EA Grand Slam Tennis for Wii - Page 2

As I said in the post right above where you posted the IGN link...

I know what you said. Finicky and a score half of IGN's are two different things.

Two reviewers liking something this differently: not unusual. Especially if one of them is Eurogamer. Their 5 is like IGN's 7.

From EuroGamer:


Ouch. Reading this kind of stuff makes me think twice about a purchase. I've been burned too many times in the past by Wii games that don't control well. Maybe MotionPlus can't deliver the goods in a tennis game.

I still question whether it just takes longer to truly get a grip (pun intended) around the whole Wii MotionPlus controls, and that EuroGamer hasn't done so before their review. Just a thought. I also find it ironic that another Eurogamer reviewer had a glowing hands-on preview of the game earlier at http://www.videogamer.com/wii/grand_...view-1657.html

Yeah, I have a feeling the future of 1:1 motion may turn out to be one of those "be careful what you wish for things." It could actually require some hand eye coordination instead of just fast twitchy fingers. Remember that Sony motion demo, that engineer had trouble hitting a dropping ball with the bat. He might have engineered and programmed the thing, but there's no substitution for hand eye coordination.

I'm not saying that the Eurogamer reviewer is possibly uncoordinated, I don't have the game yet to find out for myself. It's just weird to see that one guy claim he had little control of the ball, while others say they can put the ball anywhere they want.

I just picked up my Wii with M+ copy today at lunch and played 18 at Banff. I went straight to Advanced and shot a 77. I'll just say that I simply can't wait to get back home to play another round tonight. I had a great time.

This game is not a simulation but it does immerse you into the game quite well. While I've said that it isn't a simulation (which I stand by) it is WAY closer to a simulation than any other game I've seen and it gets me very excited about the future of gaming with motion controls. A few quick observations:

* I love the MotionPlus control mechanism. It flat out works. It's not perfect but it's REALLY good.
* For people that have played golf in real life, hold the controller at the same angle as you would a normal club. In other words - do not point the thing straight down or you'll have trouble hitting the ball straight. It's nearly impossible to keep your wrists straight on a full swing if you have to point the controller straight at the floor. So point it towards the floor at an angle like you would a real golf club. If you don't do this and then you try to perform your normal golf swing then you'll slice it every time. Or at least I did until I figured it out.
* When starting your swing, check the indicator in the bottom right corner of the screen to ensure that your club face is square and that you're pointing straight ahead (there's an arrow at the top of the club indicator icon showing you which direction your pointing - I'm guessing you could pull or push a shot without hooking or slicing which is VERY cool).
* To get a full 100% swing you have to "set" your wrists at the top of your swing. This took me a while to figure out but it makes sense b/c you have to do this in real golf. For non-golfers, what I mean is that you need to **** your wrists at the top of your backswing so that you get the controller parallel to the floor. If you don't do this properly then you'll get somewhere between 85-95% swing power. You can see what I'm talking about by watching the on-screen golfer as you take your backswing. If you don't set your wrists then he'll take the club all the way back but it will be pointing straight up in the air. When you set your wrists he'll do the same. I can't 100% vouch for this b/c I only noticed this on hole 16 but I'm fairly certain that's what was happening and I know for a fact that I started getting 99-100% shot power when doing this.
* Putting - whoa nelly. This is where the game starts to add some difficulty points. In summary - I like it. A few points:
o It's as much about the speed of the follow-through as it is the distance of the backswing. This takes some getting used to b/c it's just not how I naturally putt. But by the end of the round I was getting better.
o I had to watch the on-screen golfer to gauge the distance of my backswing. Maybe over time I won't have to do this but for now I did. I had the meter turned off - FYI.
o The follow-through is very important. Go too fast and you'll hit the ball too far. Too slow and well... it won't go very far. Smooth continuous motions seem to yield the best results.
o It's very sensitive. VERY sensitive to both speed and angle. If you twists your wrists even slightly you'll push or pull the ball. Putting takes concentration and I love it. What's great about this is that you now have to carefully aim AND be careful not to turn your clubface during your putt.
o I haven't played enough to determine if you can use different combos of backswing and speed of follow-through to acheive the same result. I'm guessing you can and if you play around with it long enough then you could probably find a nice natural motion for yourself. For instance, when I putt in real life I use a very short backswing and then simply alter the speed of my follow-through to achieve the proper distance. I'll try this out tonight and see what happens.
* Partial shots (less than 100%). This is implemented very nicely. Now you can really have control over the power of your swing. Like I mentioned above in putting I haven't had enough time with it yet to determine whether you can achieve the same shot power % by taking a shorter backswign with a faster follow-through just the same as you can by taking a longer backswing and slower follow-through. I'll experiment tonight.
* Manual Fade/Draw (I had the automatic ones turned off). This is implemented very well but it is sensitive. It only takes a small wrist twist to achieve a realistic fade or draw. Too much and you'll basically shank the ball. I haven't had enough time with the game to determine whether you can really control the degree of fade or draw.
* Presentation - It's a Wii and you'll know it but the graphics take a back seat to the gameplay here.
* Weather - The live weather feature is pretty cool.
* Interface - I like it.

In general - this game is just fun to play. I've only played 18 holes but I can already see that I"ll enjoy it for quite a while.

If you have any specific questions just ask. I'll be playing a good bit tonight and will try to respond back periodically.

Wrong thread dude.

LOL!! My bad.

I was going crazy looking for my post in the TW thread.

My hand eye coordination is good so if it requirtes that, so be it I will beat people.

Since Basher is dissecting Tiger Woods, I'll give some initial thoughts about Grand Slam.

I tried it with MotionPlus--I played a few exhibition matches with and without the nunchuck.

With the nunchuck it plays like Top Spin which was released on the Wii last year. You move your player around the court with the nunchuck and you'll have to be on your toes to get him to the spot you want in time. Without the nunchuck it's like Wii tennis with more accurate shots. Your player will move on his own so you can focus on setting up your shot. With all that said, I haven't beat the computer opponent yet in an exhibition match. Sometimes the Wii remote will swing too late or too early which may have to do with me getting my timing down better and this has cost me each match. (I play real tennis and I'm an average player so I know something about tennis.) Nice, slow full swings seem to work best unlike Wii tennis in which quick wrist action could score you some points.

I'll play some more tonight after I pick up Virtua Tennis and compare the two.

I only played one exhibition match so far, and no motion plus yet (still waiting for Amazon to ship my TW 10 bundle + one separate M+).

I was surprised at how well it plays without M+. I had decent control of ball placement with just timing alone. I'm not a tennis video game fan, and Wiisports tennis is the only one I've played. So I didn't use the nunchuck control.

One thing I noticed is that the ball comes at you quicker than Wiisports tennis, and even accounting for the quicker ball, I swing just a touch earlier than I would in Wiisports tennis.

So if decent ball placement can be done without M+, it can't possibly be worst with it.

I'll be back with a more in-depth review but for now:

Grand Slam vs. Virtua Tennis

They are both very similar once the ball is in play...with Motion Plus I feel like I have SOME control but not as much control as I would expect (for some reason I thought it would be more sensitive to how high or low I swing but it's actually pretty tough to hit a terrible shot in either game)...

Graphics are actually better in Grand Slam (not that graphics are very good on the Wii anyway)...VT is very jaggy looking and framerates between points (when showing the crowd and stadium) actually get stuttery...

The biggest fail to me with VT is you have to "recalibrate" the M+ before EVERY serve/receive by pointing the remote at your player...maybe that makes it slightly more "accurate" than Grand Slam but it's a pain in the a-s-s...

These observations are based to one set played on Grand Slam and a 3-game set on VT...back with more soon (hopefully)...

Wow that calibrating thing is annoying. Does it tell you that you have to do it or did you just figure out on your own or what? Is it obvious?

Yes it is obvious...it doesn't let you continue without doing it...it says in huge letters on the screen:

ARE YOU READY?

Then you have to precisely put your cursor on your player and a little green check mark pops up...then you can continue...

lol sounds fun. Hmm now I am wondering if that is going to be an issue in other games such as TW only not as obvious what eneds to be done.

Having played half an evening of Grand Slam followed by half an evening of Virtua Tennis, I agree with a lot of what pdawg17 has posted about Virtua Tennis. If you're going to play Virtua Tennis, sit close to your TV or have a big set. Going from Grand Slam to Virtua I was taken aback at how small everything suddenly got on the Virtua courts.

The calibration screen before each serve doesn't bother me. Just like in tennis, you set your stance before you serve or get ready to return your opponent's serve so pointing your Wii Remote at the screen fits fine for me.

Virtua reminds me of that other Wii tennis game--Sega Superstars Tennis except in Virtua Tennis the controls actually work. (In Superstars Tennis, controlling your player was awful.) You don't need to powerhouse your serves in Virtua while Grand Slam demands more power to make a strong serve. In Virtua it feels like I'm roleplaying my character from a distance--like I'm playing a third person action game with Wii remote controls. It has more of an arcade feel. Even though you're also playing a character in the third person, Grand Slam makes me feel closer to the action and more like real tennis.

(I used to play Virtua Tennis on the PS3 (which also has some motion control built into its controllers, believe it or not) and the court mini-games were fun. The Virtua mini-games are also fun to play.)

I don't play either game with the nunchuck because the wire constricts movement. Thankfully, each game plays well without it.

What I don't like about Grand Slam is the way Lobs and Drops are handled. To lob the ball press the A button; to do a drop shot press the B button. (There are no "buttons" on a tennis racquet, but I guess MotionPlus can't accurately do it any other way.)

I played most of the night without looking at the manuals or going through the tutorials. Tomorrow I will because I couldn't win an exhibition game in Grand Slam and this was mainly due to my hitting outside the lines and my character swinging too early or too late (which I don't feel was my timing, but inaccurate timing with the MotionPlus.) But I'm ready for any pointers I can get so maybe it is my abilities. I was able to win an exhibition match in Virtua after playing for a while.

One more nice thing I like about Grand Slam is that it keeps track of how many calories you burn while you're playing and has a "Get Fit" option where you try to meet certain calorie goals. (Looks like it related to EA's Wii Active Personal Trainer which I also use and enjoy each day.)

thatdude90210,

Fry's is selling the MotionPlus dongle at a sale price which is cheaper than Amazon's. (Sales tax will hurt though.)

Thanks, Amazon shipped it last night. I ordered it for overnight shipping so I should have them today. I find that if I pre-order a bunch of stuff on amazon, then overnight shipping spreads out nicely so that for each item, it's only 3-4 bucks.

I played GST a little more last night (still no M+ mode) and find that maybe the ball placement isn't as good as I originally thought. The game is a little too forgiving when you time it too early. In Wiisports tennis, the timing is spot on. You just hit a fraction early to go cross court, and it works almost every time. You can easily beat the easy Mii's from the backcourt (of course the pro-Mii's you need the frontcourt guy). But in GST, even if you swing early, most of the time it still goes right down the middle. In practice mode with the ball machine, ball placement is easier. But in the game, more than likely it'll just go right down the middle. I wonder why that is.

My impressions after a few hours:

Whoever said M+ might turn out to be a 'be careful what you wish for' affair was probably right. Not that GST is bad, quite the opposite, but it's obvious the developer was careful to what degree the game uses the accuracy of M+. As it is there is a learning curve quite unlike any controler type sports game, and it could have been so much more brutal.

First you have to find a way to hold the wiimote to accurately hit top spin and slice. Once you do you know you're holding your invisible racket the right way. Yes you can hold it wrong and your game will be a desaster. Moving the wiimtoe around and spinning it you can see how precisely it tracks. You can also see how the game limits the response so you can't have your racket anywhere you like at any time. For better or worse we're not meant to contend with the actual difficulty of moving the racket to exactly the right spot. Hitting the ball is a matter of positioning and timing. Making a good shot and hitting it where you want it to go provides way more of a learning curve and depth than any tennis game I've played, so I'm not mad they didn't go all out with the M+, massive potential for frustration. It very accurately tracks your swing, spin, follow-through, timing etc.. Some timing leeway may be provided over control models that allow for infinite precision, but most people losing badly to the Easy AI at first suggests it's negligible. GST is hard. M+ makes it hard because it tracks so much. It shows you just how motorically challenged you are, and there will be many bad reviews from people who never come to terms with it.

Here's my advice: use the nunchuck. Control the positioning yourself. It's awkward at first but ok. It'll be even better once we can attach the wireless ones. I couldn't win a single game on Easy with just the wiimote. The AI positioning and how I wanted to hit never matched. Immersion is a bitch that way, you get into the game and someone else is at the wheel. You'll be complaining about hitting on the backswing, about how the timing is off, about M+ not working. It doesn't work. You know what happened when I plugged in the nunchuck? It all went away. It was all just positioning and timing. Suddenly I hit my shots, and I hit them the way I meant to. More control means there's more to control, and the devs were scared of the learning curve this imposes on players. This is misguided as it messes with M+. Try setting up a shot in tennis without knowing where you'll run. Yeah, like that.

Without the nunchuck I consider it borderline broken, with it it's exactly as advertised. Not 1:1 tennis but tennis with tons of added precision, control and nuances. Immersion is superb once you get the hang of it and for the first time ever I'm just looking at the court and don't have to hit complex buttong combinations or abstract stuff to kill a weak volley with a cross-court slice. I just do it.

After playing Virtua Tennis with the nunchuck tonight it occurred to me that it plays a lot like Top Spin 3 on the Wii. Better controls due to the MotionPlus, but still very much in the arcade vein. My two cents.

So, does anyone have more impressions on which tennis game is better?

I played both games all day yesterday and here are some further observations:

Grand Slam--

I played online and it was fun and easy to compete against other players. Lots of players with not much of a wait time--even at two in the morning. Sometimes I was paired up in matches with people who were ranked much higher than me and they mercilessly beat me. (I wish there was a way to play against people close to my rank. Maybe there is, but I haven't found it yet. I created my own character so he is a true amateur with little to no abilities. I'm not sure if the people I was playing against were using the stock pros in the game which have high levels of abilities. This could explain my many defeats. Then again, maybe I need more practice.)

For the most part, the superior players were just quicker getting to the ball than me. The game plays at a much slower pace than Virtua Tennis and sometimes it is frustrating when your player cannot get to the ball in time to return the shot. (I played with and without the nunchuck.) Sometimes I experienced online lag and sometimes I aced shots where the other player could clearly return the ball, but didn't.

I enjoy Grand Slam because I can make full hard swings. I often hit the ball out of bounds, but I never fault on the serves. There are times when the onscreen character does not react to the swing I am giving him and he swings late or doesn't swing at all. That is when the game is the most frustrating, but I hasn't prevented me from wanting to continue to play. (I think that Nintendo Power's score of 7 and their review is spot on. "While it mimics your racket moves well when you start a match, it suffer unpredictable disruptions over time...We tried several remotes on multiple systems, and the problem always arose during extended play sessions."

In a nutshell, Wii Motion Plus works in this game, but it doesn't work consistently or as well I would have hoped.

Virtua Tennis--

Initially, I liked Grand Slam over VT by a large margin. Playing more of the Wii VT, I remember how much I liked it on the PS3. It's fun to move your character up levels and play the mini-games and tournaments. Now, I like both Grand Slam and VT about equally, but for different reasons.

VT plays much quicker and it's easy to fault on your serves if you're not careful. VT has some nice moments where the Wii remote "speaks." (You'll hear John McEnroe complain on bad shots.) You also hold the Wii Remote at a different angle than Grand Slam. (There's a screen indicating that you have engaged the MotionPlus add-on to ensure you're playing the way you want. Grand Slam gives no indication that you are using MotionPlus or not.) Grand Slam requires a lot more button manipulation to make shots where VT reads your intents better and features virtually button free playing. (You need to recalibrate after each shot which might explain this.)

Finding someone to play online was difficult because there weren't many players. (Probably because most people have Grand Slam. In fact I'm ranked at #1 after winning just one match!) At first, I didn't think using full power swings or just flicking your wrist made a difference, but now I see that it does. Hitting full power gives much stronger shots with which you can dominate your opponents. Rallies can last a long time depending on how well you can play. In Grand Slam I haven't experienced many long rallies.

In a nutshell Wii MotionPlus works well in this game and the game plays at good speed. I wish there was more a first person feel to the game because I feel that I'm at a distance from actually becoming my character.

(I'll post more on VT as I play it more. I spent a larger percentage of time playing Grand Slam.)

Played some more VT on-line and the game really gave me a work-out. (Or I should say my on-line opponent did.) This game is more physically challenging than I first thought! I won two matches and lost one. They all had some good rallies. I'm not understanding how the ranking system works, though. My standings are the same from earlier in the day and my wins and losses have not been added. Maybe it tallies up at the end of the day? Okay. After I restarted the game, my new wins and losses were added, so all's good. (In Grand Slam, your record is updated immediately after playing.)

Haven't gotten VT yet so I can't comment on that, but a friend and I spent more time on GST. Bottom line is it gets better and better the longer you play. You learn the nuances of how the game reads the remote, get used to holding it still between points to recalibrate, and the instances where M+ flaked out on you get less and less. My buddy was the test case as he hadn't played it before. I told him what I'd learned from my mistakes about holding the remote and how the game reads movement in the arms and wrists. His learning curve was considerably shortened and he did no worse than me after only 15 minutes of adjusting.

I wouldn't want the pace to be any faster, speed and positioning are so crucial here it makes the matches very exciting and technical. On the other hand it's good to hear VT has a different, more arcadey approach with speed and longer rallies to differentiate itself. Can't wait to try it and see if it's worth playing in addition to this.

In any case I'm more than sold on M+, GST and Tiger Woods are the best games in their respective categories by virtue of these controls alone. And by a large margin too. It'd even be fair to say they're a different genre from the abstract precision controls on regular pads. M+ controls feel analogue and unpredictable in a good way in comparison, there's so much room for the human factor that the matches in GST look more like real tennis than a video game.

I spent part of the day playing Grand Slam online and was frustrated with the controls several times. Sometimes, the player just wouldn't make the shot even though I had plenty of time to set up the shot and other times the screen would freeze as I helplessly stood there. (Liersi, I'll have to try your advice of holding the remote still during shots, but for me it's natural sometimes to swing the racket a little bit before receiving the next serve. In Wii Sports you can swing the racket back and forth like crazy and it doesn't affect your timing.) At times, in Grand Slam it seems like the Wii remote is lagging behind what I'm doing in real life. Some matches I played today went on and on with tie breakers so I didn't lose easily or get blown out of the water. (I still wonder if choosing a pre-made pro is better than creating a fresh character with basic abilities.)

I also played a few VT on-line matches and I didn't experience any lags. Game play was very quick and smooth. I'm starting to favor VT more due to the frustrations of Grand Slam's lag problems.

so here are my impressions (all games played with nun. and m+)

So i went online and got smoked, then played the same guy and right before i beat him... disconnected... I am now ranked about 300 and i am loving the fact that it is so easy to play (i have a sports background). This is probably the most excited i have ever been playing a tennis game, i actually fist pumped after scoring once!! there are some issues online though once everytime i served i got the point regradless of what happened afterwards and there have been other times that i scored but the opposing guy got the points and vice versa!! so not sure what is going on in the online, but hopefully it will be fixed soon. I had no issues with m+ and never had to recalibrate or anything like that.
one of the things i loved the most the A button, this is the 1st tennis game where the lob actually works, i was killing all the net rushers it was such a great feeling, usually i get so frustrated because guys can just rush the net and there is nothing i can do.. it is so great to play a game that you can combat that... also i love the drop shots...

just go buy this game, this is what the wii was supposed to be, too bad it took years for them to get it right...

That's my biggest issue with it so far, but it seems to be the case all the time, not just some of the time. I can deal with the control issues for now, which is probably part of the learning curve.

is anyone else having issues online??? again today there was a couple of times the points went to the wrong person and once the ball hit twice but just keep spinning on the ground and then 2 sec. later the guy ran up and hit it.

also i am having trouble "slamming" the ball whenever someone lobs it i set up perfectly to crush the ball, but just hit it over normal.. any advice..

Whenever I play on-line something wonky always seems to happen. My character won't move or I ace serves without barely moving my arm. Sometimes my opponent will just stand there and not even try to return a serve. Sometimes my opponent will get two bounces on his side of the net and still win the point. Just lag issues in general, I guess. I tried playing a few games without the MotionPlus and my character was actually more responsive to what I wanted him to do, but my shots were not as accurate.

The lag in this game is so...frustrating...

I think this can be mostly solved by holding the remote still after every play (I say "mostly" because one play could last awhile). There were times where my player didn't react like I wanted it to, but I think it was because I didn't swing correctly or that M+ hadn't been calibrated in a while.

I have been having a TON of fun online with this game...it is frustrating at times when the wrong player gets the point...it also bugs me that there are players that like to hit lobs on every shot (even when you are playing deep) because they are harder to hit (some are so high they peak off the top of the screen)...because of it though I have perfected how to return these lobs so now I don't see them too much anymore ...I'm even sweating a little when I'm done so there is an added benefit...

And with the weird swings I have found that after every few points I rest it down on the couch like they say to and it is then "recalibrated"...