3 out of 5
The name might lead you to believe otherwise, but it doesn’t take much time with EA Sports’ Grand Slam Tennis 2 to realize that this is a first-generation product, one that owes significantly more to Sega’s Virtua Tennis than the original, Wii-exclusive Grand Slam Tennis from a few years back. Sure, the evolution of the Virtua Tennis games has become, shall we say, subtle, over the past few years, yet Grand Slam Tennis 2 still can’t quite break out of that decade-plus shadow. It’s a decent start, but EA Sports still has some iterating to do before it’ll have a genuine competitor.
Though it trades the Japanese arcade gloss and crystalline guitars of Virtua Tennis in favor of EA Sports’ bloodless house style, the most meaningful differentiator in Grand Slam Tennis 2 lies in the controls. By default, the game attempts to map all of your racquet mechaniques to the right stick, and you’ll push the right stick down and up at various angles and with varying timing to serve and perform the flat, slice, top-spin, drop, and lob shots that make up your arsenal of moves.
While the underlying intent of the right-stick controls that EA Sports is so damn fond of is to create a more tactile connection to the on-screen action, the irony here is that it ends up feeling more complicated and mechanical. After spending some quality time being yelled at by resident pro John McEnroe in the tutorial--a must your first time in--I spent my first several hours with Grand Slam Tennis 2 with these right-stick controls. I wouldn’t say I struggled with them, but my performance improved immensely once I switched to the familiar face-button controls. Don’t chalk my preference entirely up to familiarity, though; it’s simply easier to perform with the precision of timing and aiming afforded by button presses, rather than the comparatively long throws and vague sense of position offered by the right stick.
Digging into Grand Slam Tennis 2’s nest ...
