Was Waiting a Long Time...For This...(sigh)
Post Via amazon in Wii Games ReviewTop Spin 3
As soon as I got my Wii last October, I was waiting for a good tennis game, since tennis and Wii seemed to be made for each other. Sega Superstars Tennis is just plain garbage, and then I found out the TopSpin3 was coming out for the Wii. The original date was the same day WiiFit was coming out, so they pushed the release of TopSpin3 back a month. I had heard great things about the Wii version of this game from people who had played advanced copies of it.
Finally, I picked it up the day it was released, having reserved a copy of it at a local store. Let's just say it was a different game than what I was expecting.
First, the players. As was mentioned in other reviews, there is NO Player Creator. Also, as far as oldies are concerned, there is NO Bjorn Borg or Monica Seles...Becker is the only blast from the past here (unless you count Henin). There are some made-up players, but here is a list of real players on this game:
MEN
Roger Federer
Tommy Haas
Gael Monfils
David Nabandian
Andy Roddick
Andrew Murray
James Blake
Mario Ancic
Tomas Berdych
Mark Philippoussis
WOMEN
Maria Sharapova
Svetlana Kuznetsova
Justine Henin
Nicole Vaidisova
Caroline Wozniacki
Amelie Mauresmo
Also, don't expect to find online gameplay, because it isn't there.
Gameplay itself wasn't bad, but there are a few things that make it goofy. First, you have to hold the WiiMote on the side. I don't know how that makes it feel more like a tennis racquet, but whatever. Because the controller is on its side, the B button is the key button that gets you into everything, and that takes a little getting used to. The stick on the Nunchuck both moves the player as well as controls the direction of the ball, so it's a little difficult running one direction and hitting to the other (for instance, running to the left and hitting to the right), but even that can get better with practice. Net Volleys are VERY difficult to execute with any consistency, so you are almost forced to stay at the baseline. Serving has a timing meter that you get to see AFTER you commit to your swing, so it takes a bit of feel to get serving down (so in other words the meter shows you WHETHER you hit a good serve, but it doesn't help you TO hit a good serve, because ou have already committed to the serve before the meter registers anything). One nice feature on the serve is that the Z button will automatically lollipop in a 2nd Serve for you, so you don't have to double-fault all the time until you get serving down.
There are various games to go through in a type of Career Mode. There are 11 such games, and it took me a while to figure out how to save in the middle of each of the 11 legs, but I have since learned that it can be done.
And that gets me to the manual. It is of very minimal help when learning this game. For instance, Mauresmo isn't even in the manual as one of the players.
The music has been mentioned as a plus. My favorite part of that is the fact that in a few of the screens, they play the disco song that Napoleon Dynamite danced to in the movie while he was helping Pedro win the class presidency. Now if they had made Napoleon Dynamite one of the players...that would have been pure genius.
All told, this is the best tennis game out for the Wii at the moment. I have had a lot of fun playing it over the past two days, but it almost seems too easy for me. I have never lost a set. Maybe it will get more challenging, but I doubt it. The more I play this, the more it seems like a game that is going to be going for half its original cost in a few months. I am glad to own it, but I hope TopSpin4 will be a vastly improved version of this game. Until then, this will have to be my tennis fix during the long Midwest winters!
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