Beach Spikers: Virtua Beach Volleyball

"Time to hit the beach."

Sports games on consoles are as rare as sport on tv. Which basically means that any console will have a huge range of sports titles, to cater for most tastes including your regular football, tennis, hockey etc. Over the years though we have seen a steady increase in extreme sports titles coming over to the mainstream. Including snow boarding skateboarding etc. Now this is reflected in the console industry too, with many extreme sports games being successful on the format. The likes of Tony Hawks and the SSX series bringing extreme sports to the gamesplayer.

The problem with sports games is that its hard to come up with originality when you have strict rules to stick to. Which brings us to Beach Spikers. This is a perfect example of introducing a new sport to the genre rather than sticking to the obligatory Footie or Snow board game. Beach Spikers if you hadn’t guessed from the title is a Volleyball game and a good one at that. As with any sports game you have various modes to try including Training, Arcade, Vs and Career. All very standard fare. In arcade mode you pick a team from a list of various females from around the world and compete for the title. This mode is fun and can help you get used to playing the game against relatively easy opponents (you can choose the difficulty here). Also to unlock various outfits for the career mode. I recommend playing Arcade mode for a while before trying the career mode purely for the unlockables.

The main crux of the game, and the place which is most rewarding is the career mode. This mode adds an interesting feature into the mix where you have to train your team partner to become your equal or better in some cases. Lets start. Firstly you have to build the look of your character, face, skin colour and hair type etc. This is actually quite fun because the character models look excellent. Once you have chosen the character you choose the all important beachware. This can range from full bikinis to open backed swimsuits, each with their own designs. There are loads to choose from and more to unlock through playing the game. Once you have selected your character and your team mate its time to enter a series of tournaments. The onus here is definitely on winning and looking good doing it. The first thing you notice is that your partners skills are virtually useless. She fumbles balls, miss hits and generally loses the game for you. Luckily you are awarded points after a match regardless of whether you win or lose to add to your partners stats. Also during matches you have the option of praising or telling off your partner. This will aid your team co-operation (represented by a bar) in matches so that you cover the most of the court without stepping over each other. If you are too harsh then your bar will reduce and so will your partners playing ability. This is a fresh idea as it creates an excellent teacher pupil relationship with a real sense of achievement when you start to win matches.

Now the matches themselves. These are games played to 15 points with a tie break if you are not 2 points clear, like a tennis tie break. The rules are simple (not sure if they are official rules) and the controls are responsive. This brings the matches into a zone of intense point scoring and set up tactics all the while maintaining the cool look of the characters. Some of the better teams offer a real challenge with edge of your seat rallies ending in a spiked point (a clean hit to the sand). The portrayal of team feeling is fantastic as the girls hug and high 5 on scoring or looking disgruntled from losing.

Overall we have an excellent game which supports up to 4 players offering the usual modes. Featuring an extensive character creation system that's easy and fun. There are 3 sub games to play to add some variety to the whole package and excellent character models that look realistic and easy gameplay. On a downside with all games of this ilk there is only so much you can do in single player. The career mode tries to address this and does to a certain degree. I also found that although not an essential move, the block move is fiddly to pull off successfully. Beach Spikers is a refreshing change in the sports category offering a different game to get into. Great for multiplay but maybe a bit lacking for a single player game once you've mastered it. Although this is a port from the Arcades I do feel that its going to be overshadowed by the forthcoming DOA volleyball. Until then though this game is fun and easy to play so bring it on and hit the beach.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/09/03, Updated 06/09/03