Some tennis stuff

Bloody fuck. Tooch-ache arrives. Now more money needed to spend on rip-off NHS dentists. What I really need now is one of those Cannabis ice-tea.

Anyway, am looking forward to today's Wimbledon ladies' finals between Amelie Mauresmo and Justine Henin-Hardenne. I will be supporting Mauresmo of course but common sense meant that I think that Henin-Hardenne will win. We will see. Similar with the gentlemens' finals, I will be rooting for Rafael Nadal because we need a new Wimbledon champion. But I still think Roger Federer will emerge with his fourth title this Sunday.

Continuing with tennis, the day before queuing for Wimbledon we brought our DS Lite consoles to hack away time. We weren't going to be drinking lots and lots of alcohol like our front neighbuor did (I counted about 30 500mm cans of beers). So what did I get? Top Spin 2.

There has been a lot of criticism of Top Spin 2 for DS. The main thing that seems to irk reviewers was the frame rate issue. Having now given it a go I agree that the frame rate was a negative, but I don't think it really matters much. The framerate isn't that bad and the loading time, while slow, was comparable to fixed console loading times. The graphics on the other hand are impressive with full 3D graphics during play. Player animations are fluid and realistic.

There are sixteen licensed real world players, including Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova, each having their own unique facial built, clothings and statistics. Some even had built-in grunts in them. Playing as Sharapova for example would have her grunting anytime you hit the ball at a certain pace. Some of the locations are licensed as well and Wimbledon even had its official name there. Having been to Centre Court I can honestly say that the developers has recreated the arena pretty well. Occasionally people will shout encouragement too. This is the kind of details that I loved.

Top Spin 2 is quite simple an underrated game that should have been given a chance. I do hope they resolve the framerate issue for the next version (as well as implementing WiFi multiplayer like the Xbox 1.5 version). but I am quite content with this version. If this were a review I would have given the game a 6.5/10.

Now something about the World Cup. Who here is fed-up with the ongoing hate campaign with some Portugal winger? Sure that guy is a diver but seriously if a player in the team you are supporting dives you wouldn't be complaining now would you? Michael Owen does. Thierry Henry does. And Shrek does. So get over it.

Technorati tags: Tennis Wimbledon 2006 Top Spin 2 Nintendo DS