WorthPlaying: "2K Sports' Top Spin 3 for the Wii is proof positive that console sales numbers in the current generation are not the best determinant in going after total market coverage. Further, in the Wii Sports pack-in title, the inclusion of simple, fun and, back then, truly unique tennis and golf Wiimote-based games have unfortunately opened the door for a parade of Wii sports titles featuring anything you can swing. The foremost problem is that the Wii Sports game included with all Wii consoles is really the only Wii sports title to feature something akin to swinging; almost every other studio has created its own definition of what it means "to swing" a racquet, club, bat, two-by-four with a nail through it, or what have you.
There's actually some good reason for this. All slights about lazy, sofa-hugging gamers aside, gamers are indeed accustomed to settling down for play sessions relaxed in physical posture, if not in mind. If you have to move all the furniture in the living room and go through an upper-body workout not entirely unlike a real tennis match, just for two players to have a go at Top Spin 3 or any other racquet sport, you're going to lose a lot of buyers right there. Instead, we get numerous variations of motion, from hacking to slashing, to other sorts of things instructed by nebulous, confusing tutorials that read something like, Pull the Wii Remote back, then push it forward, then swing the Wii Remote down. Am I playing tennis or fending off a midnight burglar with a hastily grabbed kitchen knife?"
OPM: Thousands of Brits will be inspired to pick up a racket this week on the back of Andy Murray’s success at Wimbledon – but in this heat, and given our hand-eye co-co-ordination, we’ll be sticking to the virtual type. Looking to fill your week with some ace-smashing antics? Then join us in revisiting PlayStation’s finest tennis efforts…
Not really, most of those games were available on multiple platforms.
Just so happens that the PS magazine wrote the article so makes sense it would be 'Playstation's greatest games' :)
Gamepyre writes: "When Virtua Tennis 2009 first came out I was very excited about the game; I was so excited that I actually went and got it on release day.
Virtua Tennis 3 has been one of my favorite PSP games, and I could not wait to see what the 2009 Xbox 360 version of the game brought to the table. After playing the game, I was very disappointed in Virtua Tennis 2009; not because it was a bad game per say, but because it wasn't anything new from the previous release."
Another week and another episode of Distributed Failure is here for your listening pleasure. This week's "What They've Been Playing" features discussion on Top Spin 3, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, Fight Night Round 4, Battlefield 1943, Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, and much more! They follow that up with some gaming news including the latest update on EGM, the addition of prizes to 1 vs. 100, and the announcement of a new Mechwarrior game.
