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Grand Slam Tennis Review - Wii

Introduction

While Wii Tennis, included with Wii Sports provided a fairly entertaining game in short bursts amongst friends, it really felt like "Tennis Lite", and was really only a fun muck around title for a few minutes here and there. Other than the rather forgettable Mario Tennis, and a few other similarly cartoony attempts, for those that have wanted something more of a serious tennis title, there haven't been too many options on the Wii. But now we have the king of sporting games, EA Sports, lobbing one up with Grand Slam. 

Gameplay

While in previous sports games, the WiiRemote has been somewhat basic in terms of true movement, Grand Slam Tennis is one of the first titles to use the brand new Wii MotionPlus accessory. This allows a much better range of movement, and the ability to properly move your arm around in three dimensions, and have this picked up by the game. For a game such as tennis, where it's a lot more than simply getting the raquett in front of the ball, this is a big "plus" so to speak. While the game can be played with the standard controller, at only $30 or so, the MotionPlus is definitely worth picking up for this (and future) titles. With the controller now able to pick up your hand angle, you can apply top spin, or back spin to the ball as you hit it, giving a much better sensation of the real game. Your player's arms move to reflect the current position of your arm, allowing you to get a good feel of how the controller is picking up the movement.

How hard you swing also effects how the ball moves, swing lightly and you'll make a softer shot, or really swing your arm through the ball and you'll be able to hit a power shot. Lob and drop shots can also be undertaken by using the A or B button as you hit the ball, truly giving a wide range of shot types. For movement, if you plug in the NunChuck, you can use this to move your player back and forward around the court, or if you just use the remote, the game automatically moves your player to the ball, allowing you to do the swinging. This makes things a lot easier, but takes out some of the challenge of the game. The MotionPlus really changes the game, making you carefully think out each shot, and implement tactics, rather than simply trying to aim the raquett somewhere near the ball. The whole dynamic of motion control on the Wii has moved forward, and we look forward to what other games utilise it in future.

Grand Slam offers a few different game types. The main meat of the game is the aptly titled Grand Slam mode, which has you creating your character, selecting a home country, and jet setting around the world to each of the grand slams - The Australian ...

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