TENNIS Tennis World Tour

[Kiko_97]

I'd love to see the footage, loved GST2, the control scheme just felt so right to me

 

['SideSpin' Dazzer]

Ok kiko_97, give me a few days to sort this.


Oh and another thing about GST 2 is that it has proper clay court dust, and footprints that develop during the gameplay, visible now more than ever in 4K! Proper sliding too, and those slide marks remain too, I was shocked at how advanced they created that back then. Even when you change ends and your player still is at "this" end of the screen, you can see the marks made by your opponent on the clay before they changed ends, its awesome.

 

[zimrahil]

Also, John McEnroe is a player in the game, does proper commentary in it too, unlike what I have heard him do in TWT on the videos I have seen so far where he shouts a quick few words that do not relate to what is on screen!

Yeah the footage I have seen so far McEnroe's commentary is shocking. The more I see footage the more I am defo veering towards AOIT. don’t know what the major issues are now but let’s hope they get fixed in time for next console patch

 

['SideSpin' Dazzer]

My obvious obsession with sidespin btw takes me to AO Tennis, and that at first I thought I saw ground stroke sidespin, and then I thought I didnt, and then now, some shots have the ball rotating slightly with sidespin on some ground strokes and replays show the ball ever so slightly bending in flight, which is not greatly realistic compared to how, say, most slice shots in life curve in flight a lot, but at least Big Ant have included it, subtle though it is. The same for DBC and Ashes, sad old git me watched many replays and I was adamant that shots off the Bat never moved in flight............until I noticed one day that sometimes they do, and when they do, they move sideways in flight as the ball is near the end of its flight but again, its in the game and the coders have included it. And fair play to them!!

I love sidespin!

 

['SideSpin' Dazzer]

Yeah the footage I have seen so far McEnroe's commentary is shocking. The more I see footage the more I am defo veering towards AOIT. don’t know what the major issues are now but let’s hope they get fixed in time for next console patch

zimrahil: I want you also to see the GST 2 footage in 4K when I have uploaded it, you are going to love McEnroes commentrary on it, proper comments alongside Pat Cash.

The game has all the stars, Sampras, Agassi, McEnroe, Borg, Navratilova, Evert, Nadal, Murray, Federer, all with great likenesses.........how the game never got rated, especially when we can see how pure it is in emulated 4K mode, astounds me.

Oh and I forgot to mention, it has FULL licenses for Wimbledon, Roland Garros, US Open and the Aussie Open, all in it, all looking perfect.

 

[zimrahil]

zimrahil: I want you also to see the GST 2 footage in 4K when I have uploaded it, you are going to love McEnroes commentrary on it, proper comments alongside Pat Cash.

The game has all the stars, Sampras, Agassi, McEnroe, Borg, Navratilova, Evert, Nadal, Murray, Federer, all with great likenesses.........how the game never got rated, especially when we can see how pure it is in emulated 4K mode, astounds me.

Oh and I forgot to mention, it has FULL licenses for Wimbledon, Roland Garros, US Open and the Aussie Open, all in it, all looking perfect.

I remember the game being released but seeing what you are saying above I am amazed it didn't do better. It must have had flaws; what were they? was it shallow career mode, poor animations, what?

 

[Deleted member 9102]

(this post is not a dig at anyone on this forum, but more at the simplistic Top Spin 4 and its sad over hyped status)

It's obvious to me what is "off", and its exactly the same as the very over rated Top Spin 4............there is no side spin prevalent on ANY of the ground strokes, unlike Full Ace Tennis, Virtua Tennis 4, AO Tennis (to a certain extent, slowdown replays show the ball moves in flight sometimes), and Grand Slam Tennis 2 (please don't laugh re: the last game mentioned, because the previously PS3 and XBOX360 only Grand Slam Tennis 2 has a new outlet, it is now playable on PC at 4K resolution...)

I mention Grand Slam Tennis 2 due to the fact that the ball physics which were so spot on in that game, being shown REALLY clearly via the latest PS3 emulator, RPCS3, and if anyone is interested, I can upload to YouTube some videos of Grand Slam Tennis 2, PS3, running at 2160p 4K on PC with this emulator, it really shows off the realistic gameplay that most people have overlooked over the years. The ball physics depict top spin, back spin, left and right spin, combinations of both (it looks incredible on PC at 45fps or so at 4K resolution, and as the RPCS3 developers improve the PS3 emulator, that fps will only increase to a deserved 60fps+ sometime in the coming months), you know, just like the ball moves in the air in real life. Just try telling that to 2KGames 6 years ago and to all those who for some reason believe Top Spin 4 to fit the hype during that period of time, it was so clear too that the advertised "wind effects" in game was all a load of hype too, just watch any replay you can of the game, its always the bloody same straight line physics.....

.....except the serves, which were implemented well. So clearly the coders did know "how" to make the ball "bend" in flight, in relation to side spin depicted on the ball, for serves...

The trouble with all the hype was that the developers then believed their own hype and realized that no-one had noticed the poor ball physics for ground strokes, and decided to cash in on the Top Spin 4 hype and use more or less the same simplistic engine for the new game. How on earth so many people rated Top Spin 4 so highly I will never know, imagine Fifa with shots and crosses that were only ever travelling in a straight line, or DBC14/17/Ashes with spin bowling that showed in the game as............straight line movement of the ball in the air........and even more comical would be a Golf game where the ball always travelled.............straight.

Its not only Top Spin 4 though, an awful lot of Tennis games over the years have depicted ground strokes as only being able to move in a straight line. But that was in the pre PS1 and PS2 are, we are now in the PS3-PS4+ era.....

My apologies to all the Top Spin 4 and imminent Tennis World Tour fans, which seems to be so many people, because I'm really sad that those who are aware of the poor ball physics in the game simply accept it (that's for those who have bothered to notice it, I would be willing to bet that 80% of them have not even looked at the ball movement and are instead busy looking at player animation, and all that kind of irrelevant bollox.....) and so they will only be looking for things that do not relate to the main damn thing behind sports games where a ball is involved. Look at reviews of MLB 14/15/16 etc the Show, all by 2K games, and a prominent thing about these games was the inclusion of real ball physic when the ball is hit and flying out to the field............for some reason Tennis gamer's don't appear, 80%of them I would guess, to have ever seen a broadcast or have ever played the game in their life if they backed Top Spin 4 as being realistic. How bizarre...is it a modern trait?

For the record, I dont think player animation is bollox........but its clear that in Top Spin 4 and this new game that the animations of the players are fine...........but if those are the only factors people look at for "realism" then well, what more can I say.

I would love to be proved wrong with the new game, especially with all the Skills moves that appear to be attainable as you earn them during the game (some of which relate to Slice shots, fingers crossed this means when you gain the "Skill" the ball will move in flight with the natural curvature), but from all the gameplay videos so far, its clearly all straight line shots every time in Tennis World Tour for ground strokes, again, with ONLY the serves looking fine and having the ball bend in flight, realistically.

I cannot fathom, how on earth people will be happy with this if it remains as per the videos we have all seen, although with the feedback to Top Spin 4 over the years, it seemed at times to be almost at fever pitch, then most gamer's maybe had never seen a tennis ball in flight in real life.......and those very same gamer's, with full respect to them and their ability to overlook the most important things in ball related sports games.........

At the end of the day, the fact that the serves bend in flight surely means the coders know how to code bend into the shots.................its more than likely that the issue here is how to judge the placement of the ball for the receiver IF the ball is moving, deviating, via sidespin and for the CPU AI, they decided to keep things simple because when the ball is hit from the other side of the net, the CPU will know where to position the receiving player.

So it is clearly lazyness in terms of coding, and it appears 95% of the public who want Tennis games are happy with lazy.

I will not go the route of comparing McEnroe's one sentence sound bites in the latest videos in comparison to his proper commentary in Grand Slam Tennis 2 alongside Pat Cash, John must be feeling mightily embarrased right now being associated with this "franchise"...

I've seen you make this point about side spin in tennis games on various forums, maybe other sports games too (think I remember seeing a similar post about DBC) and I strongly agree, if maybe not as such a high priority as you. I'd still rather play a game with well-balanced gameplay mechanics that gets the pace/strategy/dynamics of a sport closer to reality than one where the trajectory/flight of the ball looks a bit more convincing. This is why GST2 was still so bad to me, the slightly better ball physics are pointless when the rest of the gameplay is so awful.

Even with visible side spin on shots, TS4 would still have the slow, boring, one-dimensional rallies with almost zero unforced errors... To me the straight ball flight is the least of TS4's problems, the gameplay in general was bizarre... That said, it was very nicely polished visually, some nice animations and a decent (if limited) roster, so for a casual tennis fan I could see plenty there that would be appealing.

Ball physics often go hand-in-hand with the gameplay though - maybe if TS4 had better physics (faster, less floaty) then the rest of the gameplay would have naturally been better... But the scripted feel of how the shots work, and the lack of errors would still remain...

Full Ace is the best tennis game I've played in terms of the physics having genuine impact on the gameplay - the whole game is built around a proper physics engine driving everything. You have the buttons for your shots that you can aim at any spot on the court, and the trajectory the ball takes to get there depends on how much power you use, timing, player stats etc... Going cross-court is safer than down-the-line as a natural consequence of the net being lower in the middle and there being more court to hit into; same reasons as real life!

I get no sense of that from the gameplay I've seen of TWT or AO, everything still looks on rails/scripted rather than coming as a result of dynamic physics... As long as the timing is okay, the shot will be scripted to land in.

Also see the "bug" where volleys would fly long at 100mph, or shots zooming straight to the net like the Hulk hit it in AO Tennis. To me those are not just bugs, they show that the game is built around scripted outcomes rather than situations emerging as a result of the physics engine.

 

['SideSpin' Dazzer]

I've seen you make this point about side spin in tennis games on various forums, maybe other sports games too (think I remember seeing a similar post about DBC) and I strongly agree, if maybe not as such a high priority as you. I'd still rather play a game with well-balanced gameplay mechanics that gets the pace/strategy/dynamics of a sport closer to reality than one where the trajectory/flight of the ball looks a bit more convincing. This is why GST2 was still so bad to me, the slightly better ball physics are pointless when the rest of the gameplay is so awful.

Even with visible side spin on shots, TS4 would still have the slow, boring, one-dimensional rallies with almost zero unforced errors... To me the straight ball flight is the least of TS4's problems, the gameplay in general was bizarre... That said, it was very nicely polished visually, some nice animations and a decent (if limited) roster, so for a casual tennis fan I could see plenty there that would be appealing.

Ball physics often go hand-in-hand with the gameplay though - maybe if TS4 had better physics (faster, less floaty) then the rest of the gameplay would have naturally been better... But the scripted feel of how the shots work, and the lack of errors would still remain...

Full Ace is the best tennis game I've played in terms of the physics having genuine impact on the gameplay - the whole game is built around a proper physics engine driving everything. You have the buttons for your shots that you can aim at any spot on the court, and the trajectory the ball takes to get there depends on how much power you use, timing, player stats etc... Going cross-court is safer than down-the-line as a natural consequence of the net being lower in the middle and there being more court to hit into; same reasons as real life!

I get no sense of that from the gameplay I've seen of TWT or AO, everything still looks on rails/scripted rather than coming as a result of dynamic physics... As long as the timing is okay, the shot will be scripted to land in.

Also see the "bug" where volleys would fly long at 100mph, or shots zooming straight to the net like the Hulk hit it in AO Tennis. To me those are not just bugs, they show that the game is built around scripted outcomes rather than situations emerging as a result of the physics engine.

I agree with most of what you said here Madman, and it appears this forum has lots of intelligent people like all those who have posted on here the last few days! I do disagree a bit re: GST 2 though in terms of its gameplay, I think everything about it is amazing, be great if you also check out how it looks in 4K too once I've uploaded it, even though you are adamant about the general gameplay itself.

But yes, TWT and AO both a bit on rails and my close inspection of the ball flight in AO makes me like it much more than I did on first purchase, but generally the 100mph ness of some shots do spoil it, and its all down as you say to the engine behind it.

As for Full Ace, and of course Tennis Elbow 2013, these two games have the REAL ball physics on show, everything has side/top and or side/bottom spin on the ball, the flight arcs are so impressively depicted and the gameplay organically flows around that ball movement, rather than the ball have to "adapt" to scripted paths as per the others. Its little wonder that they both sadly have non-photo realistic players or even the engine to insert them, one day a game will appear with it all inclusive, as the great Mr Klopp would say...

Btw I think it was you years ago who stuck up for me and agreed with me re: the vastly overrated Top Spin 4 in terms of ball physics, when all the other posters were blinded by Federer moving smoothly across the court...

 

['SideSpin' Dazzer]

I'm now in tentative "shall I buy this today, digitally, on PS4 or XB1, whichever, these days, can allow digital game refunds......" in the hope that trying it out I come across my true love (I think you all know what I love...), maybe not in the general game play, but even if it exists only in some of the skill cards I would accept that and realize that my true love is actually coded into this game.

Will only do this if I get 100% clarity on whether Microsoft are in the mood this week to be in "we allow refunds" mode, or whether Sony can break the habit of a lifetime...

Anyone know what the latest is regarding refunds? Googling it gives a mixed response. I know the Windows Store gave me some refunds last year, and so really and truly the same company should apply that to Xbox digital games too. I might even play dumb, buy it on Xbox store, if I attempt a refund and they say no, will then remind them that last year they refunded me some PC games and demand that they need to follow suit as I bought this in the knowledge that if I didn't like it, Microsoft have allowed refunds in the past...

 

[Deleted member 9102]

I agree with most of what you said here Madman, and it appears this forum has lots of intelligent people like all those who have posted on here the last few days! I do disagree a bit re: GST 2 though in terms of its gameplay, I think everything about it is amazing, be great if you also check out how it looks in 4K too once I've uploaded it, even though you are adamant about the general gameplay itself.

But yes, TWT and AO both a bit on rails and my close inspection of the ball flight in AO makes me like it much more than I did on first purchase, but generally the 100mph ness of some shots do spoil it, and its all down as you say to the engine behind it.

As for Full Ace, and of course Tennis Elbow 2013, these two games have the REAL ball physics on show, everything has side/top and or side/bottom spin on the ball, the flight arcs are so impressively depicted and the gameplay organically flows around that ball movement, rather than the ball have to "adapt" to scripted paths as per the others. Its little wonder that they both sadly have non-photo realistic players or even the engine to insert them, one day a game will appear with it all inclusive, as the great Mr Klopp would say...

Btw I think it was you years ago who stuck up for me and agreed with me re: the vastly overrated Top Spin 4 in terms of ball physics, when all the other posters were blinded by Federer moving smoothly across the court...

The main things I hated about GST2 were the movement and rally patterns - the player movement is so ridiculously fast that baseline winners are almost impossible, meaning that the vast majority of points end up with someone coming to the net, exacerbated by how quickly the player closes down the net with their crazy movement, and how much of a brick wall they become at the net when in position... It just has no resemblance to modern tennis whatsoever in how the points play out, and got very repetitive very quickly. A bit of side spin does not make up for that... Top Spin 3 despite it's bolt straight ball physics had vastly superior and more varied gameplay, especially online between two good players.

I am sure GST2 can look pretty nice in 4K though and it will be interesting to take a look at that.

I don't think TE2013 has real physics - the trajectories are scripted in a more realistic looking path than the other games, but it sounds like the developer is going to try to remedy that with the upcoming TE4... Quote from their provisional planning info on the forum;

More realism, you said ?
TE3 is based on the principle that basic random errors are annoying. This means that in some situations, the ball must pass the net no matter what.
This is why some accelerations can actually end looking like a dropshot. And if you're into realism, it is actually very shocking.
It's also why so few balls end in the net compared to real life tennis.
TE4 will at least partly drop this base, starting by the acceleration (so no more acceleration-dropshot

), and for extreme (and not so extreme) cases for other shots. It means if you play a difficult ball, it'll often have a chance to end in the net, and/or to end out.
So the rules for imprecision, loss of ball control & faults will be completely re-hauled and this will lead to more realistic variations of the ball trajectories.

 

[cricket_online]

Seen a few gameplay videos of Tennis World Tour and read some reviews, and am not buying the game in its current form. Unfortunate that tennis gaming is in such shape 7 years since Top spin 4 and I doubt there would be a decent Tennis game on current gen consoles. Sports gaming as a whole has taken a huge leap backwards on current gen consoles.

On previous gen (PS3, X360) there were plenty of games available for nearly every mainstream sport but looks like the cost of developing games on current gen has changed the situation drastically. EA has pulled out of golf and tennis and are focusing on team sports where they can cash on "ultimate team" virtual cards. 2K pulled the plug on tennis and lot of smaller devs moved to mobile gaming from developing games for consoles. Looks like the more advanced the gaming consoles (with virtual reality and all the added gizmos) the lesser the variety and supply for sports gaming fans.

 

['SideSpin' Dazzer]

The main things I hated about GST2 were the movement and rally patterns - the player movement is so ridiculously fast that baseline winners are almost impossible, meaning that the vast majority of points end up with someone coming to the net, exacerbated by how quickly the player closes down the net with their crazy movement, and how much of a brick wall they become at the net when in position... It just has no resemblance to modern tennis whatsoever in how the points play out, and got very repetitive very quickly. A bit of side spin does not make up for that... Top Spin 3 despite it's bolt straight ball physics had vastly superior and more varied gameplay, especially online between two good players.

I am sure GST2 can look pretty nice in 4K though and it will be interesting to take a look at that.

I'm not sure TE2013 has real physics, though the trajectories are scripted in a more realistic looking path than the other games, though it sounds like the developer is going to try to remedy that with the upcoming TE4... Quote from their provisional planning info the forum;


http://www.managames.com/Forum/topic15-19240.php?sid=85191787151abfef8389b07f1822aa5d

I've noticed that about the GST 2 rallies, yes, the guy at the net always wins the point, and the controller you use feels at breaking

Seen a few gameplay videos of Tennis World Tour and read some reviews, and am not buying the game in its current form. Unfortunate that tennis gaming is in such shape 7 years since Top spin 4 and I doubt there would be a decent Tennis game on current gen consoles. Sports gaming as a whole has taken a huge leap backwards on current gen consoles.

On previous gen (PS3, X360) there were plenty of games available for nearly every mainstream sport but looks like the cost of developing games on current gen has changed the situation drastically. EA has pulled out of golf and tennis and are focusing on team sports where they can cash on "ultimate team" virtual cards. 2K pulled the plug on tennis and lot of smaller devs moved to mobile gaming from developing games for consoles. Looks like the more advanced the gaming consoles (with virtual reality and all the added gizmos) the lesser the variety and supply for sports gaming fans.

Well thank god 2K pulled out of Tennis games, my comments above re: the fake Top Spin 4 that fooled everyone it seems, meant that was a good thing. Same developers allegedly coding TWT indicating why its such a shambles at the moment for other reasons as well as my sidespin comments about the sham that Top Spin 4 was.

Back in those days Virtua Tennis 4 was fine, as was Grand Slam Tennis 2, coders who actually understood ball physics, unlike 2K when it came to their Tennis franshise.

 

[Deleted member 9102]

Well thank god 2K pulled out of Tennis games, my comments above re: the fake Top Spin 4 that fooled everyone it seems, meant that was a good thing. Same developers allegedly coding TWT indicating why its such a shambles at the moment for other reasons as well as my sidespin comments about the sham that Top Spin 4 was.

Back in those days Virtua Tennis 4 was fine, as was Grand Slam Tennis 2, coders who actually understood ball physics, unlike 2K when it came to their Tennis franshise.

TWT is not by the same team as TS4... They let the media run with that story because it's good marketing and it seems everyone got fooled by it.

Read this;
https://www.reddit.com/r/tennisworldtour/comments/7ck6zr/breakpoint_studios_magic_pockets/

After the underwhelming Paris games week video, I've been trying to find out more information about Breakpoint Studios.

According to LinkedIn, Breakpoint Studios are located at 1 Promenade du Belvédère 77200. Magic Pockets are also located at the same address. Magic Pockets' most recent console games are Cartoon Network Battle Crashes, The Smurfs and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but back in 2006 they also worked on the Gameboy Advance version of Top Spin 2.

The line from the original press release - “an experienced team who previously worked on the Top Spin license” now makes more sense - they're talking about their work on Top Spin 2 GBA. But because the press release then launches straight into introducing former Top Spin 4 producer Pierre André, many news and blog posts have equated the Breakpoint team with Top Spin 4.

Pierre André is one of two credited with "game design" on TS4. He's been freelancing since 2K Czech went down and isn't a permanent part of the Breakpoint team, he's a consultant. The other TS4 game designer, Jean-Karl Tupin-Bron went to Ubisoft.

Maybe I'm being cynical but it sure looks like Magic Pockets have rebranded themselves as Breakpoint, ambiguously referenced their 2006 Gameboy Top Spin 2 work and then hired a freelancer with links to Top Spin 4 so they can promote Tennis World Tour as "a spiritual successor to Top Spin 4". That's pretty good marketing.

When you add in the fact that Big Ben is a company who has been involved with a number of heavily licensed but ultimately very poor sports games (their newest game "Rugby 18" has received poor reviews) I'm become really despondent about this. I hope to be proven wrong.

 

[cricket_online]

Well thank god 2K pulled out of Tennis games, my comments above re: the fake Top Spin 4 that fooled everyone it seems, meant that was a good thing. Same developers allegedly coding TWT indicating why its such a shambles at the moment for other reasons as well as my sidespin comments about the sham that Top Spin 4 was.

Back in those days Virtua Tennis 4 was fine, as was Grand Slam Tennis 2, coders who actually understood ball physics, unlike 2K when it came to their Tennis franshise.

No half-decent tennis game on consoles is a result of 2K pulling the plug on tennis gaming. Top Spin 4 was the best tennis game I've played - with or without side spin. Every player played differently. Andy Murray with his poison slices was a beast. Same with Nadal on clay court or Djokovich. You had to change your style to beat the opponents and you felt the difference playing on different courts. You could play more aggressively on grass or occasionally on hard courts but had to change tactics on clay - it wasn't a case of a red or green colored surface which essentially played the same. Serving with analog stick was fun with right amount of risk & reward.

No console game before or since TS4 has come close to nailing the tennis experience on a console. Stamina really was a key and you had to sometimes give up on a point to conserve your stamina if you were going up against someone like Nadal. Don't recall any other game nailing that aspect of the game either. There's a reason why TS4 is the gold standard for console tennis gaming and is rated highly coz it came the closest to nailing tennis as a sport - with or without side spin.

 

[Deleted member 9102]

and is rated highly coz it came the closest to nailing tennis as a sport

Full Ace and Tennis Elbow come much closer, as does TS3 for many reasons we've already discussed.

I'm glad you enjoy TS4 and find it a fun game to play... But please let's not pretend it's some sort of realistic simulation of the sport.