On court
Do not do what I did! Do not skip the tutorial, unless you want your arse handed to you on a plate by even against the most cack-handed of opponents. The learning curve has been seriously stepped up a notch.The most noticeable change to the gameplay from previous games in the series is that your player’s positioning on the court for returning the ball needs to be far more precise than before. If you move one way across the court at speed and the ball happens to be returned to the side that you’re moving away from, you’ll more often than not miss it just like you would in a game of tennis because your momentum has taken you in the wrong direction.
If you’re new to the series you may expect that, after all that’s what would happen if you were playing for real, but in Top Spin 2 the margin for missing a shot was much less. You used to be able to gamble and predict where a ball would land and if you were wrong you could still often make it to the ball. Now, however, that gamble is even more of a risk, because if you predict incorrectly you'll miss most of the time and end up yards away from where you needed to be. In Top Spin 3 you need far better timing and accuracy on your runs and the positioning of your player needs to be spot-on.
Timing on the swing has also been fine-tuned and you can no longer get away with pressing the button down way before the ball reaches you. Instead, you need to press it and release it at exactly the right time in order to make contact. This has been tweaked to such an extent that any fans of the previous games will initially find it awkward, like I did, to adjust to the new style. I spent the first half an hour or so swinging at thin air.
Click for larger image
Click for larger imageThese aren’t criticisms of Top Spin 3, just changes that are worth pointing out to fans of the franchise who may have been expecting a similar gameplay experience to Top Spin 2. Once you do get used to the timing here– and you will do - you’ll see that this fine-tuning steps the whole realism of the game up a notch and makes each game extremely challenging and rewarding at the same time. Top Spin 3 is a serious simulation of the game and the learning curve is far steeper than before, but the satisfaction of mastering them is more rewarding than previous iterations.
