Strawberries and cream with a side of the Queen; baguettes with a view of the Eiffel Tower; a hot-dog whilst Lady Liberty holds your gaze; and a steaming pile of Aussie twang in a loaded billabong barbie – this is tennis culture at its best.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Grand Slam Tennis franchise, here’s a brief background lesson:
Developed by EA Canada, Grand Slam Tennis 2 takes all the legends of the professional game and puts them into one title allowing you to play as any tennis legend ranging from John McEnroe through to Serena Williams. You can match them up as you see fit, they are all at the peak of their respective careers and a few age old arguments can finally be sorted out in a virtual environment. For the first time the Grand Slam Tennis series is in HD.
Grand Slam Tennis 2 is a worthy successor to the vat of awesomeness that was Grand Slam Tennis. It does not surpass its forefather in any way, however it has got a few really cool tweaks that make it quite entertaining and at times impossible to put down.
Grand Slam Tennis 2
However, I’m going to start with the bad.
The control system is some what questionable, there are times where you think to yourself “wow, self, the really awesome dudes over at EA Canada really know how to make me feel like a tennis god, who eats Raffafederdjokervic’s for breakfast” and there are times where you smash your remote into the ground and use the serrated shrapnel to put an end to it all because the serotonin sucking frustration of not being able to reach or clear the net consumes your soul.
There are two ways to control the mayhem.
Option A: Traditional tennis controls whereby you use your shape buttons (or coloured buttons if you’re an Xboxer) in a well timed press to determine the strength of your shot, whilst using your left analogue stick to run off in a direction and aim in the direction in which you would like your shot to be played. Your shoulder buttons are used to control weather your shot is either a drop shot or a lob shot.
Option B: EA Canada have this insane obsession with wanting you to just use your analogue sticks and shoulder buttons to control everything, so out goes the D-pad and main button panel. You have to use your left stick to control your movement and your right stick to control your shot selection and direction. Now this is not as easy as it sounds and if you are a tennis veteran then I would suggest that you give this a skip.
The aforementioned mind numbing frustration stems solely from the game having two control schemes. There are times when you’ve trapped your opponent and all you need to do is tap the ball over the net and your Grand Slam Tennis 2 persona just stands there and ignores you and suddenly comes to life after the point has been lost.
Grand Slam Tennis 2
The other horrible traits that this game displays are the lack of background visual detail and the same old audio loops.
I’m going to bang on an old drum now, but bare with me – NBA2K12 still remains the benchmark for all sporting titles. It shattered all preconceived notions I had about sporting title graphics, sound and gameplay. Now when the guys over at EA Canada bring out a new title that they had been working on since early 2009, I was expecting at least a tiny bit of polish.
That said, I am in no way implying that Grand Slam Tennis 2 is an eyesore – quite the opposite in fact. The models are extremely detailed and well rendered; the players’ styles are unique and authentic; and when playing on clay or grass the dust that is kicked up by movement add a great touch of realism.
An extreme amount of detail was applied to the player modelling and the court. Outside the baselines it appears that EA Canada simply copy-pasted from the original Grand Slam Tennis – it just looks sad.
The umpires and ball boys only move their heads and torsos; the photographers in the dugouts are manikins; the crowd are all cardboard cutouts that are mechanically raised when something happens on court.
Now that my rant is over – the players not only look the part, they sound the part as well. Their grunts are rather authentic and they react just as you would see them on TV. Although the sound-bites have been refreshed from the first title, after the second set of a full match you’ll have heard all of the loops, which once again is disappointing.
Grand Slam Tennis 2
The different game modes really allow Grand Slam Tennis 2 to shine through.
Kudos once more to EA for securing all the rights to all the players names, all the brands and all the official sponsors. Its very refreshing to play at Wimbledon and actually have the tournament called Wimbledon. Besides for the usual quick games, you have the option of a 15 year career mode where you can play god and create yourself in an online universe.
Stand-out features were career objectives and yearly objectives. I have logged about 17 hours in career mode and I’m still in the fourth year, so if you’re into this type of thing you’re going to be kept busy for a long time.
There is also an ESPN Grand Slam Classics mode that spans over five factions, each consisting of 5 classic matches – namely:
- 2000’s – The best matches of the ’00 era, where you get to change or reinforce 5 classic matches from this era.
- 1990’s – Same as above, but for the period form 1990 to 1999.
- 1980’s – Play as legends from the 1980’s.
- All Time – The best matches of all time, where you get to relive and alter some history.
- Fantasy – The titans of the game get to play each other in their heyday, with the likes of Federar vs. McEnroe, or Williams vs. Evert.
Each one of these matches is unlocked by gaining bonus points, which can only be unlocked by completing the required challenges presented to you.
Grand Slam Tennis 2
The online system is pretty cool; you have your own player’s lobby where you can read online match invites and messages from friends and potential online friends.
The International leader-board keeps track of scores for each country’s gaming contingent, and at the time of writing, the French were way ahead of everyone else.
This works by either creating or joining a tournament, and for each tournament won the winning player from that country goes onto the leader-board.
Not to sound like a whinger, but I find it slightly lopsided – twice as I was busy with this review I was ahead in a tournament and because of international lag, opponents bomb out of my game, and since I’m hosting the tournament I have to quit, thus making me the loser even though I was whipping the other guy.
Overall the online aspect is highly entertaining and will have hours of replayability.
Local multiplayer is even more engrossing; the gameplay feels balanced, and without lag the timing is more challenging and much more responsive, which means hours of fun with your mates is to be expected.
Grand Slam Tennis 2
In conclusion, Grand Slam Tennis 2 could have been an absolute legend of a game if the developers had focused on the finer details. It’s missing the soul that the first title had and I think that’s mostly due to the fact that it felt like the developers focused more on the technical details of the players resemblances and traits than on actual gameplay.
That said, Grand Slam Tennis 2 is still worth its weight in gold.
I maintain that the game is a classic and a must-have if you’re a tennis fan. Its better than Virtual Tennis and the Top Spin series combined and is a must play for all sports sim fans.
