Grand Slam Tennis (with Wii MotionPlus)

Just picked this up tonight so I can't go into the game in depth, but so far it has made a REALLY good first impression. It took about fifteen or twenty minutes to figure out the controls which aren't explained well in game or in the instruction booklet, but once it clicked - WOW - these have to be the best controls in a tennis video game yet. It just feels so good and so right. I don't know if it's the added precision of MotionPlus or just very well thought out motion controls, but it just feels so much closer to actually playing tennis than any other video game I've tried has, and it's more fun too. I also really like the artwork, which is appropriately cartoony for the Wii, but also kind of slick. Like all tennis games, it seems like the single player portion may be a bit on the dry side, but the game has an online mode (which I've yet to try out, but will tomorrow), and is probably great fun if you have a real life partner to play against (which hopefully I'll try out over the weekend, but have to pick up a second MotionPlus doohickey).

argh.. why did my apostrophes come out crazy?

Played a couple online matches. The first against an American was dead smooth. The second against a filthy Canadian started out pretty laggy, but strangely got smooth too as the game went on. The player base was tiny (supposedly only 20 people online when I tried), so I imagine as more people pick up the game you'll hopefully get matched with people with a good ping. Playing against real humans definitely makes the game more fun though. I won the first match, but the second came down to a tie break (that I lost 7-5) - very intense game. It's cool that you don't need to use the friend code system to hook up with your friends, you just need an EA account, so if anybody on here does pick this up and wants to play a game online, my tag is jefflev13. The ranking system seems like it's going to be good. One bad thing about the online though is that if both players pick the same character to play with, you are both dressed the same and called the same - you'd think they would have at least put in some alternate costumes for the computer generated characters. You can also use your own character, but you start with zero stars (out of five) of ability and you have to grind through the single player campaign to build up your stats or you will get creamed by Federer, Sampras et al. Once people have built up the characters they've created themselves it'll be nice to see that variety come into play online, I'd imagine.

cool - if i buy my friend's wii i'll definitely get this

is it bundled w/motion+?

In some territories yes (in the US no, but I picked up the Tiger Wood bundle)

Woods

any impressions of Tiger? not coming out in UK for a month and i'm way more interested in it than tennis game. how does the putting feel?

I'm going out later today to pick Tiger 10 and maybe this too.

I didn't have time to try Tiger (even though in theory that was the game I was more interested in) - will definitely try tonight after work though and post impressions.

Now that I've gotten my head pretty much around the tennis motion controls, game is getting pretty intense. One online match pretty much wore me out! Again it went to the tie break, but this time I won - so satisfying to win considering how much work went into getting there - a really good match. Even though there's no voice, the character animation really captures the emotion of the game. If you're playing logged in you can also select from a bunch of messages to send the other player after a match - good game - etc - though they have to be logged in to to get it.

yah okay fine but can it match mario tennis - tru intensity

tbf i just want 2 know does it have doubles mode

Yes, it has doubles mode.

tbf now all i want to know does it have princess peach

I wish Mario Tennis had an online mode - that extra competition when nobody is around just makes games like this so much more fun, replayable and worth the entry fee. Hopefully a true Mario Tennis Wii is coming at some point (with MotionPlus controls).

If / when you all start playing this, just remember you want to hold the Wii remote like a TV remote and center it so it's pointing at the TV after each swing.

After each swing, or after each point?

In my experience it seems to work best if you bring the remote to center after each swing to prepare for your next swing - so basically you always want to be starting every new swing from a centered remote.

Got matched up with the 11th ranked player in the world and got my ass handed to me. He was playing as Roddick with a killer serve. I was playing as Murray. Unfortunately the game doesn't have real world injuries.

In the battle of the nations, US is currently way in the lead and UK is in next to last place, 58th of 59 (with only Romania with a worse winning percantage). What's the matter with you guys?

Ummm... we're about a month off getting Motion Plus?

nah, it has been out since friday http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00275FWNG/

he means romania

Good news UK - you're no longer in last place in the battle of the nations... you've moved up all the way to 52nd place, with 6,845 wins and 8,911 losses. USA remains number 1 with 9,750 wins and 7,041 losses, while France seems to have a firm grasp on second place with 9,411 wins and 9,440 losses. My personal online record is 8-6. I need to play more, but the game wears me out. So did anybody else pick it up and play yet? It seems the EA messenger feature is broken :(

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/editors-blog-grand-slam-tennis-to-be-re-reviewed-blog-entry

I feel like this thread is becoming my blog... sigh. Anyhow, a great weekend of tennis - I even came across my first rage quitter. I've improved my record to 22-15, which I'm happy with considering I'm still using Murray, while most others are sticking with 5 star players. It takes forever to rank up your own character. I've just hit one star, but I'm eager to max him out a.s.a.p. as I'd much rather take my own guy online, but don't currently want to be slaughtered due to stupid stat building you have to grind thru to crerate a decent character of your own. The problem is, online play is much more fun than playing the computer - so it's hard to give in to the grind.

Jeff, I have this now but I haven't started it yet (still Tiger Woodsin' around). I won't be playing online until I'm decent enough, and I'm going out of town for a week in a few days, but after that I'll try to look you up online.

I've been playing a lot the last few days, and while I'm having a good amount of fun, a few aspects of the game are starting to really, really annoy me.

Jeff is otm about the conflict between wanting to play online (because it's way more fun than vs cpu) as your own character vs. the time commitment it apparently takes to level up your dude. I've won the first two grand slams I've entered, and I'm still at 1 1/2 stars, haven't unlocked the second ability slot.

The controls are weird. I love the controls in Tiger 10. In grand slam the motionplus feels like it isn't really working half of the time. I've been following the advice of Jeff upthread (and the game itself) by recalibrating the sensor during and between every point, but there are many times when I'm standing at the net, wanting to slam away lob after lob, and no matter how I swing, how early or late, I end up weakly hitting the ball directly back to the opponent.

A similar agonizing control situation happens with returning serves, particularly when I'm starting on the right side. Unless I swing ludicrously early, my returns tend to slice to the right, landing a foot out of bounds. Over and over and over again. Again, the touted 1:1 motionplus controls just don't deliver. Occasionally the ball goes where I'm aiming, but it's kind of a crapshoot.

That said, online is really really fun.

Jeff if you ever want to search for me to play, I'm ZSZS. (ZS was already taken). I'll probably still be playing as Sampras since my character's still really weak.

ZS - I haven't been on for a week, but will try to find some time this weekend. As to net play, I'm not sure you can slam it at the net - have you tried holding "A" for a lob at the net - as I'm pretty sure if you do that you can probably aim it a little easier, at least to the back corners. That's the weird thing about the controls here - they are sort of a hybrid - some things are sort of 1:1, but others aren't, like your swing is always on a fixed line (same with in Tiger). As to returning serves, I'm not quite sure I understand what is causing your problem (I'm trying to picture it in my head, but the picture is fuzzy). Keep in mind you can position your guy anywhere along the baseline if that makes it easier to line up your return (and also after it has been hit you can move forward if you need to). Obviously(?) you want to try to hit the ball back with a correct swing, so if you're on the right and the serve is hit to your right, swing your right arm back, then forward across your body and generally I think you would hit it to the opposite corner. If your motion is more straight, trying to go up that right line, it can get a little trick - if you just sort of push it instead of swinging it usually goes pretty straight. I don't know - it's not a problem I've really had, so I can only guess.

Okay - I just played a few games, and strangely enough I did have a few of those times where my returns sailed out when I was seemingly doing nothing different than in other returns. Perhaps motionplus was getting out of whack, so when it happened I set the remote upside down on the table in front of me to reset it, which may or may not have worked. Only happened a couple of times though, so it's hard to say. What was really annoying was the batteries on my remote died in the middle of a match with no warning, and a guy got four aces in a row against me while I frantically replaced the batteries! Luckily or unluckily, the guy I was playing was a real scrub, so I still came back to win 3-1.

Argh wishing I had the money to buy this game, I know I'll need the extra motion+ when Sports Resort comes round anyway...

http://www.vg247.com/2009/09/15/moore-360-and-ps3-grand-slam-tennis-will-be-released-with-motion-tech/

Well, just in time for the games release they've sent out a tutorial on how to use the wii motion+ controls in Grand Slam Tennis. Oh wait - the game has been out for about four months. Well, I guess one could understand why it would take so long for a small company like EA to put together a video explaining how to play their game...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gHNO-JVgQk

it was the US Open last week, could be part of a new marketing push? maybe trying to make up for all those unsold copies of Wii Madden lol.