TOP SPIN 2

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Indie Built

Publisher : 2K Sports And Aspyr

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Sports Game Tennis

Release Date : March 16 , 2007

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows XP / Windows Vista

CPU : Intel Pentium 4 Processor / AMD Athlon64 3200+

Memory (RAM) : 1 GB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card with Memory 128 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 6600 Series
ATI : Radeon X800 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 4.5 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Top Spin 2 includes 24 playable professional tennis players including today's superstars, and retired. Male Players are Andy Roddick, Roger Federer, Carlos Moya, Tommy Haas, James Blake, Lleyton Hewitt, Guillermo Coria, Tim Henman, Max Mirnyi, Alex Kuznetsov, Brendan Evans. Female Players are Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova, Ai Sugiyama, Lindsay Davenport, Anastasia Myskina, Elena Dementieva, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Amelie Mauresmo, Alicia Molik, Angela Haynes, Jamee Jackson, Corina Morariu. You've got four basic swings, including the aptly named safe swing, which will never go out of bounds, though the other three shot types require a bit more finesse to keep inside the lines. The slice shot flies low and fast and is great for crossing up your opponent; the topspin shot flies straight and bounces high but moves fast and can slip right past opponents who aren't on their toes; and the lob shot, which should be used sparingly, can be very potent against aggressive opponents apt to ride the net. While the four basic shot types can be used at any time, eight additional swings require some portion of your momentum meter. Momentum is gained and lost naturally as you score points and are scored on and can be used for either risk shots, which take up big chunks of your momentum, or advanced shots, which eat up a more modest amount of momentum. The advanced shots are high-powered versions of your standard swings. Risk shots are even more powerful, but as the name suggests, they're rather risky, too. Holding down the assigned modifier button before you start a swing will bring up a rising power meter, which you need to stop right at the top. If your timing is off, you'll botch the shot and likely give your opponent the upper hand. If you nail it, the ball moves hard and fast and can be difficult to return. As potent as they can be, though, risk shots are usually worth taking only during your first serve, when you have a free pass to hit the net. Otherwise, the stakes are too high, and it's prohibitively difficult to keep an eye on the meter and your opponent while also keeping your player in motion in the middle of the match.

Once your player is created and dolled up in some appropriately fresh gear from major tennis apparel companies like Adidas, Nike, Wilson, and Lacoste, you'll start your career at the bottom of the barrel with a rank of 200 and a low-level sponsorship. Your goals over the course of your career are to build up your player's skills, rise in the ranks, and rake in an obscene amount of coin. The game progresses a week at a time, and each week has room for one training event, one tournament event, and one special event. Training is handled much the same as in the original Top Spin, and the Virtua Tennis games before that, turning the tennis court into the stage for a series of skill-building minigames. Sometimes your task is as simple as hitting specific spots on the court a number of times, but more often than not, you'll be hitting balls into rows of giant dominoes, bowling balls, gigantic tennis balls, and towering walls made out of translucent bricks. The variety of training games you'll encounter over the course of your career has increased since the first Top Spin, and it's a change that helps make the career mode here much more compelling--while training has been a little tedious in the past, the variety and the novelty of the minigames here makes training something to look forward to. Training is handled much the same as in the original Top Spin, and the Virtua Tennis games before that, turning the tennis court into the stage for a series of skill-building minigames. Sometimes your task is as simple as hitting specific spots on the court a number of times, but more often than not, you'll be hitting balls into rows of giant dominoes, bowling balls, gigantic tennis balls, and towering walls made out of translucent bricks. The variety of training games you'll encounter over the course of your career has increased since the first Top Spin, and it's a change that helps make the career mode here much more compelling--while training has been a little tedious in the past, the variety and the novelty of the minigames here makes training something to look forward to. Winning or even placing well in a tournament will increase your rank, which will in turn open up bigger and better tournaments to you and will also garner you invites to special events. The career mode goes on for years and years, and if you chose to play every last match yourself, it could take that long to finish it. Taking a cue from the lengthy career/dynasty/franchise modes found in nearly any other serious professional-sport game, Top Spin 2 will regularly let you simulate your matches, and it does it on a surprisingly granular level. Both the exhibition and tournament modes allow for multiplayer action, though Top Spin 2 also features some multiplayer-only modes. The party games are somewhat similar to the training minigames in that they put a wild spin on conventional tennis. Time bomb sees you trying to score points to slow down your own countdown clock; wall breaker challenges you to knock down your opponent's wall of boxes while protecting your own; and splash court covers portions of the court in paint whenever a point is scored.

Additionally, Top Spin 2 includes online support for up to four players, though the match options are pretty bland and include only the most basic match types. Also, you can play online ranked matches only with a custom tennis pro, which means you'll have to spend a lot of time in the career mode if you intend to compete seriously online. We did experience some strange texture dropout issues. Player portraits would disappear, player clothing would appear as black, and in the strangest occurrence, entire player models would lack any texture at all, making them look as if they just fell out of an iPod ad. The most egregious problem with the presentation also happens to be one of the most basic. Your only option is to switch to the zoom camera, which is lower and closer to the player. It can take some getting used to, but it's definitely preferable to playing on the back side of the court. But it definitely has its flaws, the majority of which are so head-shakingly clear-cut it's hard to understand how they made it into a product that is otherwise pretty well thought out. If you haven't cared for tennis games in the past, Top Spin 2 won't change your mind, but if you enjoy the genre, you'll be hard-pressed to find much better on the PC. While the core content itself is still plenty good, this port of an Xbox 360 game is weighed down by stability and performance issues.

GAME REVIEW :-

7.5/10

Top Spin 2 Trailer :-