taken from another thread regarding tennis video gaming:
pulled the trigger and bought grand slam 2. the career is okay, character creation is pretty great. character development/progression is so-so. the roster is, if not better, on par with top spin 4. the visuals are great with the exception of weird animations and odd character proportions. presentation is great and the extras are pretty deep.
the career is a bit bland. i may be too harsh too soon, but if anything, i can say that the career is simple. the premise seemed cool. the draw is having all four slams and being able to experience them in a more engaging/involved way. the progression from outer courts to show courts actually makes a difference in the feel of realism, or at least, EA's knack for detail.
creating your player for career mode or for leisure is pretty gratifying with the inclusion of EA's game face feature and the volume of branded tennis clothing and equipment one can customize a player with. facial morphing is also a decent feature. it is nearly at the level of morphing capabilities as Top Spin's, but simplified in a way that my player didn't end up looking hideous too quickly. there isn't too much to choose from in terms of hair and such but that isn't too bad.
character development (through career mode) is a simple concept. choose abilities youd like to add skill points to and you'd have to complete drills within a certain number of tries to progress. pretty typical of tennis video game character progression, although i would have loved for EA to use a less run-of-the-mill approach to this. like having a practice court-- hitting/running drills-- time spent on court & proficiency with drills in relation to how many times a shot was practiced (eg. forehand down the line)= attribute points added to whichever trait was precticed. the player attribute catagories have also been generalized to 6 catagories. eh
the roster is good. the top 4 are there along with roddick, tsonga, nishikori, and hewitt. i would have liked to see a couple power houses like delpo, sod, or berdych. on the women's side there is sharpova, ivanovic, and both williams sisters. what really saves the roster are the retired folk featured: edberg, borg, becker, mac, sampras, stitch, and cash from the men's and henin, davenport, navratilova, and evert on the womens. all of whom look the way they did in their prime (licensed clothing and all), unlike in TS4 where most of the legends look like they're on the champions tour. the players look great.
the game as a whole looks great both in graphical fidelity and the artistic approach to presentation. i would have to say it's the most realistic looking adaptation of a tennis game i've played. everything is beautiful, well, aside from the at times horrendous character animation. as an example, both sampras and federer have seperate animation sets. in both players their backhands looked pro level in comparison to their club-level-looking forehands. it seems like such a pivotal part of game play wasn't captured properly. EA sort of makes up for it in quantity of signature pro styles like rafa's looping follow through, mac's abbreviated swings, borg's backhand, etc
presentation-wise, the game looks great, the art direction with the menus, on screen huds, commentary and on screen tidbits is great, resembling that of a long running sports game franchise.
playing on line with this game is exponentially more fun than i thought it would be, given the character animation and the sort of arcade-like movement. the gameplay is fun, but it is also deep. options for playing online are kept simple, but are effective in matching players up of similar skill.
as far as extras go, stats provide from online play are a great addition, it showcase one's win streaks, average level of opponents, and etc, as well similar info regarding ones opponents. the stats are very informative and i actually like this feature alot.
i hate the way it looks while playing it, but it all becomes a blur once you actually do start playing since you'll be too engaged in the quick but satisfying gameplay.