Lacks serious depth and lasting appeal. Save your money.

User Rating: 6.4 | Top Spin 2 X360
By Mope01 | Review Date:
If you were a fan of the previous games, you'll probably like this game - for a few days. It's definitely a rental game. Career mode lacks depth and really doesn't bring anything new to the table. Train - Tournament - Train - Tournament, rinse, repeat. Sponsors come and go, and by only a few hours into career mode I was ranked #12th in the world with marginal improvements in stats. The highest level tournaments (Masters - Wimbledon, US Open, etc) are challenging at best. Trick shots are implemented badly with a difficult to learn timing system for each.

Gameplay - Not bad. Fun at first, but loses its appeal fast. After about 10 matches I was bored with the game play and found it extremely repetitive. The AI is very predictable most times and you can really play through the game without learning the trick shots at all. Furthermore, there are ball placements off serves that guarantee a miss by the computer to make it even easier. As mentioned above Career mode leaves a lot to be desired, and there is no real incentive to play the other modes at all. The training modes are boring and can be frustrating, but at the higher stages of career mode almost no time to train between tournaments, special events and the like. Upgrading rackets and gear seem to have no effect on any of your stats and only effect the look of your character. Playing on the far side of the court is really bothersome. Simulation seems to always favour the CPU. Overall - 6/10

Graphics - Sub par for Xbox 360. The cut scenes and crowd look pretty good, but other than that - it really doesn't look any different than PS2 or Xbox could pull out. Animations often lead to characters being forced a certain way, and conflict with timing and movement quite easily. The ball boy has one animation and if the ball travels more than a foot from the net the runner won't even go near it, just running half-way across the screen and disappearing into nothing, leaving the ball on the court momentarily.
Overall - 6/10

Sound - Not much to say here. Not bad, but nothing special. Multiple languages keep it semi-amusing, basic crowd and player noises are there. However, the menu's get extremely annoying with the same three or so tunes playing in the background. Overall - 7/10

Value - Again, it lacks lasting appeal. The multiplayer isn't bad and Xbox live is nothing to bolster about. Career mode doesn't offer many rewards worth while and gets repetitive and boring quickly. Overall - 6/10

Closing comments: Rent this game if you must play it, as it will probably only appeal to the hardcore tennis fans. Another disappointing sports game for the already disappointing xbox 360 sports lineup.

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