GamerObserver

A while back you can see my review of Topspin 2k25. I gave the game a 7 out of 10. Now here’s my review of Tiebreak Tennis, the only competitor to the Topspin games. Best way I can compare the two is everything Topspin does right Tiebreak does wrong and everything Tiebreak does right Topspin does wrong. This game has so much potential to be the best tennis simulation game ever made. To start off, the roster in Tiebreak is very impressive and I have no complaints there. It’s the biggest roster we have ever seen in a tennis game. The serve animations are somewhat pretty accurate to their real life counterparts. The graphics I would say is not the best to modern game standards but it’s not the worst I’ve seen, it is definitely better than Topspin 2k25. But that’s pretty much where the positives end for me. The biggest problem with this game is the on court rallies are not consistent at all and are so dull/short as compared to Topspin, where it thrives in that game. The player movements and ball physics are lacking heavily. Hitting the ball literally feels like hitting a ping pong ball, I can’t explain it it just feels so floaty and airy. The ball has no weight to it and doesn’t feel impactful or punchy at all. They really need to add controller vibrations every time you hit the ball not sure why they didn’t add this. That alone would make hitting the ball somewhat better. And let’s get into the ridiculously frustrating flat shot, I have never seen a tennis game where the flat shot hits the net almost every time, like I’m talking 90% of the time. Not a lot of other reviewers have mentioned this, but choosing the flat shot is completely broken. The game forces you to have to use the topspin shot choice every time as it’s the only one that’s consistent. Why is that Big Ant Studios? This is such a common shot in the real world of tennis. Sure the slice usually goes over the net in this game, but I’m the kind of player that likes using flat shots and in this game it’s terrible. Stadiums are lacking personality and just doesn’t feel alive. Not sure why some stadiums have several line judges and then others none at all. Another thing to note is some players in the game have several outfits and others not many at all, like why does Nadal only have 1 outfit? If I want to emulate a Wimbledon match in the game I want both players to be wearing all white uniforms. You cannot do that in this game as Nadal only has one colored outfit. It should be a requirement that every player has an all white variation. The ball boys/girls within matches never pick up the ball after each point, if corrected it would be a nice touch. After every point the player and npc just stand there awkwardly for 2 seconds which needs to be fixed. In AO Tennis 1 & 2, the game lets you challenge calls which I liked, not sure why Tiebreak decided to remove this feature, it would just give the game more depth. Also the sound design for hitting the ball just doesn’t sound accurate or right to me, when the ball comes off the racket it sounds way too high pitched, I believe Topspin and the AO Tennis games sounded more realistic. All in all, this game is fair at best, I can see the massive potential it has though. If Big Ant Studios is reading this review and continuously updates the game and fixes all the issues I mentioned this could be the best tennis simulation experience on consoles.

As a hard core tennis fan that has played many tennis games across the board of all generations, where do I even begin with this game. To start off the actual on court gameplay rallies are great and hitting the ball feels impactful. It is basically a Top Spin 4 remake, which is fine like the old saying if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. They got a lot of venues which is good like all the Grand Slam Tournaments, all of the ATP 1000 Events, and many more beautiful stadiums. The presentation of them is accurate. But now lets get into the negatives as that is more important, graphics are easily a whole generation behind which isn’t a dealbreaker as gameplay is the key element but the fact that the game is heavily lacking in gameplay features and modes is beyond me. First off, some of the character models look embarrassing like Murray, Sampras, and Alcaraz as they look nothing like them in real life. Plus these grunting sounds that almost every player makes just sounds so off and is cringe. That has got to go and get fixed. Another thing is every player has only 2 outfits, 1 being their regular and the other all-white they should add more outfits per player in the game. This is more of a minor issue but the scoreboard interface within the match doesn’t look professional or realistic to me, in real life most of the time the scoreboard will show the players full name and country flag next to it. For example in this game when playing as Federer within the match it just shows FED and no country flag on the scoreboard it doesn’t look as nice. Biggest issue with this game is the lack of male athletes, sure this game has Roger Federer who is my all-time favorite tennis player but why doesn’t this game have Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Bjorn Bjorg, Jimmy Connors, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Casper Ruud, Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev? The list goes on and on, I don’t know what were they thinking. So many missed players. Take a look at Tennis World Tour 2 that game has a great roster despite the overall game not being so good. Also I should be able to challenge shots within matches not sure why this isn’t in the game, the AO Tennis video games have this feature. Also there is no offline tournaments to be played as the game forces you to play MyCareer but not everyone wants to do that. In MyCareer every trophy looks the same in every grand slam tournament if you win it, lazy development if you ask me, where is the passion put into that? All in all the game is a 7.5 out of 10 realistically but has so much more potential I do like the game the on court gameplay saves it but if they fix all these other issues within the game it can easily jump up in score. In the meantime if you’re looking for the best tennis games to play go back and play Mario Tennis for N64 for pure fun or Top Spin 4 as it still remains the goat for tennis simulation games. 2K and Hangar 13 if you are reading this take some notes.