Nintendo Wii Gamers Top Spin 3 Review

Nintendo Wii Gamers Top Spin 3 Review
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Hold serve and your half way there

Tennis anyone?

The Best Parts (4 out of 5)

Look for this box!

The Wii remote and Nunchuk work pretty well, they’re very responsive and the motions required are pretty intuitive if you’ve played tennis, so this made it fun and engaging for me to go through the motions. The control scheme isn’t as pick-up-and-play easy as Wii Sports Tennis, but I think once you get use to the motions and the little nuances of the motions you have more control of the shots you can execute.

The character animations look good and are pretty smooth and clean looking, the character representations of the well known tennis players are some of the best representations I’ve seen for tennis professionals, even better and more accurate than the representations in the Xbox and Playstation versions.

The Parts That Need Improvement (4 out of 5)

Top Spin 3 for the Wii Game Console is a better gaming experience than the Playstation 2 version, and a little below that of the Playstation 3 and Xbox versions, and can certainly stand on its own as a unique experience from the three previous titles, but doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself from the rest, which was definitely a missed opportunity.

There’s no real sound track included with Top Spin 3 for the Wii Game Console, just a few electronic pieces and guitar rock tunes during menus.

The Graphical Content (4 out of 5)

Top Spin 3 for the Wii Game Console has better graphical presentation than the Playstation 2 version, with atmospheres and tennis environments that are reasonably detailed and have nice visual textures. Flushing Meadows and the dirt of Roland Garros look amazing once you unlock them, while the included tennis venues have the look of second-tier tennis venues.

The visual effects include skid marks on the courts that look nice, dust blowing up as the wind kicks it into the air, and nice character animations that are smooth and clear, and maybe the best character representations of professional tennis players produced, so far.

Sounds in the Game (4 out of 5)

The ambient sounds of a racket striking the ball, the ball bouncing on the court, and the grunts and yells the players make all sound clean and crisp to the ear, almost like I was listening to it on TV.

The voice acting is also well done, with voice actors that add nice emotional content to the game play and help to keep you in the moment as times.

Playability (3 out of 5)

The control scheme and motions have a steeper learning curve than Wii Sports Tennis and Sega Superstars Tennis, but they’re trying to produce a more realistic tennis motion experience, like New Play Mario Power Tennis, so a little more depth in the strokes and other elements involved in playing tennis is probably to be expected. Still new gamers to virtual tennis can still easily jump right in and learn to play and veteran gamers will find the tennis intuitive and entertaining enough to come back too.

Top Spin 3 on the Wii Game Console has no real Career mode as the Playstation and Xbox versions, but they did add a Road to Glory mode that allows you to play a similar experience. Unfortunately, there’s no character creation included with the Wii version of Top Spin 3 and no statistical progression as you play, which takes away from the desire to play this mode. You and up to 4 friends can play locally, but there’s no on line option, which for a game developed today, is hard to understand.

The Final Word (3 out of 5)

In the final analysis Top Spin 3 for the Wii Game Console is a competent virtual tennis experience that has more realistic game play than Wii Sports Tennis or Sega Superstars Tennis, but has a learning curve that can frustrate the occasional gamer. The visual and audible aspects are okay, but the depth of the modes certainly should have been better, since this is one of the core aspects of the playability, and this version lacks a little in the variety of modes.