Organized team sports are big business in the videogame industry, but some gamers tend to prefer the more individual-based sports such as tennis, golf and volleyball. With football, hockey or basketball, any blown play or big mistake can be easily passed onto a number of your not-so-smart AI teammates. But with a game like Tennis (doubles being an exception), an error is most likely your own error.

Power and Magic Development, who recently developed Ultimate Beach Soccer and Pro Beach Soccer for all platforms, must have been a fan of Sega's popular series. From the graphics and audio, to the gameplay and career mode, Top Spin feels a lot like Virtua Tennis in more than a few ways. For disappointed fans, that is most definitely a good thing.

Top Spin features most of your typical Tennis gameplay features and modes. You can play a quick exhibition match, create and play a tournament, design a custom character and take him or her through a career mode, or play multiplayer with or against other players either locally or online. Other than playing online, Top Spin's career mode is where the real meat of the game lies. When beginning a career, the game features an insanely detailed player creator, which allows you to personalize the look, style and technique of your player. You then travel around a world map in search of training coaches, sponsors, tournaments and shops.

When training, you have 12 career star points that can be applied towards improving your skill in one of four areas; forehand, backhand, serve and volley. Each training session costs a certain amount of "coin" which can be earned by playing tournaments or completing sponsor challenges. Upon successfully completing these training sessions, your skill is upgraded. These sessions are nearly identical to those in Sega's Tennis game, and most will be a piece of cake for veterans of that game. After earning a few skill upgrades you then get to choose a bonus additional skill, such as better accuracy, improved risk shots, or faster speed. Playing through local, regional and pro-tournaments upgrades your rank, which makes more options available for you. The very best upgrades obviously come from taking on the most highly ranked players. During your career you can also join a number of real world sponsors who offer you "challenges" to complete in exchange for coin, branded equipment, styles and clothing. There are plenty of ways to develop your character as your career progresses, and thankfully a good portion of it is optional, and even then it never becomes bogged down in micro-management.

As far as gameplay is concerned, Top Spin plays every bit as well as Sega's Tennis title although with one additional feature. Serving uses a simple power meter, and returns (an all-purpose swing, a top spin, a slice and a lob) can be accomplished in a few ways using the four face buttons. Using the analog pad then controls the direction of those shots. Top Spin adds a "Risk Shot" which can be used for a powerful but risky serve, top spin or back spin shot. A fast moving meter immediately appears until the trigger is then released. The release must be timed perfectly in order to make proper contact, and if not, expect a near definite out or net. As your match progresses and you start performing better, your "In The Zone" meter fills up, which in turn slows the Risk Shot meter down therefore making it less risky to pull one off. Unfortunately, besides serves, I found it way too difficult to bother with a Risk Shot even with a full ITZ meter and upgraded stats. The CPU abuses the shots in a fairly inhuman way, which does get annoying after a while. Another interesting addition is the ability to "show emotion" in between points. By pressing the black/white buttons after a play, your character will either show excitement or displeasure depending on the circumstance. It supposedly influences the way the crowd reacts towards you, though I did not notice much of a change at all.

Speaking of the CPU, the game puts up a really good fight especially when making it into the pro rank. Occasionally though the CPU seems a little too fast, powerful and accurate but there are some definite money plays that can nearly always break their serve. Also, when playing doubles your A.I. partner seems to be somewhat slow to react on occasion.

Visually, Top Spin is probably the best looking Tennis game yet. The game features 16 big name players such as Lleyton Hewitt, Pete Sampras, Anna Kournikova and Martina Hingis, all of which are modeled really accurately. The courts, from playgrounds to the grand slam from all over the world are nearly perfectly rendered. Most venues have plenty of movement and seem quite alive, although the ball girls/boys never ever move or do anything, which is odd. Probably the one solitary piece of the game that annoyed me most was the camera angles or lack thereof. PAM decided on only two, and neither is perfect in my book. The "Close" view looks awesome but is at such a low angle and height that it restricts both depth perception and peripheral vision, especially when playing against heavy hitters. The "Far" view is way more playable, although it is like playing Tennis on the NES. Everything is a little too zoomed out, and for some reason the Risk Meter feels like it moves twice as fast. Some in-between views or at least some customizable angles would have been really helpful. Stick with the Far view to actually play the game, and the Close view to show off the visuals to your friends.

As of this review, there was not much competition on Xbox Live, but a number of promising modes were available to play around with. Besides a simple configurable one-on-one or doubles match (which supports 2 players on one Xbox), Top Spin has a whole slew of Tournament options including an "Official" XSN Sports Tournament. The ability to create tournaments, tours and check out the latest stats and standings will all be possible on XSNsports.com.

Being a fan of videogame Tennis, I could wholeheartedly recommend Top Spin for those itching to play a great representation of the sport. The game looks and sounds great, plays well, and has a ton of online and offline modes to play.