Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball

"Welcome to Fantasy Island"

I'll admit it: What initially attracted me to Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball was the females from DOA in swimsuits. But surprisingly, this game is more than a T&A fest. It's actually a fairly decent volleyball game and has some elements of Japanese dating sims thrown in for good measure.

1) Graphics. Oh, like this category needs to be graded. The graphics are beautiful. And I'm not just talking about the ladies. The environments are gorgeous as well, and interact with the characters. For example, you'll see sand that shifts with people stepping on it. Water responds appropriately when a girl jumps in. The time of day affects the color palette, and it looks amazing, particularly at sunset.

Animation is also quite good. The game maintains a constant 60 fps, and the animations of the girls and background items are full and realistic. About the only flaw you could make is that the girls' win animations are repeated fairly often. But it's not that big of a deal.

2) Sound. The game only includes Japanese language for the dialog and English subtitles, which is fine. After all, DOA 2: Hardcore's dub was pretty corny. Sure, it's plenty odd that characters who aren't even from Japan are speaking fluent Japanese (such as Tina and Lisa), but I'd rather have THAT than an annoying and needless Texas accent. Sound effects for the menus are simple but effective; you'll hear bubbly blips that only enhance the speed of navigating menus. In-game sounds are realistic, such as footsteps and shuffling in the sand. Unrealistic sound effects, like spiking a volleyball, atleast have impact behind them.

As for music... well, it has its ups and downs. The downside is, there are only 19 songs included. I know that sounds like a decent amount, but after playing this game for a while, you will probably get sick of them.

The good news is, DOA: XBV is one of those XBox games that supports custom playlists. Which means, you can rip tracks from CDs and use them in the game. That alone adds a huge plus to the music category, and you can also disable the default songs from playing, so this area is completely up to you. Kudos to Tecmo for taking advantage of this feature. It's a shame more companies don't use it.

3) Controls. Pretty simple. While playing volleyball, directions let you move, one button lets you set, and one lets you spike. While some have criticized the game for over-simplified controls, I actually think it plays in the game's favor. See, the goal isn't to make the most realistic volleyball sim ever. It went for more arcade-style gameplay, meaning it's fast-paced and more emphasis is put on getting into strategic positions for optimum returning power.

Since you are playing with a partner, you have control of your partner... to an extent. You can only control her when you have your hands off the ball, passing it to her. Also a little bit before you serve to get your partner in the position you want her. Sadly, there are times when either you or your partner will perform a move that you didn't want them to do, but for the most part the controls are fine.

The most common method of gameplay (and the best way to score points) is to pass the ball to your partner, have her pass it back to you, then spike it over the net. How hard you press the spike button will determine how fast it is slammed over the net. You can also configure the direction that you want to spike the ball in mid-air. At first, this combo is tough, but after a few minutes of practice it will become second nature.

The only other in-game controls are for the pool hopping mini-game. In this game, the goal is to hop across the pool without touching the water, using floating objects as your footing. This mode has a jump button, and that's it. You have a choice of either a light tap, meaning a small jump, or holding the button, meaning a longer jump. It's rather unfortunate that the game doesn't allow you to have more control over this particular mode; as such, the limited controls end up making this mini game really easy.

4) Gameplay. There's an exhibition mode (aka quick play), but the meat of the game lies in the "Go To Zack Island" mode. In it, you select from one of eight Dead or Alive babes: Kasumi, Hitomi, Helena, Lei Fang, Christie, Lisa (new to the series), Tina, and Ayane. At the start, you are partnered with Lisa (unless you chose Lisa, in which case Tina is your partner), and it is inevitable that sooner or later you will start losing matches. Or not. Either way, it is inevitable that Lisa will dump you, forcing you to seek out a new partner.

This is where the aforementioned "dating sim" aspect comes in. On the fourth day, a shop opens up that has speciality items (mostly food). You have to select the appropriate item and give it to the right girl, given her likes and dislikes. If she likes the item (and more importantly, if she likes YOU in the first place), there is more of a chance that she will pair up with you. There are also opportunities to keep your partner happy during the game, by buying them gifts.

The REAL goal of this mode, however, is to rack up a lot of money so you can buy new swimsuits. And the best way to get cash quickly is, obviously, to play lots of volleyball. An element of strategy comes into play here: On the map screen, you can see icons of the girls that you can play against at the different island locations. Pay attention to these. The pics display, in a very subtle manner, the mood of the girls. If you want a push-over match, play against a couple with atleast one unwilling (or two, if you're lucky) member. If you want a tough-as-nails, smart AI match, play against a couple who is aggressive. But the catch is, the unwilling moods don't appear all the time, so don't expect the game to be uber simple.

So getting back to the swimsuits. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of swimsuits total, with a good 50 for each character. The more modest and plain suits are inexpensive, while the more lavish and/or skimpy suits are costly. Problem is, the store constantly shuffles through suits; in fact, they change daily. While this may seem like a good thing, bear in mind that often times you'll be searching for a particular swimsuit and you won't find it because, guess what, it's not the right day for the rotation! So now, if you want to get that specific suit, you have to needlessly shuffle through menus to make time pass (i.e. by sending your character sight-seeing or relaxing at the pool). And some suits only show up once or twice in the 14 days that you are on the island, so if you don't have enough money for a suit on the day it's in the shop, TOO BAD! You have to leave the island and return with the same character and wade through the days to get the suit.

And that's another minor annoyance: Zack. Yes, he's such a nice guy. I mean he willingly invites the beauties onto his private resort island and lets them take advantage of his facilities, like the hotel, the casino (more on that later), and such. But his gifts usually suck. There are hundreds of little items you can collect from him, ranging from soaps to food to candles to guns (!) to guitars, etc. But his most prized gifts are specialty swimsuits, and he has three unique to each character. Of course, that's the present you REALLY want. So it's annoying when you go through an entire day, waiting with baited breath for him to give you something good, and he gives you... an autographed picture of himself. Great. In the trash it goes.

Like I mentioned earlier, there's also a casino on this island. I never go there much, though. Mostly because I don't like to gamble. Some have the gambling bug, so they'll eat this mode up. But I don't like risking my hard-earned cash on a game of cards or a random roulette wheel. It's a nifty addition, but I never use it.

5) Overall. So what can we conclude about this game? It certainly seems to have a lot of styles of gameplay covered: Sports simulation, gambling, and even dating sim to an extent. So the burning question: Is it fun?

Well, that depends. If your goal is to collect every single swimsuit for the lovely ladies, then yes, it's very fun and very addicting. There's something satisfying about earning cash and splurging on a new swimsuit and then wearing it during gameplay. And like I said, the dating sim factor adds more depth to what could've been "just a volleyball game". There's a bit of strategy involved in keeping your partner happy and dealing with opponents.

On the other hand, if your goal is to just play a quick game of volleyball, DOA: XBV isn't quite as satisfying. True, the arcade-style volleyball engine is well-done and as a result, the gameplay is fast. But all of the girls are relatively the same in terms of strenghts/weaknesses (true, some characters are stronger at spiking than others, but it wasn't so drastic as to TRULY affect gameplay), so it doesn't matter too much who you pick. And because exhibition mode only offers a handful of environments to play in (the same from "Go to Zack Island" mode), there's little variety in that department either. So if you're in this camp, the game offers a good quick fix but nothing else.

Having said all that, I was in the former camp. There is plenty to unlock in this game, and it's lots of fun to, erm, play dress up with the DOA girls. And the game nails the atmosphere, easily. So if you're in the former camp like me, Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball is worth checking out. If not, well... you have to decide if it's worth it to pay $30 for a quick game of volleyball or invest in something you want more replay value out of.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/05