So it’s not until about the 25th hour in that this trip’s magnitude hits me, and it hits me because after flying all the way from Sydney to Los Angeles then Los Angeles to Miami (which is already resting in the 20+ hour zone), we’re told there’s an electrical fault with the plane and the baggage bay doors won’t open. How does this situation offer up a glimpse of importance then? (Glad you asked.) I’m standing in dingy Miami airport, 2K Games chaperone and IGN AU competitor beside me (it was just the three of us); also having to deal with the exact waiting issue, but beside all three of us is none other than Lleyton Hewitt. I’m not the biggest overall sports fan in the world, but of any sport to admire, I really seem to dig tennis.

This is most likely because the required skill, athleticism and intelligence necessary also needs to be utilised in short, controlled bursts if the player is to last the potentially long stay on the court in any single match (or doubles, as the case may be). It’s a self-contained game that doesn’t go anywhere beyond the court, and you rarely see the players off the television or outside their oddly marked rectangle of play, let alone an airport.

So here we are all of us waiting for our luggage. Hewitt, a man who more than likely has more cash in his left pocket than I’ll see in my lifetime, has to deal with the same issue, wait in the same crummy airport and look and feel just as tired as the rest of us. There’s nothing that ultimately makes him a different human being to me, which is grounding, but by the same token, his mere presence is proof enough alone that tennis is an important game; one you need to be willing to travel around the globe for and deal with all kinds of shit for.

I’m here for tennis – just as Hewitt is. Only this is a different kind of tennis, the tennis where I won’t get sweaty or tired (lest it’s past my bedtime) and the required skill is whittled down to reaction time and a fraction of the intelligence needed for the real thing. You see, 2K Games have brought us all the way out here to look at Top Spin 3, and it just so happens the Miami Open is on at the same time. Coincidence? Not really. Good planning then? You bet.

So what’s so important about Top Spin 3 2K Games would feel the need to fly two Aussie journos to a prestigious event like the Miami Open? It is just a tennis game after all. Right?

Wrong.

Truth be told, 2K Games and developer PAM have worked tirelessly to create the ultimate sporting game, from the intricacies of the titles’ online features (across PS3 and Xbox 360), to the steep (and deep) learning curve; Top Spin 3 is their statement to the videogame sports world. A thrown gauntlet to the likes of EA who have dominated the field (sans tennis, but bear with me) for decades – a statement that reads 2K Sports is not a half-assed subsidiary of 2K Games, but rather the other end of the spectrum, the rock star – if you will – of the videogame sports playing field and Top Spin 3, for all its obligatory professionalism in aesthetics and presentation, is deep down inside 2K Sports’ rogue rocker – the kid who won’t play by the rules, but is happy to reinvent them.

“We’re definitely sim,” explains the game’s producer from 2K Games, Anthony DeLuca. “It’s more about understanding the game – what tennis is: how you position yourself, what types of shots you use and timing which all really obviously means we’re not an arcade game – though they [arcade-style games] have their place – but I really like what we did as far as the controls go here, you know people can pick it up and feel it’s easy to play, but also making it in-depth enough for the hardcore fans they don’t feel cheated.”

This was the biggest concern for me, because despite what DeLuca was saying, the short time I had with the game on the ground in Miami told a different story. It wasn’t easy to pick up and play, in fact it was frustratingly hard. We weren’t sure if it was just broken preview code, our non 733t skillz or plain bad design – what was certain however, was this was not the promised pick-up-and-play accessible title.

Thankfully having had the game at the AusGamers office for the better part of the last week has meant nutting out just how it all plays out. It is accessible, but only after you understand the fundamentals of the game’s controls.

Top Spin 3 is not Virtua Tennis or Mario Tennis, it’s its own entity - the rogue rocker I metaphored before. In this sense, as DeLuca himself said, it’s all about how you hit the ball; your positioning, your shot choice and how long you time your button depression all go into a single shot – which, on paper doesn’t sound overly pick-up-and-play, and to a degree isn’t. But it really doesn’t take too long to work out once you understand this, and after coming to grips with position, shot and timing, you’ll be rallying it up with the best of them in no time.

To this end, the term “accessible” is used a bit too liberally to explain Top Spin 3. “We’re definitely sim,” was DeLuca’s own choice of words, and with those words we should have realised the game was never going to be Wii Tennis pick-up-and-play, but he did, at the event, go on to explain how the game can open up for players through some of the new additions to the series.

“2K Sports did a big marketing research thing where we found one of the things the players really wanted was a tutorial,” DeLuca pointed out in Miami. “And not just a screen with a button layout or a game manual, they wanted a fully interactive on-screen tutorial mode. So for those new players they can go into the Top Spin School (the name of the tutorial mode) and if they’re having trouble they can learn to volley, to lob how to serve properly and pretty much anything in the game is here. So there’s a very interactive tutorial for anyone having problems and they can just go in and really hold their hand.”

So maybe PAM and 2K Sports were caught up in their own hyperbole, but I digress.

Having a deep tutorial mode though is a massive step in the right direction, and as I mentioned before, having had the game for the past week, Top Spin School has more than served it’s purpose (c’mon, I couldn’t resist).

Learning the fundamentals will get you in position to advance. Moreover, as a sim game, Exhibition mode is not always going to be the best place to start (something else I learnt in Miami), because where Top Spin 3 shines is in its intricate depth, and for anyone who has played this series before and felt that it was only *just* hinging on greatness, never quite reaching the desired plateau, you’re going to be pleasantly surprised thanks to the aforementioned new mechanics and an excellent manifest of new features.

Aside from removing elements such as power-meters for serves (and the like) and replacing most visual cues with animations (to liven up the tennis experience) as well as the addition of a deep tutorial mode, Top Spin 3 also comes with an impressive list of new features. Visual implementations include all-new facial animations as well as reworked physical animations mimicked off real-life players. Characters also now grow hot and sweaty as matches progress – you can see sweat patches forming under arms, across backs and chest, while an on-screen heart monitor represents player fatigue.

There’s also an impressive list of players for Top Spin 3, the likes of which include Maria Sharapova, Gael Monfils, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Andy Roddick, James Blake, Roger Federer and more. On top of current players, three legends have been included this time around including Monica Seles, Bjorn Borg and the legendary Boris Becker. There was no word as to whether there were even more classic characters hidden away as unlockables, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

There are also more than 40 different stadiums and locations to play at as well as a number of key grand slams (including the Australian Open). Each one of the real-life locations has been painstakingly recreated with all the correct elements (including climate). Lighting and weather also play an important part in the overall visual make-up of the game, while PAM has been uber creative in the realm of fantasy courts that truly come to life. As you would expect there’s an impressive number of varying surfaces to play on, from slippery clay to worn out grass, indoors, outdoors and beyond. The final most impressive new feature, however, goes far beyond revamped visuals and player inclusions.

The online portion of Top Spin 3 is by far the most ambitious. Here, across PS3 and Xbox 360, players will compete in tournaments as you would expect a game of this nature to offer, however, the progression of this, and subsequent bragging rights to, have been utterly retooled.

We’re talking about a two-week cycle for tournaments as well as a match-making system that sees you only facing off against other opponents at your level. What this does is remove the massive leaderboard lists that are oh-so-scary in number and scope and replaces them with realistically achievable goals. If you progress to the French Open, the player you face there has also progressed to the French Open – you’ll never be playing someone who has defeated everything the game has to offer if you, yourself, have only beaten a handful of matches. Equally, having a 14-day system for tournaments means you never really miss out on making your mark.

Of course there are a number of different online game-modes to play with, meaning you ultimately don’t have to take part in the more hardcore tournament aspect of online multiplayer (there are also Quickmatches and the like to choose from).

Having such extensive access to the development team while in Miami meant getting my head around my initial qualms, because if there’s one thing I garnered from the event, it’s that both 2K Sports and PAM are incredibly proud of what they’ve put together here. Initially Top Spin 3 just wasn’t the experience I wanted, but the team’s enthusiasm for their product forced me to really dig in, and the final result was a tennis experience more than worth it. The depth involved in general gameplay is utterly cavernous – spending a few solid months with this game will make you an instant pro, so good your friends will likely never want to play you again, on the other-hand, this level of player achievement is available to anyone willing to go to Top Spin School making it less of an ill-balanced affair.

Moving your player (whom you can create in an extensive character-creation mode) to the online experience is then the icing on the cake, and while we didn’t get a chance to look at this mode as of yet, everything PAM revealed about it makes it one of the more enticing factors of the game (well, that and bringing Boris out of retirement). Stay tuned next month closer to release for our full in-depth review.