Forehands and backhands are legitimately read and translated, occasionally at your expense. If you anticipate shots and prepare a forehand or backhand correctly, you'll be golden, and your rallies will be intense and long. But if you misread a shot, go for a forehand and then correct to a backhand, your character will try to do the same, which takes a second, and you might actually flub the shot because of it. You don't have to do that, though, because you can play the way you want to. If you find, for example, that you just don't like your backhands, you can attack left-corner court returns with forehand swings. You simply position the Wii remote sideways as though you want to hit a forehand return and your character will go into the position and strafe over so that you can hit the ball. Works flawlessly and feels very dynamic.
Without Wii MotionPlus, rallies are all about timing. Based on when you swing, the ball will fly off in a certain direction -- very similar to Wii Sports Tennis. With MotionPlus, it's all about your form, power and followthrough, the latter of which is very important. You still use A and B-trigger as lob and dropshot modifiers, which just works. But less emphasis is placed on your timing. As your waiting for a serve or for a return, you twist the Wii remote about and your on-screen character will do the same. And when you finally hit it back, you'll need to consider whether to hit forehand or backhand, speed, and the positioning of the Wii remote at the end of your motion and arch. In my play test, every ball I returned shot exactly where I wanted it to go. Even better, if I cut my followthrough midway on a return, the ball would curve inward toward the middle court instead of outward toward a corner, which is amazing.
What about the remotes
