Top Spin 2K25
TopSpin 2K25 plays well and is especially fun online. The game contains the license for all major tournaments, but is a bit disappointing with a roster of 25 tennis players, especially because some of those names are classic players who play green role in the MyCareer game mode. As a result, you keep coming across the same names at tournaments and that gets boring quickly. Fortunately, that is not a problem online. The game also comes into its own there, because playing against the computer is sometimes too easy and sometimes unreasonably difficult. Graphically, the game scores with the courts, on which the behavior of the ball is well simulated, but the players themselves are unfortunately a lot less convincing. For example, TopSpin 2K25 is a good tennis game, but it does not reach the level of old top games from the series.
What is the best tennis game ever made? If you base it on what has been played the most, we should probably appoint Wii Sports Tennis as the winner, but otherwise the winner will probably come from the two best-known series, which have been around for decades: Virtua Tennis and TopSpin. Both franchises have produced games that I ‘broken’ a long time ago. Therein lies the biggest problem for fans of tennis games. There have certainly been excellent games, but the heyday of the genre feels far behind us. TopSpin 4, according to many the best tennis game ever, dates back to 2011 and the last game in that series was also released in the same year, Virta Tennis 4. More recently we saw other games, such as AO Tennis 2. That game was certainly not bad, but did not come close to the status of the big names. At least, if those big names still have what it takes to stay on the throne of the best tennis game. That is exactly what TopSpin 2K25, which was released last week, is intended to show.
A tennis game is actually very clear. You have a certain roster to professional tennis players with and especially against whom you can play, for example with your own tennis player. This means you always go through a kind of career mode, in which you develop from beginner to Grand Slam champion. There are other modes surrounding this mode, such as the option to play individual games or seek refuge online. Then add a number of licenses so that you don’t have to call Roland Garros Paris Tournament and you’ve come a long way. TopSpin 2K25 ticks all these points off effortlessly.
For starters, the game features all four Grand Slams. That sounds logical, but we have often seen it differently in the past. Licenses of specific tournaments were then purchased exclusively by one game, preventing the other from using that tournament. Having the licenses of the most important tournaments in order contributes to the image of the game. No, the name on the stadium does not matter for the simulation of tennis balls on grass or clay, but you just want to win Wimbledon with your tennis player, not the Grand London Tournament or something like that. It is a pity that certain details are just not in order. The same cup is presented at every tournament, by the same lady. The iconic Grand Slam trophies and a few more characters doing the awarding could have made this better.
Always the same opponents
We are talking about side issues that could have been improved in the margin. When we look at the supply of tennis players, we come to a more serious topic. Not only is it fun to play with household names, you also need to have a varied roster to ensure that you don’t constantly play against the same players during career mode tournaments. This can certainly be solved by supplementing the roster with fictional players, as long as you mainly encounter real players in the major tournaments. Maybe you already feel it coming: TopSpin 2K25 fails here. During career mode, I faced Taylor Fritz, Matteo Berrettini, Daniil Medvedev and Frances Tiafoe in almost every tournament. I came across Andy Murray, Ben Shelton and Carlos Alcaraz less often, but the point is: that was it as far as real names in men’s tennis were concerned. And that is a very poor offer.
Let’s immediately follow that up with the logical counter question: what about Roger Federer, for example, who is prominently featured in promotional material and is therefore also in the game? ‘Fed Express’, but also other classic players such as Pete Sampras and André Agassi, are indeed in the game, but do not play a role in the career mode. I understand that, because it would be a bit strange if you suddenly met a tennis player from thirty years ago in the Wimbledon final. It does mean that in game modes such as career mode you only use part of your licensed roster, with the result that the major tournaments always feel a bit the same after a few seasons. This is no different for women; Steffi Graf, Serene Williams and Maria Sharapova, among others, appear here as classics. All in all, there are 25 tennis players that TopSpin 2K25 has on board and that is meager.
