lol, the rum guy? How about an autograph

I don't give autographs... but you'll know if the Captain was there or not. By chance, I chose to stick with Oakley as my sponsor, and they have skull-and-crossbones shirts and shorts. YARRR! I'm clothed in the Jolly Roger from head to toe. Well, leg, but whatever.

I just finished my first game online (0-3, 3-0, 3-1, WOOT)... is it me, or are the controls a little less responsive than if you're just playing against the computer? Especially with risk shots. I haven't played in a few days, but man.

Edit: Geez. I think I'll forget about ever playing online again. I just got my ass handed to me three times in a row, which hosed my ranking for my character in his "career" from 13 to like 50-something. I didn't even win a game. And thanks Optimatch, for matching me with someone IN AUSTRALIA (who was apparently #67 online)! You'd think an optimal online match would involve someone on the same freaking continent.

Ahoy, then. I guess I'll see you on the high seas

Do any of you happen to have a scan of that $10 Best Buy coupon? I can't find mine that I printed, and I couldn't find it when I went back to that site. Thanks!

I just started my new character - an Irish Soccer Hooligan, ready to stomp some heads. Sounds like the perfect competition for Captain Morgan.

I still need to figure out that second serve star.

Wow, this game is addicting! I wish I have more time to play..... I've played a few games online already. And boy, I can't believe how good some of you guys are! I need to invest some time training! But even with a few stars, you can see how your player is improving! Its just fun to play!

Read what Ralph Wiggum wrote on the last page... I tried it, and it helps.

Here ya go: http://www.gamepro.com/ads/coupons/images/13040.pdf

Is anyone else playing online and having a ton of lag? I didn't notice it the first couple of times I played, but then I went through some of the single player game. Now, playing online is ridiculous. I have no chance of hitting a risk shot, and I have to prep a return hit as soon as the other guy hits it. Needless to say, I'm not enjoying this at all.

Yeah, I went through the same thing in certain games. I don't know if there's a way to tell or not where the person's from if you're just doing random games. In a game where timing matters a lot, lag is killer... at least give us a way that we can avoid it, instead of starting up a match and finding out partway through the first set that your opponent is from Australia.

I think Nick's scared... he has the game and won't play me. He must have heard of my Top Spin prowess. Growl.

I haven't played it still, lol

It's still unopened, sitting next to my other games. In fact I just picked up Morrowind GOTY for PC today (finally), so I might take longer to open it then I thought. But next time you are on, we can play vs each other if you want

I just bought this and I have a question. In career mode do you actually have to finish an entire tournament in one sitting, can you not save and play it later? If so that is incredibly lame.

From what I have found by playing, yes you must do the tourneys in one sitting.

That sucks. On some of the easier tourney's I can blow through them pretty quickly. But, then on the hard ones they do take me some time, especially if we tie up.

Yeah I had a tiebreaker in the first round of a grand slam that went on for what seemed like forever. I think the whole slam took me a little over an hour to beat.

What a wonderful little game, if not frustrating at times.

Any interest in starting a little tournament over on www.xsnsports.com ?

risk shots are far easier if you tap the button and release right on the sweet spot. It takes some practice, but Is far easier then trying to time it. Aiming those shots and staying in bounds on the other hand.....

Just got Top Spin today. Great game. Havent played it much yet so I know better than to go live now and get destroyed. Need to work on the risk shots badly. TS is very addicting.

The game is good, but now that I finished all the tournaments, I am getting bored. Xbox live is too frustrating, it is virtually impossible for me to find someone who I can have competitive games with, I get destroyed 8 out of 10 times, and the other way around the other 2 matches. It is either an easy win or a lopsided loss (not even winning 1 point).

Bah. I am shelving this (or trading it in for something else) until next year's inevitable sequel that hopefully, fixes the online matching problem + better/longer 1 player season.

gah, this game is getting frustrating...too many little details keep this game from being as good as it could have been.

The load times baffle me...not sure what causes all the load times at the beginning of a match (sounds loading maybe) since there is still a lengthy load after the stadium and court is loaded.

The skill challenges suffer the same flaw from other games of this type. If you fail a challenge, more than likely you are going to want to retry the same challenge. But this game (like many others) takes you back out to the menu where you have to select it again and go through the loading time again.

Speaking of skill challenges, there sure aren't as many or a greater variety as there were in Virtua Tennis.

Choosing sponsors seems pointless...other than earning new outfits and earning "coin". What 's up with the term coin anyways? Chosen for localizing reasons for porting to countries that don't use the dollar? Who knows? I've only gone through two sponsors and they had pretty much the same challenges I believe and only about 4 each. Way too few. I'd like to see more of the challenges...with a greater variety, perhaps taking it away from a tennis court setting.

Tournaments can be frustrating as well. I hate breezing through the first two rounds of a tournament only to have my ass handed to me by the computer who seems to be risk-shotting every shot I return.

Please, let us save during a tournament. Please. Hell, sometimes I've wished I could save during a game. I could see people abusing that though I suppose by saving during a tournament, then turning off the console to retry the next match if they're losing.

Some of the shots my player makes during the game is baffling. More times than I'm comfortable with, my player will run to the ball and hit that "between the legs" shot even though I had plenty of time to reach the ball and hit my normal forehand shot. Along the same lines, my player would continue running past the ball and decide to hit a backhand shot (my weaker shot) which normally put me out of position to return the next shot. Frustrating.

The "Attitude" option after a point seems pointless as well since 70% of the time my player does some sort of "Attitude" animation anyways whether I hit a button or not. Besides, the "Attitude" animations I did see seemed tamer than what I was expecting. I was expecting to see my guy slam his racket down, or argue a call, hit the net with the racket or something.

Also, the in-between point animations get a little out of control. I'll be continually hitting the A button to bypass them, many times I would hit the A button too many times which ends up having the effect of my player hitting a weak serve. Also, there aren't the same number of animations each time which throws off my ability to bypass them but not affect my serve. Perhaps I should up my dosage of Ritalin but I just wanted to be able to get to the next point as soon as possible without all the extraneous in-between animations.

Speaking of animations though I found myself wanting to see more ambient animations during a point. There are ball boys (or boy men, I can't tell) but they never scurry around to pick up loose tennis balls. Also, I would be nice if the linesmen tried to avoid a ball that was coming towards them rather than take a 75-mph forehand shot to the crotch.

Speaking of ambience, I wonder if we'll ever be able to have some sort of color commentary during matches one day. It would be a plus I think to have John McEnroe or someone providing commentary during the match if executed correctly.

I think though are my major complaints about the game. I'd put it ahead of Virtua Tennis 2k2 (since I was disappointed in that game mostly for the single-player experience) but behind Virtua Tennis 2k.

All in all, I still enjoy it though, mostly. But this game has exposed more of my violent tendencies than the GTA series ever will.

<small>I'd still like to see how a DVDTalk tournament would play out.</small>

Is there a way to save your progress midway through a tournament in carreer mode? You shouldn't have to play three matches back-to-back or forfit. Am I missing something here?

Nope...you must play all the way through in one sitting.

That sucks!

Are we allowed to print out this coupon and take it to Best Buy I am looking to get this cheap.



Shadow