EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis reviews

Grand Slam Tennis brings a new level of tennis to the Wii. Generally tennis fans on the Wii platform resort to Nintendo's own casual “pick-up-and-play” Wii Sports version to get their tennis fix. However Grand Slam Tennis brings a real and exciting alternative that will keep you coming back for more. Alongside Wii MotionPlus, Grand Slam Tennis gives you the sense that you are on the court amongst the stars of the game. An accurate 1:1 swinging experience means that you have the full tennis repertoire at your grasp. From a topspin shot, to a slice and powerful flat shots mean you can out maneuver your opponent and have them scrambling for the ball with ease.

Presentation and Online play is somewhat lacking as you get more involved in the Game however. Repetitive commentating and similar, somewhat subdued crowd reaction get annoying after longer periods of play. Online modes are also time consuming and frustrating, as it can take several minutes to find an opponent and even eventually after being paired the lag within the game can be unbearable.

Grand Slam Tennis, despite it's drawbacks such as Online Play and Presentation is an excellent game. It has amazing gameplay mechanics and career modes which are exciting and extensive. The game is well worth the investment and will have you swinging like a Grand Slam champ in no time!

First up, this is a good game – it could have been excellent with a bit more polish, but as it sits, EA has created a fun, addictive game that should appeal to both the casual and the hardcore sports gamer.
M+ adds a whole new dimension to the play, and at first, can be a little difficult to master for those used to Wii Sports Tennis. By the end of your first round of tournaments, it becomes almost second nature – spending a little time at the practice court can help you identify and learn the variety of shots, and how a slight twist of your wrist can drastically alter the balls flight. In game, it's preferable to use a Nunchuck/Wiimote combo, so you can move your player exactly where you want – this unfortunately can make for some cable wrenching moments with those big swings – wireless nunchuck for M+ would be a good future purchase.
Opponents are challenging (and feature all the stars you'd expect from 1970 onward – satisfying to watch McEnroe hurl his racket on the ground when you win a set!) and real tension develops as you climb the tournament ladder. There's also good amount of unlockable equipment and clothing to give you boosts and change your appearance.
Visually, the games graphics are the cartoon style that EA Sports is applying to most of its Wii titles. It's a style I like, but I know it grates with some people. With that graphical simplicity, I feel they could've put a whole lot more options in the ‘create a player’ menus – good luck trying to create Paulie Walnuts to play in the Aussie Open! Also, some way to give your player more personality would've been great – do they grunt when they hit the ball? Do they argue with the Umpire? On that subject, I'd love if you could dispute some of those dodgy line balls your opponents play.
These are small gripes though, and this game definitely has that “just one more match” addictiveness to it.

After watching demos at E3 09 this is really shaping up to be quite impressive. The accuracy with the new motionplus add on is phenomenal and it will be interesting to see whether EA sports' Grand Slam Tennis will be better or worse than Virtua Tennis 2009, which also supports motion plus.