The first Grand Slam Tennis title appeared on the Wii back in 2009 and was the first game in Europe to be bundled with the Wii MotionPlus. Unfortunately the planned PS3 and Xbox 360 versions never materialised and so the sequel represents a welcome competitor to Top Spin and Virtua Tennis on HD consoles.

I recently downloaded the 1.14GB demo for Grand Slam Tennis 2 from the PlayStation Store and put it through its paces. The sample lets you play as Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic, and you can choose to practice against a ball machine or face off on Wimbledon’s Centre Court.

The first thing you’ll notice is the natural, atmospheric commentary by American John McEnroe and Australian Pat Cash. Tennis games rarely have a commentary track and once you play Grand Slam Tennis 2 for a couple of hours you’re likely to miss the omission of a commentary option in most other tennis titles.

Another thing you’ll notice is that the player likenesses are right up there with Top Spin 4. The players also move very realistically and there are plenty of impressive animations like Nadal and Djokovic going to their seats for a water break. I didn’t notice any player-specific animations like Nadal’s trademark forehand but was impressed by the number of shots each player can pull off. For instance, I saw more dives and over-the-shoulder returns during my time with the demo than I’ve witnessed in other tennis games.

You can view an ESPN-sponsored slow-mo replay after any point and these look great. I did notice, however, that the animation transition between a point being scored and the player’s subsequent reaction is a little jarring. Another graphical blemish is the crowd, which looks disappointingly stilted. Unfortunately the audio effects in the stadium and on the court are also no match for Top Spin 4.

A cool feature of the demo is that you can adjust the difficulty level of the AI to make for some very challenging encounters. The player AI seems spot on and your opponent mixes up his shot selection nicely. I couldn’t find a clear strategy to defeating the opposition on the harder difficulty levels, so you really just have to play each shot on its merits.

Unlike some tennis games, the speed at which you run is determined by a combination of how much you tilt the left analog stick and how far away you are from the ball. This makes reaching the ball a bit easier than you would expect, although naturally there are still some shots which are played well beyond your reach.

Grand Slam Tennis 2 really shines when it comes to controls. You can use the right analog stick to serve and play a range of shots at the desired angle, or you can use the face buttons for a more traditional setup. You can switch between the two input methods on the fly, and you’ll soon find that some shots (such as the drop shot) feel more comfortable and work better using a certain control scheme. The benefit of using the right analog stick for shots is that is frees up the left stick for player movement for a few extra split seconds, whereas with the traditional face button setup you would need to use the left stick to angle your shot just before striking the ball.

The demo also supports the PlayStation Move and navigation controller. If you only play using the Move then your player will follow the ball automatically, although you can press buttons to approach the net or fall back to the baseline. You’ll probably want to play Grand Slam Tennis 2 using both the Move and navigation controller for the most precise experience, though.

You can make your player right-handed or left-handed depending on which hand you feel most comfortable holding the Move in. The game does a great job of explaining how to pull off the complete range of shots using the Move, and your player generally plays the shot you want him to. We’re not talking 1-to-1 tracking here by any means, but rather an advanced gesture-driven control scheme that retains much of the finesse of using the right analog stick to select and angle shots. I’d definitely go so far as to say that Grand Slam Tennis 2 makes better use of the Move than any other Move-enabled sports game I’ve played thus far.

For those of you considering picking up Grand Slam Tennis 2 next month, I’d heartily recommend taking the demo for a spin. Even if you have no plans to purchase the game, the demo makes for an additive slice of interactive sport and is an awesome showcase of the PlayStation Move’s potential.

It remains to be seen if Grand Slam Tennis 2 can topple Top Spin 4 from the tennis throne, but judging by what I’ve seen in the demo I reckon it’ll offer tennis fans stand-out features that were missing from 2K Czech’s offering.

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