TopSpin 2K25 | Review

It has been nearly 13 years since we have had an entry in the TopSpin series.  Hangar 13 has brought it back with TopSpin 2K25, a simulation-focused Tennis game with almost no content.  Retailing at $70 I am dumbfounded at how little there is to do in this game outside of a basic exhibition match.  In typical 2K fashion, most of the game’s progression is tied to paid cosmetic microtransactions.  If you can’t tell, I’m massively disappointed.  While it’s not all bad, most of it is.

TopSpin

Tennis was an ever-present part of my childhood.  We always had rackets and would occasionally walk down a few miles to the local courts where we’d absolutely suck, but have a lot of fun.  TopSpin 2K25 looks to recreate none of the fun of tennis, focusing instead on a weirdly robotic take on the sport.  The game has a decent roster of men and women stars of today and times past.  Some of the models look great, like Serena Williams.  Others, like Pete Sampras, look nothing like their real-life counterparts.  All of them though look like weird robot people who never properly emote and just stare blankly ahead in a weirdly unsettling way.

Roster-wise we have:

There are some big names missing from previous entries but 2K has promised more will be added post-launch.  Progression comes in two forms.  First is your MyCareer player, who has a leveling system tied to experience points.  It’s typically egregious 2K in that your VC coin consumables are needed if you want to reset attribute points and more.  The other is a number of season passes planned for post-release.  These are entirely cosmetic and pushed hard because this game really doesn’t have much else to do.

Modes

For modes we have

• TopSpin Academy
• Exhibition
• MyCareer
• Online Exhibition
• Online Tournaments
• Online Ranked

That’s pretty much it, and it’s massively disappointing.  TopSpin 2K25 feels like a first-generation Apple product, and we’re paid beta testers.  If this game was meant to be a platform with more added to it over time I’d have hope that more will be added to this version.  Having 2K25 at the end though means it’s more likely than not that it becomes annualized and things like a proper career, grand slam, or tournament modes not tied to online may never be a thing.

On the Court

Any misgivings I have about the game’s setup could be overlooked if the on the court action was an ace.  Sadly, it’s very much not.  Movement is both stiff and too loose.  Most of the time your character barely moves, then randomly they’ll drift halfway across the screen at the tiniest flick of the analog stick.  Being Tennis, things are going to feel a bit repetitive. The game’s biggest sin was the number of times I hit one of the face buttons, each assigned to its own shot type, and my character simply refused to swing.

TopSpin 2K25 is all about positioning, and I would make sure my character was in the right spot to hit the ball.  After pressing A for a power shot, nothing happened.  There is a meter that comes up above your head as you go for a shot, and you want to let go just as it ticks into the green on the far right.  It’s a fun system at first, though it becomes distracting to have to always look at the meter instead of the court.  Far too often I would press a shot button, wait for the meter to come up, and nothing happened.  It was a constant issue, at least 4 or 5 times a match where I knew I was in a good position to return a volley yet my character never attempted to hit the ball.

Every action feels robot and tied to the game’s excellent animations.  There’s no fudging of things behind the scenes.  Animations must end, momentum must be maintained, and if the game has determined that your “good” timing should result in a shot that goes out it just will.  Much like the early NBA 2K games I found a rhythm in exactly how to easily beat the computer in singles matches in roughly 5 minutes.  Hit a serve with X in this spot, then return with a power shot to the right and… I win!  AI in Tennis games only goes so far, and the game does have more online modes than it does offline.  Its biggest sin there is the lack of playing against a friend at launch, that’s right, there’s only matchmaking!  Again it feels like we are beta testers for a product that isn’t ready for prime-time.

Presentation and MTX

Graphically the game looks damned good most of the time.  Character models are of generally high quality, except for Pete Sampras who looks nothing like his real self.  All of that character fidelity is lost in the game’s cutscenes where everyone’s face just stares blankly forward, looking fresh out of a lobotomy.  It’s the most uncanny valley thing when Serena Williams, fresh off of smashing a 100mph ace vacantly stares across the court with a bit of a smile on her face, like she just had half her brain removed with an ice cream scoop.

The animations are excellent, matching players’ styles, though they do dictate how the game feels to play.  I would have sacrificed some fidelity so that I felt like I had more control.  The courts look great, though the crowd is pretty bad.  You get a lot of the same models standing next to each other, with some truly awful-looking hair in comparison to the pros.  The game goes for a TV-style presentation with lots of cuts to the crowd, and seeing the same female face with a few hairstyles all standing next to each other got old, real quick.

MyCareer has a “podcast” that rambles on every time you’re in a menu, and it’s terrible.  It feels like at most points this game had a shoestring budget, either that or John McEnroe’s “TopSpin Academy” voiceover ate it all up.  He’ll walk you through the basics of the sport and it’s a decent tutorial for beginners.  The biggest issue I have with the game is how deeply tied any sense of “progression” is to the season pass system.  They gave us their super duper fancy $120 version for review, and I think this game shouldn’t cost more than $30.  With the lack of modes, players, etc. it feels like a slap in the face that so much of the “content” on offer are cosmetics tied to microtransactions and DLC.

Wrapping Things Up

TopSpin 2K25 is a massive disappointment.  Feeling more like beta software, with a lack of modes, players, and fun. I cannot recommend this one at the egregious $70 price point.

TopSpin 2K25

Played on

Xbox Series X

PROS

• Pro Character Models
• Animations

CONS

• MTX focus
• Lack of Modes
• Crowds
• “Podcasts”
• Not Fun

5.0 out of 10

AVERAGE

XboxEra Scoring Policy

Available on

Xbox Series | Xbox One | PlayStation 4 | PlayStation 5 | Windows PC | Steam

Developer

Hangar 13

Released on

April 26, 2024

Publisher

2K

Rated

Everyone

Price

$69.99, $99.99, $119.99 USD

See on the Xbox Store