Tennis in your living room, for real!

Author's Rating:

Pros: Real-life like tennis experience. Create your own player option. 5 levels of difficulty.

Cons: No Wimbledon, not many online users.

The Bottom Line: 
Go get it used or new because it offers excellent playability and very real!

Author's Review
When I read on the box that this game got 9 out of 10, I was skeptical. As a weekend warrior and one who travels participating in tennis tournaments, I never believed that any video game could be "miniaturized" onto the big screen. I was very wrong.

Top spin 3 has almost everything that a tennis fan needs to enjoy tennis on TV. It begins with all choices of serves (speed, spin, and flat) to choices of tennis strokes (flat, slice, topspin, and lob). It offers singles and double matches.

The controls to execute these shots were confusing at first but with practice, you begin to exchange your tennis racquet with the controller! Top Spin 3 allows you to choose professional players like Roger Federer, Justine Henin, Sharapova, Bjorn Borg, Monica Seles, Mario Ancic, and many more. Although I wish they had Steffi and  Agassi. You use these "players" in exhibition or tournament modes. There are 5 levels of difficulty: Very easy, easy, normal, hard, and very hard.

One great feature that I really like is that users can create their own player. They can customize body features and playing style (includes service, forehand, and backhand motion). This created player can then be used in a career mode in which you gain experience points (XP). You then modify your attributes using these points, For example, you would dedicate more XP to  your forehand feature if you want your created player to be more consistent in his forehand. Users use this created player in the career mode that includes challenger, junior, pro, and legend levels. Once you beat the legend level, your status becomes "Retired" but you can still "load" this player if you play exhibition or tournament

You will also use this created player in a World Tour mode where you play against other users on XBOX Live. Unfortunately, there are not many users out there.

This game is also very realistic. For example, if the XP for the attribute "stamina" is low, this player cannot sustain long rallies. So, when you create a player and do not dedicate more XP to the "stamina" attribute, you would find your player getting exhausted after a few games. Consequently, this lack of stamina affect the effectiveness of your movement and your ability to execute your shots. The players' motion (service and grounstrokes) are also unbelievably close to real life tennis games. In fact, if you choose Andy Roddick as your player, you will see that all his strokes (yes, including his service!) are evident in this character. The cool thing is when you create your own player, you can choose Andy Roddick's service motion! I could have sworn that when my created player played the French Open, he looked like Gustavo Kuerten with his service motion and top spin forehand and backhand.

I'm not sure why this game does not include Wimbledon as one of the venues. Other than that, all the famous tournaments are included; French Open, US Open, and Australian Open, plus many more.

Overall, this game is almost a must for tennis fans who want realistic tennis in their living room. Superb!