Grand Slam started life as a simple tennis game with initial programming done by MacroMind (MusicWorks, ArtGrabber, VideoWorks, etc.). But Tom Maremaa, a former professional tennis player, took the product over and decided to create a true tennis simulation. The result is a game that in many ways approaches the feel and look of a live tennis match, and is filled with more than enough fun to justify spending an entire afternoon playing tennis instead of working.
Four Mac-controlled "robot" players, all with different styles of play, are designed into the game. Although it would have been nice to have the robots represent actual professional tennis players, the legal and financial complications of doing so would have prevented the game from ever being finished. Instead, the four players have styles similar to some current world-ranked competitors but with names like Demon, Warrior and Chiphead.
Grand Slam can be played in two modes: practice or tournament. In practice mode the effects of court surface (clay, grass, asphalt), racket tension and type (wood, metal, graphite) can be guaged and the differing talents of the four robots evaluated without the pressure of scoring. You can also experiment with keyboard controls that add slice or topspin to a shot, send a lob over your opponent's head or a smash (figuratively) down his throat. (Yes, I meant his: the initial version of the game, at least, is all male.)
In tournament mode, the game records each point and scores a match as the best of three sets. The tournament draw is generated randomly each time a tournament is started. The name Grand Slam comes from the series of four major tournaments on the professional tour. Wimbledon and the French, US and Australian open competitions. Because of different playing surfaces, each tournament requires a unique set of tactics in order to compete successfully.
Grand Slam incorporates digitized sound, for ball bounces and shots and crowd noise, and some fairly sophisticated animation techniques for the play itself. In fact, the disk is completely full because of the graphics and sound information.
In general, once you learn how to control the players' movements with a mouse, the game plays very well. The graphics are occasionally a bit choppy and it is sometimes difficult to tell exactly what will happen on a given stroke. Even so. Grand Slam succeeds both as a simulation and a highly addictive game.
Wesley, Michael D. (November 1986). Grand Slam. MacUser. (pgs. 51, 53).
Infinity Software, Ltd.
Games
out of 10 (1 vote)
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2014-04-14 / 
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grandslam.zip
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Mini vMac
