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Top Spin 4

Baddar

Baddar

Registered User
Anyone got/getting this? It was released Friday, and the demo's on the PSN Store/XBOX Marketplace.

I recently posted my initial thoughts on the game on another site, so I'll post the same thing here. I have it on PS3 if anyone wants a game at some point. :)

It looks nice. Very nice. The character models have definitely been done in a lot of detail, and the play styles/mannerisms look accurate too.

It's also a LOT easier to pick up and play than Top Spin 3, but it's just as hard to master. Hitting winners with perfectly timed regular shots can be achieved on this game, which seemed impossible on TS3, a game which only saw winners come about from your end if you used their "risk" shot, which has (I think) been taken out altogether.

You'll notice that your player doesn't switch sides on screen. I don't know if there's an option to do so, or if you could play with your player at the bottom of the screen at all times on TS3, but I think it's great, anyway. It always used to feel awkward playing at the top, and constantly having to adjust your angles on the analog was a pain.

If you're new to Top Spin, seeing the roster of only 25 players could be a bad thing, but really, if you're not spending most of your time in the AMAZING career mode, then you suck. Career mode puts you at 80th the rankings, and you start from the very bottom; without a coach, mediocre stats and playing against the fake players (which I love doing, by the way - as playing just the real roster would get boring fast) in small tournaments as you work your way up. There's an option to play a "sparring" match with a player close to your stat value, who also plays in certain ways, so that you're able to fine-tune any part of your game that neeeds, well, fine-tuning.

Everything you do with your created character across the modes earns you XP, which progresses your player through each stage, and of course, your stats. The creator seems VERY deep though, one of the deepest I've seen, and you could probably create something resembling yourself if enough time was spent on it. Basically, there's a host of preset faces/skin tones to use, then you can delve into the "Expert Creator" part, where there's about 30 white spots on the face, each one you can enter into and modify your player's looks. There's also an array of gear for your player to wear from all the big brands right from the get-go, so I've Nike'd up my player already.

In some career modes, the difficulty you play with from the start can't be changed - that isn't the case here. It ranges from Very Easy to Very Hard, with Easy, Normal and Hard being the in-between options. I started mine on Very Hard, but was quickly swept aside by one of the game gens 6-0, 6-0 in my first match, so I've turned it down to Hard until I get the hang of it. That's another thing - you can either choose to play your matches in the real tennis format (as I'm doing) or the watered down "Top Spin" version.

A minor gripe during play is the umpire calls from the side - they really should've had someone pronouncing the guys you're facing to add to the realism. Instead, we hear "Game Player 1" and "Game Player 2" depending on who wins. Not a huge issue, but yeah, they could've easily put in some preset call names in.

I've only just finished my 2nd full game, in my 2nd tournament, which I came back from a set and 4-2 down to eventually win 3-6, 6-4, 6-0. Winning 10 games on the bounce was fun. If that pattern continues, I'll quickly revert back to Very Hard. Before I switched off, I earned the ability to hire my first coach - each coach comes with either a Bronze, Silver or Gold rating, with the earlier coaches being bronze of course. These give you set challenges during matches, which I believe earns you XP and the games unlockables, which look vast to say the least.

So yeah, I'm having a blast so far. Tennis games haven't really held my interest in years gone by, but with this one having strong focus on character progression, it could well get me hooked. Oh, and if you're one for Tropies/Achievements, the set looks very good.

I am yet to try out the World Tour mode online, simply because I need to build my stats first, as you can guarantee there's people with super characters playing online just to top the leaderboards already.
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Ali

Ali

It is happening again
I have the demo and have been playing it quite a bit. I may get it at some point, but I'm busy with other games at the moment.
Can you tell me about online play? Can you take your character and pit him/her against the world? Can you have an epic 5 set match online?
 
Baddar

Baddar

Registered User
Yeah, World Tour is all about taking your character online and pitting him against other people's creations. As I said above, I haven't tried that out yet, mainly because my guy still has most of his ratings in the lower 30's, and there's gonna be players online who are near to being maxxed out, so there'd be no point.

You could play 5 sets online on TS3, so I don't see why not this time... :)
 
Ali

Ali

It is happening again
Baddar said:
Yeah, World Tour is all about taking your character online and pitting him against other people's creations. As I said above, I haven't tried that out yet, mainly because my guy still has most of his ratings in the lower 30's, and there's gonna be players online who are near to being maxxed out, so there'd be no point.

You could play 5 sets online on TS3, so I don't see why not this time... :)
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Cheers for that. I'm looking forward to some 'Mahut - Isner' esq epic battles online..... though that would probably take literally a day to finish :shocking:
 
Baddar

Baddar

Registered User
Yeah - some of the rallies I've had already have been excellent. I think the most strokes in one point has been 42 up to now. I would imagine it could surpass that against mates/online players.
 
B

bigberry

Registered User
I got Topspin 4 on saturday (had Topspin 3 aswell) .

The careers improved a lot , I like how when you complete coach objectives you get a skill eg 'powerful winners 'semi volley master' etc

Its a lot easier to serve volley this year which is good. My mate went Sampras and he was a PITA volleying everything.

You can switch sides btw its in the camera options.
 
Ali

Ali

It is happening again
If you go online, does everyone just pick Fed and Nadal? (ie the Madrid and Barca of the tennis world)
 
B

bigberry

Registered User
In the last game word was everyone 'cheesed' created player with max speed and power and stood midway in court and played a powerslice .

I played online once and ran into one of these, never played online again.

I havent been online in this one yet. There are enough good players Fed and Rafa pickers shouldnt be too problematic.
 
Ali

Ali

It is happening again
bigberry said:
In the last game word was everyone 'cheesed' created player with max speed and power and stood midway in court and played a powerslice .

I played online once and ran into one of these, never played online again.

I havent been online in this one yet. There are enough good players Fed and Rafa pickers shouldnt be too problematic.
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I have the demo of this game. After playing it a while I eventuall found out that you could hold down the shot buttons. I'm guessing when I hold down square (or x on the xbox I imagine), this is what you mean? They seem pretty effective, I even thought to myself that it might be a noob tactic online.
 
Ali

Ali

It is happening again
Finally got this game today. Played a bit of career mode and a few quick matches online. I decided to go with Djokovic as my player. The games I played were against Nadal (shock), Nadal again (shock) and then Roddick.
Now, either these players we really bad, I was really good, or they were all trying to go for that trophy you get for not winning any games, because I won 3-0, 3-0 in every match!
 
Baddar

Baddar

Registered User
Well, it annoyed me that I got too good for the difficulty levels on the game - in the last Masters tourney, I beat Roddick and then Federer 6-0, 6-1 (both by the same score) on Very Hard to win the title, my first Masters win.

...but I'm hearing that if you win a Grand Slam, you unlock the "Expert" difficulty, which will help a whole lot. I just hope there isn't too many more tournies I need to play before I get to play on that, because it's getting quite boring winning by huge margins. Kinda sucks that you can't change the match format once a career has been started.
 
Ali

Ali

It is happening again
Baddar said:
Well, it annoyed me that I got too good for the difficulty levels on the game - in the last Masters tourney, I beat Roddick and then Federer 6-0, 6-1 (both by the same score) on Very Hard to win the title, my first Masters win.

...but I'm hearing that if you win a Grand Slam, you unlock the "Expert" difficulty, which will help a whole lot. I just hope there isn't too many more tournies I need to play before I get to play on that, because it's getting quite boring winning by huge margins. Kinda sucks that you can't change the match format once a career has been started.
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The Grand Slam is Aussie Open, French Open, US Open and Wimbledon isn't it? Or whatever the equivalents are in this game.

I'm playing on hard difficulty at the moment. My character is at level 13. I might switch to very hard difficulty, the next time I play. So, in career mode, what match format are you doing? Full matches each time? I just have it on "normal", which seems to be a super tie break more often than not.
 
Baddar

Baddar

Registered User
Yeah, the only Slam that isn't licensed is Wimbledon - trust those guys to get pissy about appearing in a video game. But the "Dublin Championships" serves (¬_¬) as its replacement.

I play on full matches. I changed it to that when I first started career. I have the 2k points trophy now though, so if I could change it back to normal, I probably would to be honest.
 
Ali

Ali

It is happening again
I shifted the difficulty up to Very Hard and it's making a difference so far. I'm winning the matches that I should win, and losing the ones that I should lose. In the BNP (rather unfortunate acronym there) tourney, I went up against Roddick and he absolutely ANNIHILATED me on his serve.

I'm level 16 now. The problem is that I don't really have any big strengths, I'm too well-rounded. I'm thinking I want to improve my stamina and my FH, be a bit more orientated towards base defence.
 
Ali

Ali

It is happening again
Ok, I'm at level 20 now, but I'm nowhere near as good as the likes of Murray, Djokovic etc.... where have I gone wrong? I have a gold level coach, I've completed all of his tasks. I even counted up all my attributes, came to 540 total. Even bloody Blake has more than that!

I'm struggling to beat the top players on very hard. That's the problem with the "normal" match format. In Masters tournaments, it's one set of 3 games. So you don't get a chance to get some sort of foot-hold in the game, if you lose a service game, you're pretty much buggered!
 
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