review
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POSTED 12/2/12


GRAND SLAM TENNIS 2

EA Sports
PS3/Move (also on Xbox 360)

Oh space time continuum, up yours! Fuck the De Lorean, this puppy bends time just using fuzzy balls...

You may be screaming “You cannot be serious!”, but we’ve John McEnroe commentating a game featuring John McEnroe playing. This is without even mentioning that he’s challenging somebody who wasn’t even foetal in his heyday. Mind. Bonked.

But seriously folks... Grand Slam Tennis 2 has one particular ace tucked up the sleeve of its Reebok/KooGa/insert-your-particular-sponsor-here top: the entire Grand Slam enchilada. MMMmmm... beany and cheesy! That’s the Aussie Open, Froggy bloke Roland Garros’ shindig, the good toilet hygiene place in New York and the strawberry and cream soiree Wimbledon – sadly sans Wombles.

Play-wise, it inserts itself in-between the big ball silly-fun of SEGA’s Virtua Tennis and the ‘Why so serious?’ of Top Spin. There ain’t no pirate ships to overcome, instead it’s the control scheme that requires conquering.

Those inured to the way of (the exploding) EA Sports will be familiar with using the right-hand analogue stick to control stuff. That’s the vibe here, and it’s about as natural as polystyrene. Shot selections would be selected, the game would ignore us and hello lost point – groovy. So, onto the Move controller... Yay for the naturally-styled serving and all, but we found glowstick-only control over on-court movement of our spritetacular representative questionable, meaning regular missedness. GRUMPF! The Navcon option helped, but ultimately we preferred the arcade controls – something EA likely prefer we didn’t.

Roster-wise, as hinted earlier there’s a melange of old and new, rendered faithfully – including requisite irritating and unnecessary cheaty grunts. Going all parochial, Lley-Lley and Pat Cash feature, so yay.

Meanwhile, the modes you’d expect – quickie, tournament, training - are joined by ESPN classics, involving the likes of McEnroe versus that big cubey thing from Star Trek...

When this franchise inevitably hits 88mph look out. Currently, however, it’s just kinda pootling.

take me back to the start...

 



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ALL WRITTEN CONTENT COPYRIGHT © AMY FLOWER 2008-2018. GAME IMAGES COURTESY OF RESPECTIVE GAMES COMPANIES.