I feel like I’ve put more time into Top Spin than any other gaming franchise, and whilst I was over the moon to see a new one announced earlier this year, I was equally shocked as the response to tennis games has always been that there’s just not big enough of an audience there to make them profitable.
With 2K seemingly finding a winning formula that’s working across all of its titles, I was really eager to see what a Top Spin in 2024 would look like, and it definitely is a ‘2K’ game from top to bottom for better and for worse.
Starting off with the presentation, I don’t think there’s ever been a Top Spin game that has looked and moved this well. There’s over 50 courts that all have a bunch of detail, and majority of the players have clearly been re-created with a lot of love and care.
It’s worth mentioning though that even though the roster is on the smaller side, some of the players such as Roger Federer and Serena Williams look almost one to one to their real-life counterpart, and have clearly been mo-capped with their smallest mannerisms coming across to the game, but other players such as my personal favourite, Maria Sharapova, look almost nothing like their real-life counterpart which is a little jarring.
Whilst the music in the game is fantastic, I did find it a little odd that there was no commentary which makes for a quiet game during the bulk of it. It’s especially odd as John McEnroe lends his voice to the training session, and he’s a full-time commentator these days.
When it comes to the core gameplay, nobody has done it better than the Top Spin franchise which has successfully found a balance of simulation and arcade tennis gameplay, and this will feel extremely familiar to anyone that has picked up a game before. Your shots accuracy is determined by a meter that you need to time perfectly, whilst the power is determined by how early you get to a ball before holding down.
It still works extremely well, and when you move onto the harder difficulty levels, you get a good sense of risk vs reward which is what tennis is all about. Advanced shots return for serves in which you use the analogue stick, but risky shots that used to be performed using the triggers and required perfect timing don’t make a comeback, which I can live with although they did add a bit of excitement. The other thing that plays a big factor in how each point plays out is stamina, which depletes as the rallies go on, and will result in you being more likely to hit an error as it goes down.
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An addition to the game that I really liked is the new skills feature, which basically gives your player three different skills that range from being able to hit with more power as the rally goes on, to being a counter hitting specialist. It adds a bit of extra variation to each pro and really allows you to sculpt your own as well.
Outside of the general exhibition mode, the new MyCareer mode is where you’ll spend most of your time. It’s a decent attempt at a tennis mode that will keep you coming back, but it’s not without some issues. Like career modes of Top Spins of old, it basically has you going through seasons month by month which consist of taking on a training course, a special event as well as a tournament with each mode ramping up in difficulty as you level up.
At first, it was fun, but it quickly gets repetitive and does feel like a grind between major milestones in levelling up. For instance, the special events are all comprised of a match that only has you winning points on your own serve, and I’ve done about 10-15 of them so far without it ever varying from that. You also have to manage your stamina between tournaments or risk short-term or long-term injuries, which I did appreciate.
As you go through the mode, you try to get to new statuses which allows you to compete in higher and higher tournaments until you make it to a grand slam, with you levelling up between those rankings with your player getting sill points to spend on attributes. I really liked that the game gives you a handful of presets that you can select which will automatically distribute among the related attributes.
There’s also a coach feature which allows you to assign a coach which will require you to complete a handful of challenges before you can level up and eventually getting some extra skills that are attributed to that coach, but as soon as you change coaches, you lose them and have to start again, which feels a little cheap.
There’s not a heap in the way of story either, with podcasts filling in the blanks of what’s happening around you, but these are essentially glorified audio logs, which are nice to have, but don’t provide a heap of drama off the court. When it all comes down to it, there are things I’d have loved to see here, but it’s still a great first attempt, and it’ll definitely keep me coming back.
Outside of MyCareer, there’s a bunch of outfits and gear that you can purchase and unlock within the Centre Court Pass, and these won’t end when a new season begins, but if you’re not super into customising your character these won’t do a lot for you. There’s also a series of daily, weekly and monthly challenges for you to compete for extra currency.
My other main complaint with the how the game handles progress is that a lot of things need to be unlocked including a bunch of court variants (time of day etc), as well as the two higher difficulty modes, which I don’t have a huge issue with, but it’s more the requirements, for example to unlock the hardest difficulty, you need to play full 6 game sets in the one below it, which just feels a bit odd to me.
All-in-all, TopSpin 2K25 feels like a mostly complete package and I have no doubts that we’ll see 2K build on it over the years to come. I’m glad to have it, even if there’s a few things I’d loved to have seen done differently or added.
