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EA unaware of Grand Slam Tennis MotionPlus glitches
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For those desperately hoping EA Sports is aware of the MotionPlus glitches in Grand Slam Tennis and are hard at work on a solution, don't hold your breath. While Grand Slam Tennis is a very good tennis game, the main thing holding it back from being a truly great game are a few bugs in the MotionPlus controls.
But even though one of these bugs is glaringly obvious to anyone who has played the game for any decent length of time, the development team at EA Sports is blissfully unaware of them. When asked if there might be a forthcoming patch to fix the MotionPlus glitches, EA responded they were "not aware of any specific problems with it in relation to Grand Slam Tennis."
My best guess is that they haven't spent much time playing the game.
Grand Slam Tennis is good. And there is no doubt that it takes a little getting used to the control scheme. If you only play it for a few matches, you'll think the MotionPlus has a lot of glitches associated with it. But once you understand how the game works -- something the game itself doesn't do so great a job at teach you -- you'll be able to cut down a lot on these so-called bugs.
For example, the game looks to you to decide if you want to use a forehand or backhand. If you try to use a forehand stroke when you should be using a backhand, your character will run around to the other side of the ball in order to get into position.
This is a player-based error.
However, the MotionPlus sometimes becomes unsynced and can sometimes misinterpret movement of the controls. For example, moving the Wii Remote smoothly backwards in order to prepare for a swing can sometimes be misinterpreted as a swing even though the Wii Remote is not moving forward. In turn, this will cause your character to make a clumsy swing at a ball that might not even be over the net.
This is a MotionPlus bug. And an obvious. In fact, I have a hard time imagining someone who has played the game more than an hour not coming across this one since I come across it at least once in most matches.
It wouldn't even be that difficult to at least limit the bug by ignoring any swing when the ball is no where near the character. Of course, that wouldn't fix the glitch when the ball is near you, but it will save the frustration of your character swinging at a ball that is on the other side of the court.
There are other little glitches as well, probably related to the MotionPlus not always syncing correctly. For example, the game will sometimes misunderstand your swing and go for a backhand even when you are obviously swinging a forehand. Again, most of the time, this is user error, but there's little doubting that the MotionPlus becomes a little unsynced and is at fault for some of these. The game also doesn't always accurately take into account the speed of a stroke, so a light touch applied to a drop shot won't always be recognized.
And then, of course, there's the bug where you character doesn't even run for the ball, instead just standing there twiddling his thumbs. That one doesn't have much to do with the MotionPlus controls, but its still pretty annoying.
Unfortunately, we may have to wait until next year for them to hammer out the glitches in the controls. Which is too bad because a bit more accuracy would have really pushed this one over the top.
Grand Slam Tennis review
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