Top Spin 4 Impressions/Questions Thread

[The Visualizer]

Picked this up earlier and played one exhibition game so far: here's a screenshot of the post-match stats:



-I played it on Hard difficulty which is the 2nd highest. I was James Blake against CPU Andy Roddick.

-As far as aces, I was able to get 2 with James Blake, but only because I haven't really gotten the touch on the serving yet. Besides the aces, I did have several great serves that Roddick couldn't handle that ended up getting returned into the net or out of play by him. Andy's big serve had me in constant fear, I'm surprised he only had 6 aces. He had a countless number of serves I couldn't return. It seemed like the CPU took it's foot off the gas in the 3rd set and Andy didn't ramp up on his serves like he was. Maybe it had something to do with fatigue as I had him running all over as much as possible, or the CPU difficulty was giving me a break?

-The CPU and I each had a couple unforced errors in there, not sure how the numbers stack up to what some of you "sim-heads" are looking for, but they were there. My most played tennis game before this was Top Spin 2, and with regards to unforced errors I've found it's a lot harder to hit the ball out on a regular shot. In Top Spin 2 if you held to the left or right long enough with a top spin or slice shot it would almost always go out. That doesn't seem to be the case in TS4 from what I've seen. It's harder to be precise and work the lines which in turn makes it harder to hit it out accidentally on a shot that is easily returnable.

-The swing mechanic seems like the perfect hybrid of the "assisted" swing from Top Spin 2 and the "full-manual" swing from Top Spin 3. It rewards you for timing it perfectly like you had to in TS3 but within the risk of completely whiffing on your shot. As a semi-casual player of tennis games who enjoys realism, this really hits the sweet spot for me. Feels great. Your timing needs to be right hit precise shots.

-The game really shines with how they handled your ability to make tough shots. It pays more than ever to setup your shots and keep your opponent off-balance. You really need to work all of the different shots (top spin, slice, drop-shot and even lob occasionally) to force your opponent into mistakes. It's hard to describe not being a huge follower of the sport, but it seems to be handled in a more realistic way than ever before. Gone are the days where you can make a ton of miracle shots in a long volley, it's cool to hear the ball clang off the edge of the racket sometimes when it goes out, signifying you didn't get all of it. Little things that just add to the immersion.

All in all, seems like everything I wanted so far, plays like a dream. I'll play a few more games and post some more stats and impressions for yall.

[Yeah...THAT Guy]

I coulda swore one of the developer diaries said that once you finish working with a coach (accomplishing all their goals), you permanently get their bonus and can switch to another one, but it looks like that isn't the case?

[Seymour Scagnetti]

Thanx for the impressions. Can you play 6 game sets next because I like to see how fatigue is handled with unforced errors in a longer 2\3 or 3\5 match. You said that there were a few unforced errors but those stats showed you to have 25 of them. That's more than a few. Is that accurate or do stats group forced and unforced errors together.

The only thing I'm not liking is Roddick's 100% 1st serve percentage but I guess as long as every 1st serve isn't impossible to return then I can live with that.

Any let serves (serves that hit the net but still go over) happen?

[sportdan30]

Thanks for the early impressions. Sounds very promising. A couple questions.

1. I read where signature styles are only present with a few of the tennis stars (Sampras, Agassi, etc.). Meaning, you won't see the Boris Becker serve animation. Rather, the player animations are fairly generic. Have you noticed that?

2. Also, someone said you can't play against your created player. Also true?

[The Visualizer]

played a my second match, Patrick Rafter against CPU Andre Agassi (with the mullet) on Hard difficulty. Grinded out a close win similar to my first match but in a totally different way.



-For someone that asked on this forum, doesn't look any any way to dribble the ball or any other animations pre-serve.

-First real disappointment with the game is that you can't pause the game and view replays like pretty much every other sports game. I had an awesome rally where I chased down a ball lobbed over my head and ended up winning the point at the net with a one-handed backhand with my back almost turned and was bummed that I couldn't view it to capture it on my phone.

-In my first impression, I mentioned I thought it was difficult to hit the ball out on a regular shot, well I ended up doing it quite a bit with Rafter whose forehand and backhand stats are lower than Blake (I think).

-I still could quite get the touch on the serve down, only had 2 aces, but I feel it coming. Need to practice on it.

-Another thing that stands out is that there are a great variety of animations in the game. I've seen a bunch of different ones just for returning serves that you don't see at any other time in the game. Really good job by 2K Czech on that.

-Agassi unlike Roddick chased down a ton of my shots including a couple lobs I put over his head while he rushed the net. Was pretty cool to see. He was also a lot more precise than Roddick placing some awesome shots I couldn't get to. Def could tell the difference in styles.

[jclentzthadon]

Vis, looking fwd to it!

[Yeah...THAT Guy]

I jumped into career mode playing on hard, doing the real tennis format.

First match, I was down 3 games to 2 but went on to win the last 10 games to win 6-3 6-0. I had like 25 unforced errors. Next match I won 7-5 6-2 with 15ish unforced errors and a few aces. Championship game I won 6-0 6-1 and only had 9 unforced errors. You see a lot of poorly hit balls and a lot of errors at least in the early levels of career mode. I could tell when myself and the AI got tired too. All of a sudden I couldn't get to many balls at all. Could barely run. And it became much harder to hit accurate shots.

[Seymour Scagnetti]

I thought there was 2 difficulty levels above hard? You said there was only 1.