It has finally happened. The last remaining reason for me being able to let go of my Dreamcast has arrived. First it was Soul Calibur 2, and now the spiritual successor to Virtua Tennis! The anticipation of Top Spin's release was the final nail in the coffin for my Dreamcast I'm afraid. Sega's Virtua Tennis, while being a pretty simple game with basic controls, was just so damn addictive that I couldn't let it go. Well I'm here to reassure Dreamcast owners that it is finally time to move on and stop living in the past. With Top Spin now available, there is no need to hang onto your beloved Dreamcast's any longer. Saying that, there's also probably no reason now why anyone would want to buy it off you!

Microsoft are definitely pulling out all the stops this Christmas with a huge variety of AAA titles, and with Crimson Skies, NFL Fever 2004, the upcoming Project Gotham Racing 2, Amped 2 and the release of Top Spin'well there is something for everyone's Christmas stocking this year. The only trick will be being good enough so that Santa brings them all!

Top Spin is a tennis game, but before the sighs of 'well duh' escape your lips or your mind conjures up images of Top Spin just being 'Pong' for a new millennium, rest assured that this isn't the case. Top Spin is a deep, hard to master yet easy to get into graphically excellent title that deserves a look in by every Xbox owner. To be blunt though, if you don't like tennis, then you probably won't like this game. There, I've said it! If all Tennis means to you is a ball going backwards and forwards over a net then you should probably take a look elsewhere'but if you do, promise me that you will at least rent Top Spin just so you can check out one of the most polished games yet to come out for the Xbox.

Everything in Top Spin from the menus to the in game graphics has been tweaked to perfection and the presentation is absolutely first class. The menus are easy to navigate, and even areas of the presentation that could have been overlooked in favour of more important details have not suffered from less attention, and all still feature the same high quality that is present throughout the game. An example is the world map during the career mode, the graphics here are clean and detailed at the same time, no easy feat! The stadiums are all highly detailed and many are almost photo realistic. The crowd is another standout feature as there's no standard flat, 2d crowd here with 3 frames of animation that sadly is still the standard in a lot of other sports games, the crowd in Top Spin is all polygon based and while not highly detailed, from a distance look far superior to just about every other sports game doing the rounds.

The courts themselves look top notch with the grass courts featuring some detailed grass textures and art work. The hard and grass courts look good and the clay courts look great as well. The one thing that you notice is the sound effects from the players feet all vary depending on the surface, hardcourts feature the soft 'squeek squeek' from the players shoes that then go on to leave slide marks in the clay courts. The ambient sounds do a great job with your crowd noises, cheering and clapping all sounding clear and crisp. There isn't any commentary but the umpire reads out the scores after each point, not always in English either as your career takes you all around the globe.

The highlight of the game has to be the truly amazing character detail and animation. The Lleyton Hewitt player model ranks up there as one of the most realistic game renditions of an actual person to date. Sure, the face may not be perfect, but his animations, both while playing and the 'attitude' animations have just about nailed his mannerisms. There's a handful of other real life players available in the game as well, there's Pete Sampras, Michael Chang, James Blake as well as some of the ladies such as Martina Hingis, Daniela Hantuchova, and of course Anna Kournikova. All up 16 real players are featured, but unless you are a total tennis buff, you probably haven't heard of them all. It would have been good to see some more top name current players or even some past players such as Pat Rafter, Boris Becker, John McEnroe or Mark Philippoussis in the game, but we can't have everything I guess.

No matter though, as all the players look great and more importantly, move very realistically and feature excellent animation that is amongst the smoothest yet seen. And if the list of supplied players doesn't grab you, there's always the player create mode, and if you want to get into the main part of the game, the Career mode, then you have to create one anyway. If I had to throw one complaint at the animations, its that the Lines People don't move out of the way when the ball comes flying at them. In Virtua Tennis, they did a snazzy little dodge move which is sadly missing from Top Spin.

In the 'player create' area you first select the gender of your player and then you get to pick from a selection of DNA samples that will give your player a set skin colour and appearance. If you don't like what you receive it can always be adjusted anyway. The player create mode in Top Spin rivals the ones seen in many Wrestling games and in many ways even surpasses them. Everything from the eye colour, nose and chin length, eyebrows, cheek shape to lip size can be adjusted in real time right before your eyes. It's possible to come up with some really hideous looking freaks of nature, or opt for something more subtle or even try and create yourself. The one thing I would have liked to have seen in the face editing is hair length. You can choose from plenty of styles and edit the colour, but something snazzy like a 'hair length' option would have been cool. No matter though as the possibilities with what's provided are almost endless anyway.

Best of all, you can take your created player online against strangers or your friends on Xbox Live and show him or her off to the world. But before you do, I recommend going through the Career mode and trying to get your ranking as high as possible. Not because your single player ranking means anything online (it doesn't), but playing against the A.I and against real people is totally different and you will really need to hone those skills for when you play online. Luckily the career mode has many tournaments and mini training games for you to practice your moves.

Featuring every continent on the globe, your goal is to become the number 1 ranked tennis player in the world. You can jet about (for free) and seek training and sponsors as well as play in tournaments world wide. Unfortunately, this is where a few issues in Top Spin start to become noticeable. When you enter a tournament, you are already in the quarter finals, so you are only 3 victorious matches away from winning any given tournament. This has obviously been done to speed the game up, but for gamers that want to play through complete tournaments the option should have been there for them. It's probably just as well that there are only three games in the tournaments though, as for some reason you cant save your progress at all during the tournaments! Once you commit yourself, you have to finish it off or start over again if something interrupts your game. With a massive 8gig hard drive sitting in everyone's Xbox, I'm pretty disappointed that you can't save wherever you like.

As you progress through the Career mode you get to pick from sponsors and as you complete their tasks and win matches, you get freebies in the shape of new clothing. My character is sponsored by Oakley and struts around in some pretty swank looking 'Snake' shoes, Oakley sunnies and a pretty trendy pair of shorts topped off with a ultra cool bright red shirt. The only gripe here is that you approach the sponsors. It would have been good to see them approach you as your reputation and ranking grows and offer you deals to try and sway you from one sponsor to another. This would have helped create a larger sense of achievement and been a pretty good reward, just to reassure you that you are becoming famous. Sure, the player ranking system does this, but the sponsor system could have been handled a little bit better.

During your career you win money from winning tournaments and this can be then spent on even more clothing, haircuts or training to improve the skills of your player. Coaches of varying skills and price can be found around the globe and you can choose what skills you would like to improve. You only get 14 skill stars to allocate amongst your serve, forehand and other attributes so allocate them and spend your money wisely.

Topping off the great graphics and presentation are some pretty easy to get into controls as well. You simply use the left stick to run around, the A button does a normal safe shot, X does a slice, B does a top spin and Y does a lob. If you're feeling confident you can use the L trigger to do a drop shot or the R trigger to go for a big power shot. The trigger moves are called 'risk shots' and it's easy to see why as it is very easy to ruin your shot. Your timing must be absolutely spot on to pull these shots off properly, so it's lucky that you get a little help from the 'in the zone' metre on the top of the screen. Succeed with a few great moves and your metre will fill up making the risk shots easier to pull off, but as with the real deal, there are no guarantees. If your aim is still off, these special shots can still go out, throwing away a valuable point at a potentially game-breaking time.

The controls feel precise, and once you get into it and start timing your shots and your back swing better, ripping those big cross court top spinners or down the line smashes becomes second nature. My only complaint is the lob shot, it's just about impossible to get back to it in time, and in multiplayer is already looked on as a 'cheap' move, but hey, whatever wins the game right?! The camera views are a 'zoomed back' isometric view that shows the whole court and also a 'close up' view that puts you down on the court behind the players back. There are only two views and it would have been good to see a third view perhaps, maybe just something close up but a touch above and behind the player about head high or a bit higher. This is a small complaint though as the two camera views do the job pretty well.