Outlaw Volleyball

"A Great Volleyball Title with a Ton of Sex Appeal"

Introduction

You might think Outlaw Volleyball is just a gimmick that uses stereotyped characters and sex appeal to sell itself. Well, it does have stereotyped characters and it's loaded with a ton 'o sex appeal, but it is far from being a gimmick. Anchored beneath the veneer of this game's one dimensional characters and bouncing female body parts is one heck of a solid volleyball game. I'll admit, the first thing that attracted me to this game was the extremely hot female players. I'll play anything that has bouncing boobs in it at least once. This game was a unique gamble for me, however, because I'm not into sports games. I just don't care for them, and I suck at them to boot. I figured, if nothing else, I'll get to check out some hot women while I fiddle around with the game for a bit and then let it collect dust. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that this is a very well constructed volleyball game, one that I could actually play. And on top of that, it's loaded with enough bells and whistles to really provide an entertaining experience.

Outlaw Volleyball released at about the same time as two other volleyball titles. The first one was the beyond-ridiculous Dead or Alive Volleyball and the other was an obscure title called something like Summer Beach Volleyball. I never tried the Summer Beach one, but I was stupid enough to buy the Dead or Alive game. I was so soured and bewildered by that incredibly lame game that I thought I'd never be able to play another volleyball game. If you suffered the same experience I did with Shopping Network Volleyball. . .oh, I mean Dead or Alive Volleyball, then I'm here to tell you there's hope. Hypnotix has shown that it is entirely possible to create a fun and engaging volleyball game and at the same time load it with cheap, sleazy sex appeal that will have you oogling at your tv screen and reaching for the lube. But I digress. Or do I? What I mean to say is, this is arguably the best volleyball game on the market for any platform.

To begin, the game gets very high marks on presentation. The training videos, the game menus, the opening cinema, even the game manual are all top notch. There is no reek of cheesiness or half-assed effort here. Some of the things the characters say during their little intro movies before a tournament are really dumb and make no sense, but at least they are well acted. Dialogue has never been a strong point in video games, and I strongly suspect it never will be. There seems to be an unwritten law that says if you are good at creating games, you will be horrible at writing dialogue. Play Bloodrayne 2 or Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude to see evidence of this. Fortunately, the things the announcer guy says during the games are pretty funny and well acted, but they didn't record enough of it. Fairly early on in the game, you will have heard it all.

Gameplay

I'll start with what matters the most in any game: the gameplay. Or should I say, gameplay with boobies. Yes, as the game manual says, the ball isn't the only thing that bounces. But the ball is the most important thing that bounces, and in this game it bounces very well. The point that I am slowly bouncing toward is, the gameplay rocks. It is simply great fun. Some may consider the gameplay to be too simplified, and claim that you're just doing the same actions over and over again. There is probably some truth to this, but volleyball is not a complicated sport, folks. The objective is to prevent the ball from hitting the ground on your side of the net, while doing everything you can to make it hit the ground on your opponents' side of the net. You can hit the ball three times before it has to go back over the net. That's it. As Donna, one of the players in the game, says, "It's not rocket surgery." You don't have button combos to memorize, objects to collect, weapons to upgrade or puzzles to solve. Just hit the damn ball, and try to hit it better than your opponent does. It's perfect for those who appreciate simplicity.

The game does add some variety to the basic volleyball formula by introducing new elements into the mix. For example, there are Hot Potato games, which have a timer that starts ticking down after each serve. When the timer expires, the volleyball explodes. If it explodes on your side of the net, you lose the point. There are also Time Bomb games. In these games, whenever the volleyball hits the ground, it plants a time bomb. This bomb will slowly tick down and you better make sure your players are nowhere near it when it blows. Then you have modes like Casino, in which the players with the most money, not the most points, win the game. Some of the games employ Side Out rules, which mean only the serving team can score. And then of course you've got your good ol' classic volleyball games, in which all you have to think about is scoring more points than your opponents. While the different gameplay modes make it interesting, the coolest addition this game brings to the sport of volleyball is the use of Turbo. Using Turbo allows your player to pull off super powerful serves and spikes, and even run around the court at twice the speed. Nothing is free, however. You've got to build up your Turbo meter by scoring points. Lose several consecutive points and you find yourself with no Turbo and facing an opponent with plenty of it.

The gameplay is further augmented by allowing you to level up your players' skills through unique drills. There are drills for serving, bumping, spiking, blocking, and possibly other things that I haven't unlocked yet. If you successfully complete a drill, you are allowed to distribute a certain number of points between four categories for your player: power, speed, offense and defense. As you progress through the game, more difficult drills are unlocked. This is how you work toward being able to compete against the big boys.

Another element that really adds to the gameplay is the very extensive replay mode. At the end of every volley, the player can request a replay by hitting the Y button. During the replays you can tell the camera to focus on any one of the four players or the ball itself. You can pause, rewind, fast forward, zoom the camera in/out up/down, even advance or rewind the action only a few frames at a time with the left and right triggers. Replay mode is great for getting nice, up close shots at the female players in all kinds of interesting positions. Unfortunately, the boobie bounce function doesn't work in replay mode. Where the bouncing breasts can be witnessed in all their glory is in the Player Reaction mode. After each volley, the reaction of one player is shown. You can turn this off in the options menu, but you won't want to do that unless you have some weird aversion to breasts and all the wonderful ways they can move.

While the game for the most part is great fun, there is a strange flaw in the game design that needs to be pointed out. Often, your opponents' spikes are simply indefensible. If you are playing Tour mode and your opponent decides to spike in the direction of the character you are controlling instead of your teammate, forget about saving it. The ball simply moves too fast and no human on earth has that kind of reaction time. However, if the spike heads in your teammate's direction, your cpu teammate will most often successfully bump it and allow you to then set and return. I still don't quite understand the logic there, as it leads to the conclusion that the player is always better off allowing his cpu teammate to handle the bumps. In Exhibition mode, the game provides a marker on your side of the net indicating where your opponent is aiming his spike, which gives you a chance to defend. In Tour mode, however, this marker is unavailable. The marker only appears AFTER your opponent has hit the ball, and this gives you about 1/1000th of a nanosecond to respond before the ball hits the ground. Needless to say, it's not enough time, and a lot of points are lost this way. While I consider this to be a bit unfair, it doesn't detract too much from the enjoyment of the game. After all, the game just as often seems to slant things in your favor. Sometimes your opponents act like they have just been hit with the idiot stick, and allow you to score four or five consecutive points on them.

The last, and definitely the least part of the gameplay I will mention is the Fighting mode. This is the part of the game that got trashed by all the gaming magazines. It's not all that bad, but it's definitely not one of the finer points of the game. If you have Fighting turned on in the options menu, you can initiate a fight with one of your opponents before a serve. The purpose of fighting is to steal some of your opponent's Momentum (which determines how quickly your Turbo regenerates). Your player and the opponent you have chosen square off fighting-game style and go at it with punches and kicks. The fighting controls are very simple, and this is probably the reason so many gaming mags trashed it. If combat doesn't have a huge list of button combos for them to memorize, those hardcore masochists aren't happy. Of course the fighting mechanics aren't going to be deep and complex--that's not the kind of game this is. It's about simple, goofy, raunchy fun. The only complaint I really have about the fighting is the attacks are kind of generic, and even the special moves aren't that great. With this game's emphasis on raunchiness and humor, a lot more could have been done with the fighting to make it more entertaining. Special Boob Attack, anyone?

Control

One of the things that makes the gameplay in Outlaw Volleyball so great is you are in complete control of what the players on your side of the net do. You are in full control of bumping, setting, spiking, serving, and blocking. Unlike Dead or Alive Volleyball, the controls are setup in such a way that there is no mystery as to what your player is going to do. There is none of this "hit the B button soft and she does this, hit it hard and she does this, hit it while moving the stick this way and she does this" crap. Every button and trigger has its own independent function, so the player can spend his time strategically planning out his attack rather than struggling with the controls. The left analog stick moves your player around the court just like it would in any third person adventure game. The left trigger allows you to switch players instantly. The A button is an all-purpose tool for serving, bumping, setting, and spiking. The X button is for a strong serve or a strong return, the B button is for a weak serve or a weak return, and the Y button is for blocking. The right trigger engages turbo, which enables your player to pull off special moves. That's pretty much all you need to know about the control. It's very simple, although I will admit it took me some time to get used to the little nuances that the different buttons provide for your strategy.

Further facilitating player control, the game uses a ground marker on your side of the net which enables you to determine exactly where you will be setting and spiking the ball. You can't choose where you will be bumping the ball, because that is determined by your opponent's volley, but you have full control after that. You decide what positions your players take to set and spike, and this helps you set up for some killer shots. There is even the option in Exhibition mode of having a ground marker on the opponents' side of the net, which will let you pick exactly where you will hit the ball on a return. I keep this option turned off, because it adds a bit more realism to the game. What player always knows exactly where his return is going to go?

Perhaps I'm delving a little too much into the intricate details of the game. I'll sum up by saying the control is excellent and is a large part of what makes the game fun.

The Camera

Outlaw Volleyball has an excellent, very well fleshed out camera system. There are multiple camera angles from which you can choose to view the action. A couple of them, by their very nature, make the game a bit more challenging, such as the Action camera and the Follow camera. I've never had a problem with any of the camera modes. The extreme versatility of the replay camera is one of the best things about the game, allowing you to view any aspect of the action from any angle you want. If you completely bungle a point, you can go back and see what you did wrong in slow mo.

Graphics

Let's face it: you don't care how the courts look, or the ball, or the spectators. You wanna know how the girls look. Well I'm happy to tell you they look very good. The female models in the game are very well done, with some nice variations in body types. The polygon count on these women must be extremely high, because I found virtually no sharp angles or pointy edges on them. The breast physics are among the best I've seen in a game. My only complaint about the breast physics is that they are turned off for most of the game. The only jiggle time you get in the game is in reaction mode after a volley, which is relatively brief. It would have been very, very nice if the breast physics were turned on during replay mode. Oh, the countless hours I could spend moving her back and forth, back and forth, just to make sure I hit the ball right. . . .

Aside from the female models, the graphics in the game are quite good. The frame rate never stutters. The animations of the players during a volley, while not 100% realistic, are realistic enough. Motion capture was obviously used for the player reactions. There are some nice flashy effects during a turbo spike or serve. The many environments in which the courts are placed look great, but you don't really notice them much except in the intro video to each tournament. When choosing your players, you can zoom in real close on the female models and check them out while you pick their outfits. I love it when game designers think of stuff like this, because players love it. Big Boobie mode, which is a code you have to enter, looks incredible on some girls but not so good on others.

Audio

The soundtrack for the game is a variety of rap and alternative rock. Fortunately, the game allows you the option to turn off the songs you don't like. I ended up turning off quite a few, and I still had a decent selection of tunes to jam to while I played. And that reminds me: the game comes with a bonus demo disc of the alternative rock band Diffuser. It features two kick-ass songs, and a music video starring Summer, one of the hotties in the game. You don't see extras like this very often, and I thought it was pretty cool of Hypnotix to include that. I keep the demo disc in my car and pop it into my cd player from time to time. The songs play just fine on a regular car stereo.

The game is well voice acted. The characters come off as convincing in their overdone one-dimensionality. Usually games like this have some really bad acting which makes cut scenes almost unbearable to watch, but Outlaw Volleyball escapes that trap. My only problem with the voice-overs is that some of the characters have such thick accents that I can't figure out what they're saying. My favorite aspect of the voice acting is the announcer guy. His comments are always relevant to what is going on in the game, so it almost seems as if someone is really commentating your game. He's funny, he's got a perfect voice for this kind of thing, and they should have given him a lot more recording time so there is more variation in what he says throughout the game.

Overall, the game seems to strike a really good balance between arcade and sim-style gameplay. It's the perfect choice for those who are interested in playing a quality sports title without the complexity of a simulation, like all those damn football games out there. The difficulty is fair and revs up slowly, with only the occasional aberration in which the game seems to totally cheat. My only real complaint about the game is that the chest jiggle for the women should have been active in replay mode. I mean come on, the hot women are one of the main selling points of the game, and we loooove to see them jiggle.

My apologies to those with Xbox live for not reviewing the online aspect of this game. I don't have Xbox live, and so I can't tell you what this game is like online. It's probably the usual crap, with players using cheat codes to win while trash- talking you the whole time. I have no interest in going online until Microsoft can figure out a way to clean it up and prevent the use of cheat codes. In my opinion, the best gaming experience is still the single player one.

Final Rundown

Gameplay: 10
Graphics: 10
Control: 10
Audio: 10
Difficulty: The game is fair, with only occasional unfair spikes in difficulty
Presentation: 10
Average breast size: D-cup
What the heck?: Chest jiggle not on in replay mode, and occasional indefensible returns by your opponents

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/20/04