Developer: EA Canada
Publisher: Electronic Arts

Features:

1-2 Players Offline
2-4 Online
Co-op
DLC, Leaderboards

Another year and another EA Sports game is released — this time however it's not another Madden (at least not yet), but rather, a new tennis game. Grand Slam Tennis 2 volleys to your console promising the most deep and realistic tennis experience you have ever played, while also offering some of the greatest tennis pros to play as or against.

Graphics

Grand Slam Tennis 2's graphics are average at best. Since this is an EA Sports title it really doesn't focus too much on being eye candy like many non-sports games do. From the default point of view the game looks amazing but when the camera closes into the crowd or even some of the ball runners (people on the side of the court) you’ll notice that they are just there for backdrop as they never move, detailed enough to merge with the scenery. During gameplay the people in the crowd just sit there and only cheer whenever you or your opponent scores a point. The only time they stand up and move is at the end of a match when the camera is flying around the court; but sadly, all they do is clap while standing.

Character models are a bit more detailed and they capture enough of the real tennis pro's likenesses to convince you it's them. Some do look like they have more attention to detail than others because the John McEnroe model looks more elaborate with his signature headband and curly hair than female tennis pro Martina Navratilova, who looks more like they just slapped on a wig and glasses on the default model and then put it into the game. Majority of the time the character models will show their emotions through movement rather than facial expressions; the only time their default look changes is when they cheer for themselves after scoring a point; but even then all they do is just slightly open their mouths while acting pumped. I know tennis isn’t a super wild sport but I really doubt tennis pros are that stiff during real life matches.

The courts on the other hand have more attention to detail and it makes sense since it's among one of the few things that you’ll be staring at during your matches. The clay courts are the most impressive since the footprints your tennis pro creates seem to stay there for quite a while, and when you are serving the ball you’ll notice your previous patterns. As stated earlier this game is not about pretty graphics so for a sports title, it's good enough.

Sound

While the graphics may be average, the sound is just above; but it's not really the game's fault because tennis is not really like football where loud noises and background music appear every three seconds. The game does a good job of having the classic tennis sounds you would expect from the racquet hitting the tennis ball, to the sneakers squeaking, to the grunts of Maria Sharapova. On the other hand, announcers Pat Cash and John McEnroe are a bit of a let down since after your second tennis match you will have heard all they need to say. They also do the announcing even when you are playing as one of them, which leads to some sort of weird Inception moment where McEnroe is casting a McEnroe match. Other than that there really isn’t much sound and the use of EA Trax being limited to the menu screens seems like waste of licensing.

Gameplay

Gameplay is where this title shines by bringing in a different set of controls called "Total Racquet Control" which allows you to play the game by only using the analog sticks. Left one to move your character and the right one to control racquet swings depending on how fast you move it. There are some problems as sometimes your command will be to hit the ball to the far left and the end result will be the ball just going straight down the middle. The classic button style control is still available and you can switch to it on the fly because both control types are available during gameplay.

The character movements are a bit hard to get used to because they will carry a bit of momentum when you run from one side and then decide to switch to the other. Since this title is supposed to bring realism to the table it's expected and a nice touch; but for some of the newbies to this series it can be a bit frustrating when you know that your opponent is going to hit a shot to the far right and you have been trying to run to that side for what seems like 30 minutes before your character reacts. There is also a bit of character blink whenever you are close enough to the ball but not enough to hit it; from time to time your character will just blink further in to get the shot. Sometimes it's enough to get your opponent that game winning shot when the score is tied and makes you want to throw the controller on the ground... if only they didn’t cost 40 dollars to replace.

You can also do a doubles match which makes the game a bit easier because you are not guarding the court all to yourself; usually one person is put in close net range at the beginning of each serve while the other is placed on the outside of the court. However, that advantage is also shared by your opponents and usually the better defenders win because one slip and you’ll end up giving a free point to your opponent.

The game also has a somewhat steep learning curve since computer opponents will be no challenge at Rookie and Amateur difficulties due to the new control scheme that simplifies things. However, when you set the game to Pro or higher then even the simplified controls will not be able to save you as the CPU opponents will start to get a bit more aggressive and if you don’t respond then the computer will just end up winning the match in less than five minutes.

Single player modes are limited to Career where you can build your own pro player and have 10 years to make him the greatest tennis player that people have ever seen. Problem is you can hit tennis greatness at your first year because the difficulty raises depending on the year and won't start to challenge you until you are in the 4th to 6th year of your career. This kind of leaves you wondering why you would want to continue when you have already achieved everything you need to. There is also the ESPN Grand Slam Classic's mode where you relive some of the greatest moments in tennis history. This is accomplished by completing a different set of objectives throughout a match, such as spiking the ball at a certain point in the game. If you don’t know anything about these matches then all this mode will be good for is to kill some time and see if you can complete the objectives like the game wants you to.

There are training modes available but for newbies these will just become frustrating to do as in one set of exercises you will have to hit a ball to the far left and right using a certain hit style. Since the controls vary from response it can be a bit hard to accomplish and if you hit the ball too early or too late then you will end up missing the target completely and repeating the same objective over and over. If you are able to get the timing and the controls to something you feel comfortable with, then this game becomes less about the difficulty and more about the mind games, especially during online play which makes you think a bit more about where to hit the ball instead of abusing the A.I to go to the left three times, then hit the ball to the right so your opponent wont be able to hit it back.

The online play is really smooth and there is really no lag which is good because it makes this game a bit more interesting when playing against another human rather than a computer. You can play a singles or doubles match or also take part in a tournament, but aside from that there really isn’t much to do online. Then again all you’ll be doing in this title is playing tennis; if you didn’t know that then you must have been misled.