Rafawho? If you're not up to speed on the current state of tennis, but and are looking to pick up Top Spin 3 just to play some tennis, know that Rafael Nadal is the number 2 player in the world (at the time of writing) -- and he's only in the PlayStation3 version of Top Spin 3.
If you're a Nadalnut, you can try and mock him up in the create-a-player mode of the Xbox360, but that's only going to show you just how bad you are at game design, that the developers at 2K Sports has the "authentic recreation" thing down pat and you don't.
Speaking of authentic, there's 40 pro players available, a few of whom are historic retirees like Boris Becker and Monica Seles. In the grand scheme of things, 40 is only 40; to say that some big names are missing on both the men's and women's tour is an understatement. Still, there were only 24 players in Top Spin 2 and just 16 in the first Top Spin game, so the series is definitely moving in the right direction.
Of course, the whole "high def" thing helps with said direction tremendously as Top Spin 3 also does a magnificent job of capturing those 40 player's likenesses (as well as realistically rendering your own custom-created player). These digital representations of real athletes really look, well, real... less (but not completely) like those creepy, soulless animated corpses with vacuous eyes and wooden faces that usually pass for "realism." They even sweat realistically, which is also a fatigue indicator. Beyond mere aesthetics, the individual swing types and other nuanced mannerisms are superbly attended to, too.
All the modes you'd expect in a sophisticated tennis simulation are also resolutely present -- this is no snack-sized, Wii Sports Mii-whack game. (There is a Wii version of Top Spin 3, but it is so not in the same ballpark, to mix metaphors.)
Fleshed out with exhibition, tournament, and online multiplayer components for singles or doubles (but only off two systems, not four), it's the career mode of Top Spin 3 that truly stands out. You can rocket up to the pro levels if you know what you're doing, but it's also gentle and slow if you're a newbie: get your feet wet and learn the ropes by creating a player, running all the tutorials, and then taking him or her through the paces as you go through them. You do need to dedicate a significant amount of time wrapping your head and hands around its subtle but crucial controls, but it's nice to find a game that doesn't throw you to the wolves from the get go, expecting a high level of skill just because you have a high level of devotion to the sport.
That said, if you've played Top Spin or Top Spin 2, controls are drastically different for Top Spin 3. More realistic now, but also more exacting and frustrating if you're used to earlier versions. The old control scheme allowed you to simply press the button corresponding to the shot you wanted to hit, for example, but now it's more delicate than that and reliant on good timing as releasing a button -- not just pressing -- is what initiates the forward swing of the racket. You can also use the right thumbstick for serves if you like, which is likewise hard to get a handle on but thereafter crucial for delivering a deceiving slice or top spin.
Master all that and 2K Sports' Top Spin 3 is bang-on realistic; a terrific tennis sim. Sure, there's still room for improvement and certainly more likenesses of licensed pros, but advancing the series by leaps and bounds certainly makes for a good enough reason to go pick this up right now and wear it out before Top Spin 4 comes out. Not many other sports game franchises can boast as much.
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