Grand Slam Tennis

Grand Slam Tennis is the second MotionPlus-supported game to come out of EA Sports. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 was a huge success, creating one of the most realistic golf simulators across any platform. Although Grand Slam Tennis definitely delivers a very realistic game of tennis, it's far from perfect. Based solely on the time of the review, you can imagine the amount of wrestling I've done with the title. At times, I would have easily given the game an A, yet other times a C+ would have been generous. I'll get into why further into the review.

Grand Slam Tennis sports a less realistic graphic style, going for a more approachable look and feel. Very similar to Xbox 360 avatars, they are mainly cell shaded, with over-exaggerated features. Creating your tennis pro is quite enjoyable, and you can achieve some pretty decent likeness without the crazy realistic feature modifications that you see in other EA games (I'm looking at you, Tiger). I found making your "avatar" in Grand Slam Tennis to be much more enjoyable than creating your golfer in Tiger Woods. The game also sports various unlockable sponsor clothing and accessories, so you can sport your favorite brands while smashing forehand volleys.

The character selection is also pretty decent. They've decided to not only put in today's hottest players like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, but also players from yester-year like Pat Cash and John McEnroe, allowing older players to relate to their favorite tennis pro. Pat Cash also serves as the game's "color" commentary - which I turned off after the first 10 minutes. Although Grand Slam Tennis may be the first in the obvious franchise to come, having more than 10 sayings for your commentary is a must. There's only so many times you can listen to Cash say "Wow, he made that look easy - Almost as though it's a video game!" before you start throwing your controller at the screen in frustration.

Wimbledon winner Roger Federer is available for play in the game.

The single player game is pretty solid, providing a bit of spice to an otherwise repetitive sport. Instead of just climbing the ladder at Wimbledon, you play a series of exhibition matches before the tournament begins. These exhibition games serve not only as a warm up, but also as a way for your character to achieve power-ups by defeating pros. They also threw several fun tennis variations into the mix to keep things fresh. Such as King of the Court; a three player game where there is a "King" who never leaves the court and the other two players take turns trying to score a point against him. If one does, that player becomes King and the other two attempt to knock him out. These variants also serve as the game's multiplayer party aspect.

If you and your friends are bored of straight-up tennis, there are many tennis party games for you to enjoy. Like the aforementioned King of the Court, there are many party variants to keep interest alive. From King of the Court, to Aussie Doubles (2 against 1) there is always something to keep the party going. While local multiplayer is great, it's the online multiplayer where this game shines. The game has a really solid online offering, allowing you to go head-to-head against other members of the world in ranked or unranked matches. They also have a country ranking, where you and your fellow countrymen fight for global supremacy. If you win a ranked match, points get added to both your score, and your country's score. Although this is rather trivial, it really adds a sense of comradary as you fight for your country to become number one.

Venus Williams takes on a ball the size of a casaba melon.

Although the service is pretty solid, it doesn't come without flaws. Lag is a huge factor in online games. While most matches appear to be lag-free, you will occasionally get paired up with a laggy player making the game very difficult. It may have looked like the ball sailed past your opponent, however as you relax and pump your fist in victory, the server catches up and you realize that your opponent just smashing it back into your face. Not cool.

I've also experienced some really odd calls being made online as well, where the ball is clearly 2-3 inches out of bounds, no call was made. I can only chalk that up to lag as well, despite rarely seeing any slow down in play when that happens. All in all, if you can look past the few times that will occur, its still a very enjoyable online experience. One that has even taken me away from Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 lately.

I left talking about the gameplay mechanics for last so you wouldn't get the wrong impression about the game. While you can play the game without the Wii MotionPlus accessory, to really get the most out of the game, you need to be using MotionPlus. For the most part, the shot-making capability while using Wii MotionPlus is a thing of beauty. Putting spins, dropping shots, and lobbing to the far corner feels unebelievably awesome.

Andy Roddick and Andy Murray compete in Tide-approved clean white.

However, one time out of ten, the controller just doesn't "get" what you're trying to do. While winding up for a forehand smash across the court, the game thinks you're wanting to hit a backhand and does so accordingly, causing your shot to sail about 80 feet out of bounds. To make matters worse, when it wigs out, you can see it ahead of time on serve returns. Your character lines up for the return already in his back hand position while you're desperately thrusting the remote around trying to get him to move his racket to the right.

You pause to calibrate the Wii MotionPlus, to no avail. You try and overcompensate for the swing, to no avail. There is little that you can really do but pray your backhand serve return doesn't sail out of bounds. I tried figuring this as a drawback to MotionPlus, or just broken control code, but I couldn't come up with an answer. It appears the same thing occurs to a much lesser extent in Wii Sports Resort while playing table tennis, however I found just holding the Wii Remote still will bring your paddle back to center. Not so with Grand Slam Tennis.

Great shot. MotionPlus has an unbelievable shot making capability.

Serving up more. There's plenty of replay value with a solid online component.

Challenging. There are plenty of difficulty choices to work through, both in single player and online.

Open courts. The great aesthetics to the game are accessible.

Glitch in your swing. The swing mechanic can be buggy at times.

Shaky connection. Lag has the potential to ruin online matches.

Ugly shot. Very repetitive announcer you'll want to turn off shortly after purchase.

Check the stagger cam. Odd clipping behavior during replays.

At the end of the day, I can't ignore the control issues and the somewhat glitchy online behavior. If you're one that can look past the rough edges though, you are sure to find hours of enjoyment. I'm really looking forward to where EA Sports takes this franchise in the future.