Top Spin 3

Out of Bounds

Talking about the rest of the game, there are three main modes in which to play Top Spin 3: Exhibition mode is a quick-start match using a bunch of predefined players; Career mode, which forms the bulk of the game; and Online mode, which we'll come back to later.

Career mode starts off with you creating your own lookalike. There are options galore to change, and you can even change the shape of the facial mesh if none of the included face shapes tickle your fancy. One strange thing about the models is that the bodies all seem just a little too large for the heads, but that's a minor niggle and while not perfect, it's fairly obvious who the models are supposed to represent.

Once you've generated your player, your first task is to beat some amateur players in a number of challenges before you're given the chance to jump on the bottom of the rankings ladder.


From there, you'll find yourself playing through a number of seasons with the aim of becoming number one in your class. There are a number of tournaments within each season, and you can choose the level of difficulty of each tournament. The harder the tournament you choose, the harder it is to win, but the greater the cash and experience bonuses at the end.

Whichever level of tournament you choose is up to you, but you'll find yourself struggling as a newbie player if you choose difficult tournaments from the outset.

Experience gained is used in the time-honoured fashion of upgrading your skills between matches – such as forehand, service, speed and stamina. You'll start off the game as a slow lumbering weakling with badminton wrists and you'll want to get all your stats increased as quickly as you can.

However, each stat is capped so as you progress through the game, you'll need to decide fairly early on which areas of play you want focus on. This enhances the realism of the game, since there is no such thing as a player who excels at every single aspect of tennis.


The AI is very well done and, apart from a few curious decisions, plays as good as any human opponent. The AI players will take advantage of your weaknesses and in some of the more difficult matches you'll find yourself being run all over the court by the AI.

This is where the stamina stat comes in handy: a higher stamina means that you'll be able to last longer and recover quicker, which will help with subsequent points. As you stand on the baseline for service, you'll see a small heart monitor: a fast heart rate means you're still tired from the previous point and you'll tire even quicker, all of which means you'll move slower around the court and likely to miss yet more points.

There are a wide variety of tennis courts in Top Spin 3, including clay and grass courts and indoor arenas. There are some real life venues included, such as Stade Roland Garros in Paris, although some notable exceptions like Wimbledon are conspicuous by their absence.

As you progress through the game, you'll find Top Spin 3 eating up all of your spare time, especially when you reach the pro tournaments - here it's not unusual for a tournament to last an hour or more. Given the dampness of the average British summer though, you'll have more chance to play tennis on a console than you would playing tennis outdoors.