I Gamefly'd Top Spin 2, and managed to tear myself away from Oblivion (and MLB '06) for three hours to get some impressions of the game.
Tennis is a unique sport and presents an excellent, pre-built game mechanic. It's a one-on-one confrontation, it has a built in challenge in the world ranking system, and there are different tournament levels. So tennis in the real word represents a very playable mechanic for a video game.
I had relatively high hopes for Top Spin 2, and while I won't say those hopes were totally dashed, there were some very funky design decisions (aka "mistakes") that make this game much less engaging that it should be.
First off, what's good.
--HD graphics look excellent, and the animation is very smooth. There are times when players seem to make movement mistakes, but that's an A.I. issue, not animation.
--training mini-games are very clever and there are quite a few of them. Increasing your player's ratings is fun instead of being tedious.
--the in-match sim options are excellent. You can sim a game at a time, if you'd like, jumping in and out whenever you want to. Very nicely done.
--career mode is deep. You won't be ranked #1 in the world in five hours.
--it's well designed in the sense of making you want to play just another 5-10 minutes. Then you want to play just a little more.
That all sounds positive, and it is a good foundation, but the game has some baffling issues that should have been caught way upstream.
Presentation:
--there are two camera angles. TWO. It's just impossible to fathom why they didn't let the cameras be zoomed in or out as desired, or even set a custom camera. That's a significant design error.
--tennis is the perfect game to have no on-screen overlays. All you need is the score. Instead, Top Spin 2 has a "confidence" overlay in the form of a meter, and it also has big honking "CPU" and P1" designations above players before each serve. That's just dumb. I think I can remember which player I am when there are only two players on the court. It's totally pointless, and what it does is remind you constantly that you're just playing a video game.
--another way the immersion is broken-there's a jump-cut after the first serve if it's missed. How hard would it have been to have the player take a ball out of his pocket and bounce it once or twice? Again, it reminds you that what you're seeing is not real.
Controls:
--there are control issues with your player. Sometimes he doesn't seem to repond to the analog stick. This generally seems to happen when either you couldn't possible reach the ball or you've hit a winner, but it happens before the point is actually over. So I know I've hit a winner a split-second before I can actually see it on-screen, and that drives me crazy. Again, that's just a design mistake.
--because of the control issues, as well as the camera, it's difficult to play from the net, even though attacking at the net gives you a tremendous advantage in real tennis. In this game, though, the camera doesn't move with you, so when your player is close to the net, the camera is still behind the baseline. You'll miss shots just because of the camera's distance, which is inexcusable
--tennis is a game that begs for an analog control scheme. Here's an idea: right analog stick back to backswing, right analog stick forward to hit the ball. Complicated, huh? And different types of spin could be generated by pre-loading the type of swing as you're running to the ball (which is what happens in real tennis--you're deciding what kind of shot to hit based on all kinds of factors).
Tennis Strategy:
--the half-volley is the most difficult shot to hit in tennis. There's a reason that the service line is called "no man's land"--most balls coming at you will be low and at your feet, and you're not far enough forward to be able to use the court's geometry to your advantage. So you don't want to be there. In Top Spin 2, however, half volleys are no harder to hit than anything else. That's a huge conceptual error, because bad tactics in a real life sport should not be rewarded in a simulation of that sport. And the CPU, at least in the lower ranks of players, loves to play at mid-court. You wouldn't even find a decent high school player who would do that in real life.
--there's a "safe" button that you can use where every shot you hit will go in. They won't be particularly difficult for the opponent to return, but you won't miss. That's bad enough for baseline shots, but it works on the serve as well, so you'll never miss a second serve if you don't want to. Bad, bad, idea. Real tennis doesn't work like that. Nothing in a sports game should be without risk. Ever.
--here's the third gamekiller. Hitting deep groundstrokes is critical to being successful in tennis, because it puts you in control of the geometry of the court--your opponent has fewer angles to hit to, and it makes him much more likely to hit a short shot, which will open up more angles for your next shot. Tennis is a terrific geometry exercise, actually, but not in this game. Ground strokes seem to go deep automatically--there's nothing special you need to do. The risk of hitting long is almost nonexistant, because rarely will you hit a shot long. Or in the net. You'll rarely miss at all, even if you're not using the "safe shot" button. And the CPU rarely misses, either. Even if you're playing the #175 ranked scrub, he'll be hitting winners in a 4-1 ratio to errors (or higher).
So sometimes the game is fun to play, but its correspondence to real tennis is just not good. And if you've watched or played tennis and understand the sport, its fidelity to reality is going to be very disappointing.
Top Spin 2 is a game with some nice features and excellent graphics. It's even got a $39.95 price point. Unfortunately, there are core issues with the gameplay that make this game a good weekend rental but a poor purchase.