Grand Slam Tennis on Wii was released back in 2009, and the title's solid gameplay and endearing exaggerated visual style added up to one of the best tennis games on the platform. That year EA also announced that the game would be making the transition to PS3 and 360, but that never eventuated. Fast forward to 2011 and EA Sports is finally bringing tennis to the HD consoles in the form of Grand Slam Tennis 2, and we've gone hands-on.
The key innovation is Total Racquet Control, which takes its cues from other EA series' like Skate and Fight Night. Essentially the right stick becomes the racquet, and there are a number of ways to hit the ball – pull back and flick forwards for top spin, tap forward for a flat shot, and pull back and then release for a slice. Modifier buttons allow for drop shots and lobs, while aiming is based on the direction you push the stick during the various motions.
The system was the result of a fair bit of iteration, according to Thomas Singleton, the line producer on the game. "When we first started working on it," he told us, "we started getting pretty complex with Total Racquet Control. It was more like a Fight Night with lots of swooping motions. It doesn't work well with the fast twitch experience where a tennis ball is travelling past you at upwards of a hundred miles an hour at times in real life, and pretty close to that within the virtual world." Instead, they focused on getting the aiming right and giving players control over the depth of their shots – using the full court, in other words.
Watch the Grand Slam Tennis 2 Teaser
In practice it works well, but may take some time to master. By the end of our brief hands-on, we were winning matches, but were relying largely on top spin and flat shots, combined with tactical movement about the court. Slices and drop shots proved more difficult to use reliably, but with a new control scheme like this that's hardly surprising. It's built to have depth, after all.
Whether the added tactility of the control system will offer more nuance for players than a traditional button-based system therefore remains to be seen. There's no doubt this is what the team is going for, but it doesn't feel as natural a fit as something like Skate, where the flick-based control scheme was a masterful analogue for the real thing, with the kind of nuance and subtlety that ensured a learning curve that never stopped. Tennis is quite a different proposition, and - as far as tennis video games are concerned - is more about gross movements: positioning, timing and outmanoeuvring the opponent, as opposed to control subtlety. Here's hoping more time with the game will reveal that the new system really is a step forward.
All that said, Total Racquet Control isn't the only control option in Grand Slam Tennis 2. The game also supports PlayStation Move, and according to Singleton this was actually the main reason the project was taken off the backburner. When asked why the original PS3 and 360 versions never eventuated, he told us "We kinda shelved it and said - okay, the timing's not right, let's wait for something similar to happen in the hardware aspect of the industry. The PlayStation Move came around, and it was like okay, now is the time for us to build this product. Much like we did with the Wii version, putting the racquet in the palm of your hand and swinging it is a pretty cool thing. It's highly intuitive."
