Customer Reviews

Top Spin 2

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have installed it on Vista home Premium without any issues. Graphics are good (not half-life2 like, but what do you expect for $17?), game play is really good. Much more detailed shots and advanced game play than Virtua tennis or similar games. The biggest problem so far for me is incredibly long load times. It takes sometimes more than a minute for the game to go from one level to the next. I don't know if this is an issue just for me, so i would appreciate if people let us know if this is a known issue.
Other than that, so far it's been good. No wide screen is another culprit, but the game does not look bad in 4:3 format either.
Gamepad is a must for playing this game, forget about the mouse and keyboard.

After a lot of work, I finally realized that the controller was not working properly. I bought an XBox 360 controller and the game worked. In the career mode, As opposed to Top Spin that allows you to do or play in any tournament at any time, this like Virtua Tennis severely limits your choices, train, one tournament, or special event. The problem is that much of the time you may have in reality, due to lack of cash, or too low a ranking, NO choice and have to pass the whole month. It cost you to train, but not to play in tournement. Odd deal there. One odd quirk in the game play is that if you hit the safe mode it can't go out. This is just plain silly. On the other hand if you at an angle with top spin (which in reality would help it stay in) it can go out of bounds. The caveat here is that when you hit a safe shot the good players will usually make you eat it. The "risk shots" feel gimmicky and not intuitive. If you don't use them, the points can last a LONG time. Since this is a re-review it won't let me re-star. I would give 3 stars for fun and 2 for overall and 0 for Aspyr's pitiful support.

Good graphics, nice game play. It does get choppy at times, usually just after a return of serve, and more so in the bigger events. This can be disconcerting, and at worse, nauseating. Patch, please. One major guffaw: when playing in Grand Slams it is common for the #1 and #2 seeds to be on the SAME half of the draw. As a #2 seed I ended up playing Federer, a #1, in the quarterfinals of the French. As a tennis fan, this is an INEXCUSABLE mistake! #1's play #2's in the final of an event when the seedings hold, no exceptions. IMO this is a huge error which detracts from the authenticity of the game and should be patched. In addition, the stadiums have a handful of fans in the early rounds and not many more for the finals, even in the Grand Slams. This really gets the juices....not....flowing.

It would be nice if the game kept more detailed career statistics and a record of wins vs losses against other pros. And I'm at a loss for what to do with all my winnings. There are only so many shirts, shorts and shoes you can buy before it gets tedious and boring. How 'bout the chance to buy a trip to the Riviera with Maria Sharapova? That would keep me playing.

Customizable strokes other than the serve would be cool. Having the umpire refer to me by name, any name, rather than, "player #1" would also be nice. I mean, I am a top ten player for God's sake. Load times for events is rather slow.

Still, the game progresses nicely and is fun to play. It is worth $17. I do wish EA would come out with a tennis game, though. Dream on...

Granted, I didn't pay a lot for this game, but out of numerous games I bought lately, this is the worst one. The menu system is aggravating as all get out. Instead of just hitting enter to navigate the menus, you use the arrows and the "s" and "d" keys...but to make it as inconsistent as possible, at certain times in the game you do have to hit the enter key. Want to hit the escape key to back out of menus. Dream on. It does nothing.

And game play? Imagine a real game of tennis between you and Venus Williams. Now make a game out of you getting slaughtered by Venus Williams...call it Top Spin 2, and you are all set to go to market.

I also bought it to play two player over a LAN. I can't say that it doesn't work, but I haven't got it to work yet.

But at least it has party games, right? But they will only work with two game controllers attached to your PC. Don't have two controllers and you can't even start them to see what they look like.

Still it isn't a horrible game and my kids are playing it as I write this. And I think taking the time to learn it better may improve my opinion of it. But there is nothing whatsoever intuitive about controlling your player.

I think playing another person over a LAN would be funner because both of you would be closer to the same skill level. I wonder if I will be able to get that to work?

Totally different game, but at the same time I bought this, I purchased Virtual Pool 3. It was about the same price and it is miles above Top Spin 2 in game play and I got it to work over a LAN in a reasonable amount of time...though it is a bit tricky until you can figure it out.

I bought this game because I wanted a fun tennis pc game to play. After my first computer was unable to run it, I upgraded my specs and it worked better. The catch is, you can play it with a low end video card except you can't enter career mode. Career mode is the most fun and addicting part of this game. You practice everything from serves to backhands to volleys, and on and on. One hangup though that I thought was weird; in career mode, you can only do as much as your money purse allows you. For instance, each practice session costs money, money that you make by signing contracts with adidas, winning tournaments, and playing well. If you fail to win a tournament or fail to do well in other catagories you'll not have enough money to move to the next level. Oh well, there are probably cheats to avoid this, but I prefer to play the game as is-no cheats.

Game play is exceptional-graphics are outstanding. I still think I don't have a system that does this game justice! If you're looking for a fun PC tennis game at a good price, buy TS2. Just make sure you got a 512 or more video card (they recommend 1024MB.)

i suppose that this game is alright...there are a pretty large variety of shots available which makes the game alot more realistic but alot of these shots are really difficult to pull off in the game. this leaves you playing basic shots most of the time and this then makes it really tricky to win matches even on the easiest level. the career mode in the game seems like it would be awesome fun except that you struggle so hard to earn enough money to pay for practice sessions, and you need practice sessions to improve your player...and without a good player you struggle to earn much money...this vicious circle causes you to have to skip years upon years of tennis, simulating the few matches you are actually allowed to compete in in hopes of earning some money...be prepared to spend AGES simulating and not much time playing matches. but with quite alot of practice i'm sure you will get pretty good at this game and will be able to pull off all the shots in your arsenal(this will take ALOT of practice) and the game will probably be pretty good fun.

This is the BEST tennis simulation to date for the PC! The player action animations are superb, and the AI isn't so retarded. There is a somewhat steep learning curve, but once you master the controls, this is a great tennis game. The "risk shots" are named that for a reason, they are usually way too risky to bother with, but the "advanced" shots really add nice depth to this game (which sets it apart from the way too easy Virtua Tennis 3, e.g.) -- unfortunately you don't get them until a later career season, though. The character creation is incredible, having a LOT of configurable traits and such. The only reason I take a star off this game is because of the very steep system requirements that do not match what they recommend; do not even bother with this game if you do not have a PCI-E system and decent video card! Also, this game is ported from the Xbox360, so a duo or quad core is recommended! Finally, let's hope they bother bringing Top Spin 3 to the PC soon -- I can't believe it will be on that darn Wii and we get dissed. lol

The great thing about this game are the options available. Player creation, coaches, outfits are all very good. But, I have to admit like the others have said, the game takes a long time to load. First, you have to load to get to the menu. That takes a while. Then, you have to load career. That takes longer. Then, you you have to load the tournament....which also takes a long time. Aah, finally...that is what you wanted to hear me say, isn't it? No....it is still not over yet. You now have to load the match!

I have a very fast PC with a damn good graphics accelerator. Still, it takes such a long time to load.

There are graphic glitches as well. Sometimes, everything goes in slow motion or the screen freezes. It happens occasionally. And from what I know about tennis, ball boys are supposed to pick up the ball when it hits the net, which they don't. They just run leaving the ball where it is. It looks silly when they do that. One other reviewer mentioned that having the Number 1 and Number 2 player in the same draw is an inexcusable error. Boy, was that an understatement? I guess he was being nice. Almost all the top players are put in one draw and the rest are put in the other. This is a mockery of tennis.

Other major goof ups: The whole attitude stuff after each point is silly and extremely irritating to say the least. Watch some professional tennis matches and tell me which player does those stupid attitude things. This is not a popularity contest. This is tennis. No player I remember ever does the things they show in this game, unless they are big time jerks.

There are no replays, which is not realistic. And as far as I can remember, I have never seen anyone playing tennis with pants in grand slam events. It looks pathetic. This is the 21st century. Not early 1900s. The entire rival player idea is pathetic. The player's rival loses in the first round of every tournament, yet keeps rising up in the rankings rapidly. That is plainly impossible. And the stupid e-mails the rivals send make these players look like a bunch of 12-year-olds getting at each other. There was no need for a rival scenario in the game. It just makes the game look ridiculously stupid. And in the real world, a player's major rival is almost always from a different country. Federer-Nadal, Edberg-Becker, Graf-Seles...so on. Sampras-Agassi was one major exception.

But, the bottom line, is it fun to play? It is if you can ignore the comments from your rival. Less than $10 for this game is a reasonable price, which is what is charged here. But, the errors should make you think twice about buying this game for a higher price. Tennis is definitely better, however, on many levels. Tennis Masters Series by Microids could have easily beaten this game as being the best out there. But what was lacking there were a lot options available in Top Spin.

I have no idea how Top Spin 3 fares in comparison. But, I can tell you that the makers of that game decided to isolate the PC gamers. But, I cannot blame 2K for that entirely. This trend has been going on for a while. EA, 2K, and several gaming organizations are slowly doing away with the manufacture of PC games. That means the gaming users need to adapt and get the consoles. In other words, unfortunately, what medium we choose to entertain ourselves is governed by powerful organizations, and this is no different in the gaming industry; so, we need to change.

This game does almost everything right, but it has also some issues that would make a 5-star rating unjustified:
1. Top Spin 2 has horrific FPS issues on the PC (even on high-end systems).
2. You can't save/open replay matches, and - unfortunately - it doesn't even replay points. Instead of showing you rallies and special moments, it displays your player with controllable emotions (which I find boring).
3. The game is a little too challenging on beginners at the start of the career, as well as a little too easy as you get to the very end (world rank 2 or 1). The latter is the consequence of the somewhat predictable A.I.
Also, you will find only 0-1 players online at a given point, which is not the game's fault but does disappoint a little.

i've been playing this game a lot, and really enjoying it. the AI is challenging and the graphics are good (i'm playing at 1024 resolution on a geforce 7600 gt with 2 1/2 megs of ram. main issue holding me back from giving this a five star rating would be the choppiness of the graphics at times. once in a while it will interfere with the gameplay but not enough to make it less of a fun game. if aspyr were to delight us with a patch to heal the stuttering issue that would be grand. also, the ball boys come out when you hit the net on your side, but they miss the ball attempting to pick it up. a little ball boy patch would increase the realism factor. all in all, an inexpensive, very fun game. i'd say for the price it's a buy. just be careful if you have an older system. it could run slow in places. have fun.