The lack of a create a player mode, or proper career mode takes away pretty much any incentive to play the game outside of just seeing what all of these new-fangled controls are all about. Once more, given that you can't change the statistics of the players you do choose, there's no reward for winning and no risk for losing outside of a sense of personal triumph or tragedy. Being able to create a player and bring our lowly player from the obscurity of the amateur circuit, all the way to the glory of the world stage allows us to feel as if we have come close to what the pros feel. Simply moving Federer or Sharapova around the court, or winning and losing with them, is not nearly as immersive or entertaining as creating someone from scratch and tweaking them to our liking.

There are minigames to play with other people, but they're not terribly interesting, consisting of a singles and doubles version of the same "Keys" games where players are given keys based on varying metrics gathered after they've played a match, with the most keys designating the winner. There's also an Invincible Man style tourney where up to four players play three point matches against each other, using the CPU to fill in any non-human slots, with the first person to win three matches being the winner.

There's also a multiplayer mode that supports up to four people in non split screen play. This mode is impressive to watch and play, however it does require the player represented by the character at the top of the screen to be able to rectify the fact that they're staring face to face with their player and aim their shots accordingly. This mode may be useful to settle those "what if" doubles matches arguments, but good luck finding enough floor space to allow four adults to swing around as much as they'll need to when playing this game, without someone going to the ER with a broken nose.

Graphically, the game is a mixed bag with player animations looking nice, but crowds and settings looking sparse and lifeless. Sound is equally uninteresting, providing the bare minimum of what you'd need in a tennis experience. It's as if the majority of time was spent shoring up the controls, a noble effort, but one ultimately hurt by the lack of polish in the rest of the game. That statement pretty much sums up Top Spin 3 for the Wii. The controls are great, but the rest of the game is lacking in so many areas, that there's no point in spending more than rental money on it.

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