Top Spin 4 (PS3)

The game is quite good for a tennis game. I’ve been looking for a decent tennis game for a while now. I think it’s harder than Virtua Tennis and it’s got a relatively good roster of players. The gameplay and graphics are nice – if you’re in search for a tennis game, I think this is the one.As for the delivery etc, it was fast and I’ve had no problems with the disc so far. Good service from Amazon.

I bought this game because it supports the Move controller. Tennis is an ideal game to use the Move with. However the reality is that Move controller support in this game feels like a poorly implemented afterthought. Let’s start with the controller related problems:-1. With 2 Moves connected, the game repeatedly asks you to calibrate one or more of the controllers, when moving between menus. This is intensely annoying.2. For some bizarre reason, in 2 player mode, it’s not possible to select two different user-created players.3. Most frustrating of all is that in 2 player mode, one of the players is at the top of the screen. This means you’re playing facing the on-screen player. Imagine how difficult that is when you’re swinging the controller in the opposite direction to the player’s movement. Any other 2 player tennis game has both players side by side. With this game, the player at the top has a huge disadvantage.4. The direction of shot is not controlled by the direction you swing the Move controller. You have to use the joystick on the nav controller to aim your shot. I’m sorry, but this is poor beyond belief. It’s possible to accurately track the direction of the Move, and direct shots with it. I know this because the tennis game in Sports Champions 2 does it. Lazy lazy programming.5. Often the game will not even recognise one of the controllers, and you have to restart the entire game.The menu system is very clunky, unintuitive, long load times. Annoying.A huge amount of effort has been spent in this game implementing the player customisation. There are quite sophisticated facilities for shaping faces, skin tone, hair, eye/nose shape and tons more, plus an extensive wardrobe of kits. Now unless I’m a 10 year old schoolgirl, I don’t care about any of this!!! I’d much prefer the developers to spend their time creating a good tennis simulator.Having played a previous version of Top Spin, the 2 player gameplay wasn’t that bad (although still not ideal) with the standard controller. I think that Move support in this game has been a complete failure. The game is designed to be played with the standard dual shock controller.So in summary, this game has not lived up to my expectations and is not that playable with the Move controller. It’s ok as a single player game with Move, but still not ideal. If you want a fun 2 player tennis game that works great with the Move controller, buy Sports Champions 2.