Gold Slam

Gold Slam Review

Gold Slam which is published by Aeria Games entered Open Beta testing in late August. Like Fantasy Tennis, Gold Slam is a tennis MMO but differs from the older tennis MMO in several ways. Gold Slam is an authentic tennis game, there are no power-ups or special attacks. The controls are more complicated and the learning curve is steep for a free game.

New players have five character to chose from, three male and two female. They differ in appearance and in the distribution of four stats; Shot Power, Concentration, Foot Work, and Control. Gold Slam has a mandatory tutorial which has 5 steps and a 2000 GP reward at the end. This is where things get frustrating. The controls are poorly explained in broken English which means players will end up having to figure things out themselves. It took me a good 10 or so minutes to finish what should of been a very brief tutorial. Even after completing the tutorial, new players will be confused by the controls. There are three types of shots which are done by hitting A,S, or D but each shot must be aimed manually. So as the shot is being preformed, players must use the arrow keys to aim where they want the ball to land. This makes Gold Slam far more realistic and professional than the typical tennis game but also a great deal more complicated.

Gold Slam offers the classic tennis game modes, singles (1v1) and doubles (2v2) and the typical three court floor types; clay, hard, and grass. Each type of floor has different properties which effect the ball’s physics as well as player movement. One great feature in Gold Slam is the ability to set how many games each match will last. The length of a single tennis game can be daunting if set to default, 3 games make up a set, several sets make up the match. Every players stats are tracked which makes for a great ranking system. Players will be able to tell right away what their rivals win/loss ratio is as well as their drop out ratio. This information can then be used to weed out chronic losers or leavers.

Each match, players are rewarded a certain number of GP based on how well they play. Sadly, new players will likely end up earning 50-60 GP a match when getting to level two requires a daunting 4000 GP. What’s worse, most of the items in the shop have steep level requirements and are only purchasable for a set number of days. Why so many Asian MMOs do this, I can’t say. Its just a massive pain to continually re purchase the same items every week. At least the shop as some cool items like sunglasses and headbands which give you large stat bonuses and are usually reasonably priced.

As of the Open Beta, Gold Slam still suffers from various bugs. the worst of these is the fact that hitting Alt+Tab (to minimize) results in the game crashing. Certain maps cause some players to experience ‘invisible walls’ on parts of the court which makes the game unplayable. The graphics that accompany hitting the ball seem a bit off, the ball sometimes flies past a player but it turns out he somehow managed to hit it. Gold Slam is a visually impressive free game and if you’re a tennis fan its the best game in the field. But the learning curve and difficult controls makes Gold Slam a hard sell to the rest of us. Don’t go into this one expecting Mario Tennis.

Gold Slam Screenshots

Gold Slam Video

Gold Slam Guides / Resources

Official Site

Game Guide