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DEAD OR ALIVE: XTREME BEACH VOLLEYBALL By WILL BARKER One of them is Hideo Kojima, and another is big busty babes with bouncing bossoms busily beating beach balls. Tecmo's latest game takes the female characters from Dead or Alive 3 and plonks them neatly onto a tropical island where they'll spend two weeks playing beach volleyball, gambling, working on their tans and forging deep and meaningful relationships. Indeed, this is one seriously zany game… The story goes like this: Zack's gambling habit leads to a multi-million dollar win and he buys an island and sets up the fourth Dead or Alive tournament. Strangely, he only invited female fighters, and instead of smacking each other around they'll be playing beach volleyball. Oh, and they're only allowed to wear bikinis. Hmm…. Opinions will be divided when it comes to Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball (DOAX). It's very much a love or hate proposition; one that gamers will invariably base on principles as opposed to any merits in gameplay. This is a bit of a shame really, because beyond all the wobbly silicon and high-pitched giggles, all those who shun the game will in fact miss out on some damn fine beach volleyball action featuring scantily clad bab… Oh - well I guess you know where my loyalties lie… I'm not worthy!! After a rather surreptitious intro (strawberries on navels anyone?), where the eight female athlete's are introduced, you have two options - you can either jump right into a quick, one-off exhibition game of volleyball, or you can fly to Zack Island, which is for all intents and purposes the career mode, or quest mode, if you like. While the former is self-explanatory, going to Zack Island is one very interesting experience. Kind of like a resort you only dream about - eight babes and one dude? - you start your vacation by choosing one of eight athletes.
But in the event that your partner does ditch you, which usually results from losing games, you can use the rather novel method of winning over another partner by buying them gifts. If you buy them a new bikini, their favourite coloured nail polish and perhaps some trendy sunglasses, there're more likely to want to team up with you. If they do accept your gifts and you form a team, they'll actually wear the new bikini and nail polish and so forth. Bizarre? Kinky? You better believe it. Your time spent on Zack Island is roughly split into three periods during the day - morning, noon and dusk. There are a number of things (besides playing volleyball) that you can do. You can buy stuff in the shops, including bikinis, tanning lotion (yes, your player will tan) and new shoes to name but a few. You can play the hopping game in the pool, which earns you money, or you can watch your designated player writhe about on a banana lounge by the pool - complete with camera zoom/pan functionality. Methinks this game wasn't designed for the ladeez… The best way to earn big money is to play (and win) volleyball, but at the end of the day you retire to the hotel, and from here you can head over to the casino and try to increase your earnings by playing poker, blackjack, roulette or slots. While all the mini-games and diversions keep things interest levels high, the meat of the game lies in playing volleyball, and what at first seems like a fairly shallow and simplistic game turns out to be just as wholesome as the likes of Virtua Tennis and et al. Well, pretty close to them, at the least.
Setting the ball up for your partner is perhaps the most straightforward move, while spiking and blocking requires two button presses - one to get the gals airborne and then another to actually hit the ball. Holding the button down for longer will make your player rise higher into the air, and theoretically smash the ball on a tougher angle, but your second button press is important too. Hold either one for too long though, and you're just as likely to screw the pooch, so to speak. This is where the big fun lies - in the spiking and smahsing - and if you can either set up your partner well, or vice versa, things are likely to bode well in the long run. If you time your strokes perfectly (Ed - that didn't sound good...) you'll also get cash bonuses for near-perfect spikes, volleys, serves and blocks, which I suppose explains the 'Xtreme' wording in the title. You can also influence the direction the ball travels once you've hit it, and this aftertouch comes in very handy during long and sweaty rallies. Replays are included, and it's pretty funny to watch the girls either commend or bag each other verbally. At the end of the day, this is arguably the best-playing volleyball game available and I thought the sports aspect and the gameplay involved to be pretty good. Pack in all the other features and mini-games, and it makes for quite an enjoyable experience, all things considered. Oh, silly me, I haven't even touched on the visuals yet [sweat builds on forehead, palms become all clammy -- looks shiftily from left to right, and then left again]. Well, it's safe to say that males everywhere will flock to this game - it looks simply amazing, it really does. As much as I want to turn away in disgust, impressing all my intellectual female co-workers, I can't.
It's pretty hard to spot a jagged edge in there amongst all that flesh - everthing is just so smooth. Hmmm.. Smooth.. Err, yes. Well, the, um, graphics are, err, fine - let's move along.... While it can be finished, there isn't really any point to DOAX, save from being able to buy the ultra-skimpy $1,000,000 bikini. And, while this seems rather evil on the surface, I tend to look at it as an addendum to a rather spiffy sports game. I mean, imagine how cool tennis games would be if you get Andre Agassi to wear a bikini? On second thoughts… The music offered up in DOAX is a mix between awful and shocking, but it still manages to suit the game rather well, which is sort of disconcerting in an agreeable kind of way... There's plenty of annoyingly boppy B*Witched, Christina Aguilera, Baha Men and The Spice Girls pop songs, though things are helped by the inclusion of a trio of Reel Big Fish tracks, not to mention the odd Bob Marley classic. Only in Japan could you make a game where you gamble away your earnings at night, while playing voyeur by day as quasi-volleyball-star-cum-personal-stylist. It is also one of the reasons why I'm trying to get adopted by a pair of rich childless Japanese aristocrats ^_^ In retrospect I am kinda stoked Microsoft decided to perform the localisation on Tecmo's game of questionable subject matter. If you can get past the gratuitous eye candy, gambling, gift-giving and cutesy anime giggle sessions, there's a very playable game locked away inside.
ORIGINALITY 90%
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There
are very few things that can guarantee the success of a product in the
video games industry.
Each has distinct
skills, such as power, technique, defence and even noticeably different
personalities too. The idea of personality comes into play during the
game as the beach volleyball is always two on two: Buddy up with the wrong
lass however, and things won't go too well.
While
there are only action two buttons and movement via the D-pad, you can
perform quite a few moves, such as the spike, block and set.
The Tecmo/Team Ninja
artists and modellers must have spent months creating the girls, and I
shudder to think how many polygons they're made up of (seeing the wireframes
would be a bit of a trip). It's kind of sad that such talents weren't
put to use on other games, like the impending Hawaiin Beach Bikini BBQ
Bake-off. 
