AgtFox
06-19-2009, 06:10 AM
Grand Slam Tennis Review
Title: Grand Slam Tennishttp://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=9631
Platform: Wii
Developer: Electronic Arts Canada (http://www.ea.com)
Publisher: Electronic Arts Sports (http://www.easports.com/)
ESRB: Everyone
MSRP: $49.99 (http://www.amazon.com/SPORTS-Grand-Slam-Tennis-Nintendo-Wii/dp/B001U2BMH2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1245357586&sr=8-1), $19.99 (http://www.amazon.com/Wii-MotionPlus-Nintendo/dp/B001TOQ8NO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1245357586&sr=8-2) (Wii MotionPlus Controller)
Editor: Loren 'AgtFox' Halek
What's Hot: Much better than Wii Sports Tennis; the swinging mechanic with the Wii MotionPlus add-on; the graphics, although cartoony, fit the Wii well; online and party games are a lot of fun and you don’t need Friend Codes for online; gaining abilities by beating professionals in a match
What's Not: Learning curve is high when using Wii MotionPlus add-on, but payoff is huge once you get a handle on it; frustration when the game doesn’t interpret your shot correctly; Career mode is a bit short; no tutorial on swing mechanic, so you learn on your ownOK, I get the distinct feeling that most of the community here at Colony of Gamers couldn’t care less about sports games, but I still enjoy them and therefore am going to review them whenever possible. I think a game like Grand Slam Tennis is of special note in the sports genre simply because it is one of the first games to use the new Wii MotionPlus controller that supposedly gives us 1:1 control in 3D space. This means that how you physically move the controller is how the action should be executed on the screen. This game does a valiant job of attaining that, but it fails being the true 1:1 feeling you may be hoping for. However, this does not mean that the game isn’t fun or that after learning how to correctly swing the racket that things will go correctly for you 90 plus percent of the time.
Electronic Arts has been out of the tennis game for a while, 15 years to be exact. I think many people were surprised when this game was announced and that it was coming, at least initially, only to the Wii. Then we heard it would be one of the first games to use the new Wii MotionPlus add-on along with its EA Sports brethren Tiger Woods 10 (a much closer 1:1 example from what I’ve played, hope to have a review soon) and Sega’s Virtua Tennis 2009 (have not played the game and haven’t heard enough about it to know if it is better than this game). The game suddenly became interesting to me since I was already planning on picking up Nintendo’s own Wii Sports Resort which will include the add-on with it (why not have a sans add-on version Nintendo? I already have two for my two controllers).
EA Canada has certainly gone a different way with the look of this game. Instead of trying to get the best graphics possible out of the Wii, they went with a more cartoon like look to all the professional tennis players found in this game. You have modern players like Roger Federer, Venus and Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova along with old-timers like Bjorn Borg, Boris Becker, Martina Navratalova and exclusively in this game John McEnroe, who really takes center stage with his outbursts of anger on the court. I think the characters look rather good even though they aren’t meticulously detailed and it certainly keeps the game moving quickly. Adding to this is commentary by Pat Cash, who also makes an appearance as a player and strangely commentates on himself in the third person when he is on the court. The commentary itself is quite good, although it does start to repeat itself rather quickly.
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/features/eatennis/shot1.jpg
The game basically comes down to how well it works with the new Wii MotionPlus add-on. You can play the game with just the Wii Remote, but you are unable to really aim your shots. You will see a vast difference between the regular remote and one with the add-on attached. It is also important to remember, once you get used to the swing mechanic, to put the nunchuck into the bottom of the add-on because you will use that to move around the court instead of having the game AI choose where to move you itself and having to fiddle with the d-pad to move towards or away from the net.
The big early problem I had and you will probably have with this game is putting your head around how the swing mechanic works with the Wii MotionPlus. The game attempts to tell you how to swing in order to aim and how to change the vertical plane to add things like topspin to the hit. The latter isn’t too hard to understand or the game to pick up correctly, but the ability to aim your shots is a problem that will always be there. It took me a while to figure out how to do this and I’d say 90%+ of my shots are now aimed the way I want them to. The trick for me was to stand parallel to the television and to not try to switch your body 90 degrees to the right and left to do forehands and backhands. Any sudden movement that turns the remote can often be registered as a swing or as the opposite type of hit you are going for.
With me standing parallel to the television, the game was far better at knowing when I was hitting a backhand and when I was going for a forehand. Then the trick with aiming is to watch the oversized ball (which is nice, I think it is oversized for this reason) with your arm in position to move the remote forward for the hit. If you want to hit it cross-court, you swing at the ball when it is ahead of you on screen. If you want to hit it straight you have to swing when the ball is close to parallel to you. If you want to hit it the other way you have to wait for the ball to go beyond the parallel to you line and hit it. There will be times where you will miss the ball entirely, whether by your own mistake or the game acknowledging the swing incorrectly. There are also times the add-on will go crazy and you need to set it down for a couple seconds for it to reset itself. This happened rarely for me, but you will notice it on serves when the player’s arm is not moving the same way you are or is flailing around when you’re not doing the same.
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/features/eatennis/shot2.jpg
I’ll be honest and say the early play with this game is extremely frustrating and for some reason a tutorial was not put in this game to teach you how to swing correctly. I think if they had put this in it would have made the experience that much easier. Instead I had to rely on the splash screens as the next match was loading to understand the swing mechanic. Even then it took me a while to get adept at it. However, if you give this game some time and you have the Wii MotionPlus I really think you’re going to enjoy it, especially the online play and local party games.
First off we’ll talk about the meat of the game, the career mode. It isn’t overly long and is based around the four majors which are all licensed (Austrailian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open) with their actual stadiums. You go through a series of warm-up matches where you try to build your created player up to 5 stars. You will also play against the licensed players and if you beat them you gain their special ability, such as Venus Williams serve or Maria Sharapova’s backhand. You can then put these abilities in three slots you have, however the last two are unlocked when you reach 3 and 5 stars. So, you need to pick a special ability depending on who you are playing. These abilities do give you a boost in what you do. Eventually you will go through the tournaments and after that you continue on to the next major. You do have the option of changing the number of sets and games in a set to make the experience longer though.
The other part of the game is the online component and then the about dozen party games that you can play with people locally. The good news on the online front is that you are connecting to EA’s servers in order to log in and don’t need to share Friend Codes! The online play is simply top notch and you can even play a doubles match with three different people. It is pretty cool to play online, although you can tell who has the Wii MotionPlus and who does not. Either that or they haven’t figured out how to mix up the shot types. There are also some party games that you can play with other people locally. These are actually quite fun games and should extend the longevity.
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/features/eatennis/shot3.jpg
There is one other problem of note with this game. You have the option to do a lob or drop shot using the A or B buttons. You hold one of the buttons while doing your swing and it will do that type of shot. This is all well and good, but unless you are adept at holding the controller with the add-on like you did the original Wii remote and not hold it at the end of the add-on, you will find yourself far away from the buttons. I also have a little trick that helped me a lot. Be sure to move toward the net and do your hitting because it is easier to control where you want to hit it and you can often hit a winner rather easily at the net.
Grand Slam Tennis is a really good first effort for EA Canada using the Wii MotionPlus add-on. It isn’t perfect and hopefully they can hone it even more and this series will continue on. It is a fun game of tennis on your own, locally with friends or online. The learning curve with swinging is high, but once you get used to it the game really opens up. It may not be as flashy with the new add-on as Tiger Woods 10 has been in my experience so far, but it does a serviceable job of making you feel like you are actually making these swings. I highly recommend buying this game if you like tennis simply because it is better than Wii Sports tennis by a long shot and is more close to what people have been clamoring for from a tennis game. It’s just too bad a bundle isn’t available here in the U.S. like it is in Europe. If you like golf as well you can kill two birds with one stone for $110, but if you want another Wii MotionPlus you’ll have to part with another $20.
Score: 4 out of 5 CoGs
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/CoG4.png
Loren says,”Grand Slam Tennis is frustrating early on as you figure out how to aim and hit shots with the new Wii MotionPlus add-on, but once you get the hang of it the game becomes more fun and a totally new experience. The lack of a tutorial and accurate use of lobs and drop shots does hurt the game along with a rather short career mode, but the online play and local party play more than makes up for it. Good first effort for EA Canada and I hope another one is coming.”
Title: Grand Slam Tennishttp://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=9631
Platform: Wii
Developer: Electronic Arts Canada (http://www.ea.com)
Publisher: Electronic Arts Sports (http://www.easports.com/)
ESRB: Everyone
MSRP: $49.99 (http://www.amazon.com/SPORTS-Grand-Slam-Tennis-Nintendo-Wii/dp/B001U2BMH2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1245357586&sr=8-1), $19.99 (http://www.amazon.com/Wii-MotionPlus-Nintendo/dp/B001TOQ8NO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1245357586&sr=8-2) (Wii MotionPlus Controller)
Editor: Loren 'AgtFox' Halek
What's Hot: Much better than Wii Sports Tennis; the swinging mechanic with the Wii MotionPlus add-on; the graphics, although cartoony, fit the Wii well; online and party games are a lot of fun and you don’t need Friend Codes for online; gaining abilities by beating professionals in a match
What's Not: Learning curve is high when using Wii MotionPlus add-on, but payoff is huge once you get a handle on it; frustration when the game doesn’t interpret your shot correctly; Career mode is a bit short; no tutorial on swing mechanic, so you learn on your ownOK, I get the distinct feeling that most of the community here at Colony of Gamers couldn’t care less about sports games, but I still enjoy them and therefore am going to review them whenever possible. I think a game like Grand Slam Tennis is of special note in the sports genre simply because it is one of the first games to use the new Wii MotionPlus controller that supposedly gives us 1:1 control in 3D space. This means that how you physically move the controller is how the action should be executed on the screen. This game does a valiant job of attaining that, but it fails being the true 1:1 feeling you may be hoping for. However, this does not mean that the game isn’t fun or that after learning how to correctly swing the racket that things will go correctly for you 90 plus percent of the time.
Electronic Arts has been out of the tennis game for a while, 15 years to be exact. I think many people were surprised when this game was announced and that it was coming, at least initially, only to the Wii. Then we heard it would be one of the first games to use the new Wii MotionPlus add-on along with its EA Sports brethren Tiger Woods 10 (a much closer 1:1 example from what I’ve played, hope to have a review soon) and Sega’s Virtua Tennis 2009 (have not played the game and haven’t heard enough about it to know if it is better than this game). The game suddenly became interesting to me since I was already planning on picking up Nintendo’s own Wii Sports Resort which will include the add-on with it (why not have a sans add-on version Nintendo? I already have two for my two controllers).
EA Canada has certainly gone a different way with the look of this game. Instead of trying to get the best graphics possible out of the Wii, they went with a more cartoon like look to all the professional tennis players found in this game. You have modern players like Roger Federer, Venus and Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova along with old-timers like Bjorn Borg, Boris Becker, Martina Navratalova and exclusively in this game John McEnroe, who really takes center stage with his outbursts of anger on the court. I think the characters look rather good even though they aren’t meticulously detailed and it certainly keeps the game moving quickly. Adding to this is commentary by Pat Cash, who also makes an appearance as a player and strangely commentates on himself in the third person when he is on the court. The commentary itself is quite good, although it does start to repeat itself rather quickly.
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/features/eatennis/shot1.jpg
The game basically comes down to how well it works with the new Wii MotionPlus add-on. You can play the game with just the Wii Remote, but you are unable to really aim your shots. You will see a vast difference between the regular remote and one with the add-on attached. It is also important to remember, once you get used to the swing mechanic, to put the nunchuck into the bottom of the add-on because you will use that to move around the court instead of having the game AI choose where to move you itself and having to fiddle with the d-pad to move towards or away from the net.
The big early problem I had and you will probably have with this game is putting your head around how the swing mechanic works with the Wii MotionPlus. The game attempts to tell you how to swing in order to aim and how to change the vertical plane to add things like topspin to the hit. The latter isn’t too hard to understand or the game to pick up correctly, but the ability to aim your shots is a problem that will always be there. It took me a while to figure out how to do this and I’d say 90%+ of my shots are now aimed the way I want them to. The trick for me was to stand parallel to the television and to not try to switch your body 90 degrees to the right and left to do forehands and backhands. Any sudden movement that turns the remote can often be registered as a swing or as the opposite type of hit you are going for.
With me standing parallel to the television, the game was far better at knowing when I was hitting a backhand and when I was going for a forehand. Then the trick with aiming is to watch the oversized ball (which is nice, I think it is oversized for this reason) with your arm in position to move the remote forward for the hit. If you want to hit it cross-court, you swing at the ball when it is ahead of you on screen. If you want to hit it straight you have to swing when the ball is close to parallel to you. If you want to hit it the other way you have to wait for the ball to go beyond the parallel to you line and hit it. There will be times where you will miss the ball entirely, whether by your own mistake or the game acknowledging the swing incorrectly. There are also times the add-on will go crazy and you need to set it down for a couple seconds for it to reset itself. This happened rarely for me, but you will notice it on serves when the player’s arm is not moving the same way you are or is flailing around when you’re not doing the same.
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/features/eatennis/shot2.jpg
I’ll be honest and say the early play with this game is extremely frustrating and for some reason a tutorial was not put in this game to teach you how to swing correctly. I think if they had put this in it would have made the experience that much easier. Instead I had to rely on the splash screens as the next match was loading to understand the swing mechanic. Even then it took me a while to get adept at it. However, if you give this game some time and you have the Wii MotionPlus I really think you’re going to enjoy it, especially the online play and local party games.
First off we’ll talk about the meat of the game, the career mode. It isn’t overly long and is based around the four majors which are all licensed (Austrailian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open) with their actual stadiums. You go through a series of warm-up matches where you try to build your created player up to 5 stars. You will also play against the licensed players and if you beat them you gain their special ability, such as Venus Williams serve or Maria Sharapova’s backhand. You can then put these abilities in three slots you have, however the last two are unlocked when you reach 3 and 5 stars. So, you need to pick a special ability depending on who you are playing. These abilities do give you a boost in what you do. Eventually you will go through the tournaments and after that you continue on to the next major. You do have the option of changing the number of sets and games in a set to make the experience longer though.
The other part of the game is the online component and then the about dozen party games that you can play with people locally. The good news on the online front is that you are connecting to EA’s servers in order to log in and don’t need to share Friend Codes! The online play is simply top notch and you can even play a doubles match with three different people. It is pretty cool to play online, although you can tell who has the Wii MotionPlus and who does not. Either that or they haven’t figured out how to mix up the shot types. There are also some party games that you can play with other people locally. These are actually quite fun games and should extend the longevity.
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/features/eatennis/shot3.jpg
There is one other problem of note with this game. You have the option to do a lob or drop shot using the A or B buttons. You hold one of the buttons while doing your swing and it will do that type of shot. This is all well and good, but unless you are adept at holding the controller with the add-on like you did the original Wii remote and not hold it at the end of the add-on, you will find yourself far away from the buttons. I also have a little trick that helped me a lot. Be sure to move toward the net and do your hitting because it is easier to control where you want to hit it and you can often hit a winner rather easily at the net.
Grand Slam Tennis is a really good first effort for EA Canada using the Wii MotionPlus add-on. It isn’t perfect and hopefully they can hone it even more and this series will continue on. It is a fun game of tennis on your own, locally with friends or online. The learning curve with swinging is high, but once you get used to it the game really opens up. It may not be as flashy with the new add-on as Tiger Woods 10 has been in my experience so far, but it does a serviceable job of making you feel like you are actually making these swings. I highly recommend buying this game if you like tennis simply because it is better than Wii Sports tennis by a long shot and is more close to what people have been clamoring for from a tennis game. It’s just too bad a bundle isn’t available here in the U.S. like it is in Europe. If you like golf as well you can kill two birds with one stone for $110, but if you want another Wii MotionPlus you’ll have to part with another $20.
Score: 4 out of 5 CoGs
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/CoG4.png
Loren says,”Grand Slam Tennis is frustrating early on as you figure out how to aim and hit shots with the new Wii MotionPlus add-on, but once you get the hang of it the game becomes more fun and a totally new experience. The lack of a tutorial and accurate use of lobs and drop shots does hurt the game along with a rather short career mode, but the online play and local party play more than makes up for it. Good first effort for EA Canada and I hope another one is coming.”