The fourth installment in the Top Spin tennis game series is Top Spin 4. Users can choose from a roster of 25 real-world players, including active professionals and past glories, or design their players to play on real-world tournament courts and other imaginary ones.
Shots are first divided into controlled and power shots, conducted by tapping or charging the relevant button (if the charge is not complete, the resulting image will be a mix of the two types). Ball speed and trajectory are affected by shot type, player traits, player position, shot characteristics, remaining stamina, and timing. Timing expresses a player’s ability to push the shot button appropriately and goes from Too Late to Perfect. Once the opponent has struck the ball, one’s player movement begins when the gamer makes a direction and is determined by the CPU from then on.
Flat, slice, topspin, lob, and drop shots are basic baseline shot types; volley shots can be routine, controlled, power, and drop volleys; and can be flat slice and topspin, with a concentration on precision (standard serve) or power (advanced serve).
Offline game modes include Exhibition, Career, King of the Court, and Top Spin Academy, a tutorial mode in which a coach explains the foundations of the game, and then the user practices them.
In Exhibition, you can play a customizable single or doubles game against the computer or other human opponents, with up to four human players in a doubles game, by selecting the location, duration of the game and sets, and score systems (including percentage tennis).
A career begins with the formation of a player, who can be either male or female. You can customize your body form and complexion, facial appearance, and wardrobe with branded racquets and clothing. The created player begins their career in low-level tournaments and, in an RPG-like fashion, collects experience points to climb in level and qualities to attain Majors and fame. Bonus unique talents and extra statistic increases can be obtained by selecting from over 30 coaches and following their requests (for example, playing 30 baseline winners or winning 20 points at the net). People of any style can be produced based on leveling selections, but their complexion talents cannot match those of in-game real-world people. Players that have been created can be used in any customized match and the online World Tour.
King of the Court is a party tennis match with few-points long matches: the loser leaves the court, and another player takes their place: the winner is the player who wins the last game.
The online game modes are player Match, World Tour, and 2K Open.
Like an offline demonstration, a player match consists of a single game. Playing doubles involves four players, with each couple physically playing together.
World Tour is a competition that mimics the actual ATP pro circuit and allows only invented players to compete. There is a weekly and an all-time ranking, male and female tournaments are separate, and changing one’s player results in losing past statistics.
Matches at the 2K Open last three sets of three games each (the final set is a super tie-break, won at ten points); only pro players can be utilized. This mode has its all-time leaderboard.
Forehand, backhand, serve, volley, power, stamina, speed, and reflexes are the parameters that determine player performance. All players have specific abilities such as Diesel Serve (serve improves as the game progresses), Reach Swings Expert (hard-to-reach balls are returned better than other players), Poisoned Slice, No Mercy, and others.
Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Roddick, Davydenko, Simon, Blake, Wawrinka, Tomic, Agassi, Sampras, Borg, Becker, Courier, Rafter, Chang, and Lendl are the male professional players. Serena Williams, Wozniacki, Ivanovic, Safina, Jankovic, Zvonareva, and Bouchard are among the female professionals.
The game is PlayStation Move compatible and supports stereoscopic 3D on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The controls of the Wii version have been changed to emphasize the motion-sensing capabilities of the Wii Remote.
