Beach Spikers: Virtua Beach Volleyball

"The GREATNESS is in the volleyball"

This is a review for Beach Spikers for the Gamecube. I am a HUGE volleyball fan, and when I saw that a volleyball game came to the Cube, I was very excited. I picked it up, looked nice, and played even better. Get ready for some Sega BEACH Volleyball!

Graphics: (9) The girls are nothing but flawless, every model is filled with detail. You could see every little detail the girls had. Even though this game was meant to attract men to buy this game because this has ALL girls and no boys to play with. Every tournament area has a theme like Nintendo, Pringles, Sega, ect. What amazed me the most was the fact when you fell in the sand, the sand moved and that shows a lot.

Sound: (7) Typical Sega music is here, nothing that good. I wasn't overly impressed with it. The intro music adds to the game with some coolness. The crowds were great always cheering and sometimes the booing if you do bad. The girls themselves sound like the Sims because you can barely tell what they are saying, you would think they are mumbling. After every 10 points, you can either encourage your partner, bring her down, praise her, or say nothing. Though you can barely hear what they say, you can feed from thier emotions.

Game Play: (10) The main thing in this game was the Volleyball. Simple but fun two on two games. Plays exactly like any tournaments, with realistic serving, blocking, bumping, setting, and even spiking. It goes so deep even though the sport is volleyball which made the game even MORE fun. Since this supports up to four players, multi-player is a must in this game, so take out your Madden NFL game and plop this into your Cube. Even for those who don't know what volleyball is, the game has a GREAT tutorial you can use which gives you the basics on serving, bumping, setting, and the best spiking! Also you have to play with a CPU throughout your tournament play, you have to raise her stats depending if you win a game or lose a game. With a variety of stats to raise including Bumping, Blocking, Setting, Response, ect.

Storyline (If any): (6) If you ever watch beach volleyball on ESPN, this is it. You pick your nationality, and you go and play other countries. I think they captured the girls from the countries VERY well, even down to their sunglasses. Though that doesn't show too much.

Summary: (8) A lot of replay value is in store for at
least a couple of weeks. If you are a die-hard volleyball fan and love either watching volleyball or play it, I say go get this game. Supporting up to 4 players make this game AWESOME multi-player. So invite a friend or two or even three because your in for some CRAZY fun!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/01/04