Dear 2K,

[DRII]

I agree with you maderer. Bottom line is, tennis is not a main stream video game sport. Sadly, but a lot of casual players while enjoy playing it outdoors, just don't find it fun to play it virtually. This type of "fun" reserved mainly for more serious fans. Hence the demand for realism and a degree of difficulty and depth.

None of the tennis games on the market today crossed or even got close to a Million sales. TS3 was on track and sold the most. I was in the same boat with the developers, thinking that an easier approach game might bring more people, but it appears to be a wrong school of thought. If anything, they need to add more complexity while attempting to not over complicate.

I would say that two modes of game play, one for beginner - more forgiving and one for a Pro - hard core.., would be the way to go, but the more I think about it, the more I think this will not be hours well spent. The hours would be better invested into having a better depth within the game.

While 2Ks bold attempts to almost totally change the game from installment to installment are admirable, I think that once you do get a decent product, you need to stick with it and improve that slowly.

They should have stayed with TS3 concept and developed it further. Slightly changing things around. It would have cost less money, money that could be spent elsewhere (take your pick).

The only hope we have is that TS5 will be another drastic change....and for the better. But by the looks of the sales figures, the management at 2K will need some very clever convincing to even allow another TS project see any light. Lets hope EA GST2 will be a solid product, competition always makes for better products.

Absolutely agree with just about everything you've said here.

But...

If EA Grand Slam Tennis 2 is a great game and puts TS4 in the ditch (where it belongs IMO), will there perhaps be an ITST tour for it?

[DRII]

Top spin 4 is way more realistic than ts3.. Just if they exclude control shots and some unrealistic angles then this game is very much realistic in regard of different playstyles and setups.. If 2k makes the possibility of more unforced and forced errors in this game like (if you hit a shot with "too soon" timings then it should be an error by hitting the net) and ( if you hit a shot with too late" timings then it should go out of the court) everytime then this game would be very much realistic.. In ts3 rallies might be possible but only for great players not for all.. Risk shots resemble in real life tennis only if you try to hit a return ace on your opponents service.. But if we look at rallies in real life then ts4 represents more realism...

You state so many 'ifs' here, that it makes TS4 being realistic (let alone being good) a pure hypothetical!

Also, you omitted the most significant flaw with TS4; the horrible movement!!!

2K has improved the shot dynamics, but the computer controlled/assisted movement is a disgrace...

[edlglide]

I wish TS games were just like almost every other sports game...where, instead of COMPLETELY revamping the game for every new installation, they pretty much stay with the same game engine from year-to-year, and make only minor changes (AS NEEDED) to improve it.

I hate having to learn a new system for each game...IMO they almost had it perfect with TS2, it just needed a few tweaks to make it more 'realistic' and maybe more balanced....instead TS3 was a completely different game. Completely different graphics engine, completely different controls, completely different 'feel' to it....funk dat

There are positives and negatives to this -- EA's NCAA Football has been using the same engine for like 10 years now, and it's at the point where they need to start over from scratch because significant parts of the gameplay are completely broken and have been for ages, and apparently they just can't fix it with the current engine. Plus it seems like when they do fix something, they end up creating some other problem. I always really enjoy NCAA for a couple of weeks, then start noticing all the massive problems....most of which have been around for years.

[jayl0ve]

Well you gotta update the engine at least every 10 years

What about NCAA is broken though, I'm just curious. I've never played a football game online I would be curious to see what kind of stupid crap people do online.

[edlglide]

Well you gotta update the engine at least every 10 years

What about NCAA is broken though, I'm just curious. I've never played a football game online I would be curious to see what kind of stupid crap people do online.

I'm not even talking about online -- I never play online either. I know at one point there was some thing you could do where you could blitz and get to the QB in like a second and sack him on almost every play, because I read about that...don't know if that was fixed or not.

The major thing that is broken, at least to me, is the way players play the ball in the air. Basically pass coverage in general. You can't throw the ball over the middle to a WR 30 yards downfield if there is an MLB there, because he will somehow jump up and catch it 5 yards from the line of scrimmage even though in real life that would mean he had like a 9 foot vertical. You also can't do things like throw back shoulder passes, or even throw jump balls -- generally the WRs will just keep running or stand there and let the CB intercept it. Also, your WR can have 2-3 steps on a CB, and you throw a perfect pass, then suddenly the CB explodes past the WR and intercepts it. There are way more problems than that, but the whole pass coverage thing is the one that bothers me the most.

I can still get realistic passing stats, but it's because I know there are certain throws that work in real life that you cannot do on the game. You can't throw a streak to a guy who's in single coverage man to man unless he is just absolutely wide open -- otherwise the CB will intercept it at least 75% of the time, even though in real life the WR will almost always win that matchup. I have to play to the game and what the game lets you do rather than doing what you'd see teams do in real football.

It also seems like the CPU just knows what play you called 50% of the time -- like you run an option play and the whole team swarms to the ball and doesn't even cover WRs, then you run a pass from the same formation and the whole team drops back into coverage.

EDIT: Actually I have played it online because I'm in an online dynasty...so I've only played against people that actually try to play real football instead of taking advantage of glitches. In those games, it's essentially impossible to play defense...whichever team gets a turnover first or gets lucky because a WR dropped a pass on 3rd down is going to win the game.

[Dark-Disaster]

If you eliminate the insanely consistent angles and make it harder to execute a shot, then you already have a much more realistic game.