invested in training, but there's a comprehensive tennis shop (clothes and gear) plus a nice PDA-style management screen with new coaches vying for your attention and new messages popping up between events.You'll need to run the five year career before even venturing online, however, as there's ome seriously addicted Gamertags on Live at the moment - even the lower ranks have worked hard on their career points so unless you have similarly lowly friends to battle with don't even think about connecting up for a few days. Doubles are playable too, although we're severely disappointed that you all need to have valid Gold Live memberships to play - two players on the same 360 can't share the one Live account. This is a major issue with those wanting to play online like they did with Ghost Recon, or Perfect Dark, sharing the main Gold account, but this may have been a Microsoft-enforced system, out of the hands of 2K Games.The visuals are lovely, though, and although they're not the most fluid the frame rate is acceptable throughout given the realtime shadows, cloud effects and three-dimensional crowd. It's the best looking tennis game you can buy at the moment, even though there's a few graphical niggles (ball-boys that don't run anywhere near the ball) the clever cloth physics are impressive and the create-a-character offers an insane amount of customisation. The sound is fine too, although the music is weak and there's always a slight pause when the ball goes out as the game loads the relevant speech sample for the score.However, to add an additional angle to the affair, Gamestyle is writing this review on the day Sega announced Virtua Tennis 3 for Xbox 360 and PS3, with visuals even at this stage far outstripping those of Top Spin's. Naturally, we're aware that it's not all about the graphics but when 2K Games appear to have pushed tennis games about as far as they'll go, with real-life courts, decent online modes and fully licensed players, what else can you do but bring better graphics? Top Spin 2 is a great game, with some nice ideas, but the loading times are a killer and the online doubles seems rather miserly...