Top Spin (Video Game)

Source: Amazon

What is it?

The 2003 tennis video game Top Spin.

What is it about?

This is how Wikipedia describes this video game:

Top Spin is a 2003 tennis video game developed by PAM Development and originally published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox as part of their XSN Sports brand.

Atari later published the game for the PC, while 2K Sports published it for the PlayStation 2.

The game was followed by Top Spin 2, Top Spin 3 and Top Spin 4.

In Top Spin, players select from various game modes including singles matches, doubles, exhibition tournaments, a career mode or quick play matches.

Top Spin features a number of professional tennis players who have licensed their likenesses to the game, a trend which continued in its sequels.

It also contained fictional players as well.

The player can work their way up through the amateur ranks to the pros in tournaments all over the world.

They can do this by using the various licensed players, or by creating a unique character.

The game can be played via the internet with XSN Sports and Xbox Live for online matches.

My Thoughts

Back in when I was going to MS University years ago my dorm suitemates (my former male classmates/collegemates/suitemates DH and JC, and some other collegemates/suitemates) and I used to play this video game, this brings back a few memories, unfortunately not as many as I would like.

I remember us creating our own characters, playing in tournaments against the computer, playing against each other, upgrading our characters, et cetera.

This was back when we were staying at The B Dorms, we had the Xbox set up in the back shared study area of our dorm suite, and we had a couch set up.

I miss those days, I was pretty good at this video game, not the greatest though because I can not remember if I ever won a grand slam or not.

I remember this video game having pretty good graphics and it did a pretty good job recreating what it is like to play tennis.

I remember that the menu screen would often play the song Get Free by The Vines:

Sometimes the competition against the computer and against each other would get intense, I remember us getting angry and frustrated sometimes as we struggled through tournaments against the computer and/or against each other, it was like we were really playing professional tennis or something. 😀

I remember being disappointed that my favorite tennis player Justine Henin was not a playable character in this game, but she did become a playable character in a later Top Spin video game (Top Spin 3 I think).

I can almost remember and feel the feelings of playing this video game back then and then us going to play some real tennis at the tennis courts at MS University, and then maybe we would get something to eat at the cafeteria before returning to our dorm.

If I am not mistaken in this video game you could customize your tennis rackets and some other equipment and clothing, you possibly could also get sponsorships for your created character but I could be wrong, and playing in career mode made you feel a bit like a real tennis player.

The end,

-John Jr