Written by Jeff Buckland, 1/28/2003
Played on:
Xbox
Tecmo had some pretty good success with Dead or Alive 3, which debuted with the launch of the Xbox. It sported a somewhat simplistic fighting system, great graphics, extra costumes for the fighters, and some of the most gorgeous gaming women ever conceived. It was loved or hated specifically because of the women, most of which had large, perfect breasts - the fighting was almost a secondary conversation.
And so it is with Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, an interesting venture for Tecmo. It's rated M (Mature) for the copious amounts of bare skin that is everywhere, and it does have a flash of actual nudity in the game's intro cutscene. But don't let any of this fool you - despite all the bouncing breasts, there is actually a decent game here. It has you going on a sort of vacation with one of the DOA girls, playing volleyball, betting at a casino, and buying presents for the other girls in hopes that you can keep a decent partner for the actual volleyball game.
DOAXBV is one of the first games I've seen that fully integrates the controller's pressure-sensitive into the main form of play. Pressing the buttons at different strengths will give you different shots while out on the court, while you can aim where you want the ball to go with the analog stick. If you want, you can turn off this feature and stick with pressing different buttons for different strengths; it's a nice option to have, especially for the more cheaply-made controllers on the market.
At first, the game's actual volleyball seems very shallow, as there are only two buttons to use, and the right analog stick vaguely controls where you want your partner to be on the court. There are many subtle ways in which the volleyball is actually challenging and deep, though, most of which come out after a couple of hours of play.
One thing that is a little annoying is that the game will automatically set you up for spiking the ball, as your character will automatically jump in order to set up a shot. The camera angle isn't too great for this, though, as it will swing back and forth a little too slowly. Sometimes, your character will be off-screen, in the air ready for a spike, and you won't even know it. The loss of points to things like this gets aggravating after a while. I've heard that if this game is played in Progressive Scan mode on a wide screen HDTV, that this is never a problem, but most players don't have this luxury. Some basic camera controls would have been very helpful in these situations.
Of course, the most important thing to look at here is the actual women of DOAXBV. They look better than ever compared to the previous fighting games of the same name, with smooth animations and tons of stuff to wear. Not all is perfect, though; some of the characters' hair will clip right into their bodies, and the animations don't always smoothly transition together.
The hair is a bit of a nitpick, but the animations are just kind of weird. Any character that stands still for more than a couple of seconds out on the court will go into some sort of idle preening or stretching animation, and some of them just look really awkward for someone who's supposed to be in the middle of a volleyball match. On top of that, they will suddenly pop out of whatever they are doing very abruptly, especially when it actually comes time for them to hit the ball. For a game whose presentation is so close to being immaculate, I figured they would have spent more time on this.
The game has plenty of locations on the island for you to play volleyball at, plus shops to buy accessories in, as well as a mostly-finished casino. The volleyball locations are very well done, with some wide-open spots as well as a jungle-type arena. The casino was a decent effort, but they should have fleshed it out a bit more; you will never see any actual people (no dealers, not even your own character) inside the casino. The best you get are little character portraits and some sound bites while at the roulette table.
So, this is supposed to be a volleyball game, right? Yes and no. While you will probably spend the first couple of hours just exploring the things you can do in the game, you will find that the best way to make money in the game is to play more volleyball. Since actions like lazing around at the pool or courting the other characters (usually in order to get them to partner with you) take up game time, you will probably want to spend most of your time on the court.
Each character does have her own strengths and weaknesses, some of which will not come out until later on in the game when the matches become more challenging. At the same time, certain combinations of characters are better than others - If you are playing a power-oriented character like Hitomi, match her up with someone like Lei Fang who will sit in the back, recover the ball, and feed Hitomi perfect shots to spike.
It's not all volleyball, though; there is a lot of gift-giving and courting in the game, which you will need to do in order to get a specific player to partner with you. There is a huge selection of bikinis (all of which can be seen during the v-ball games) which can be bought for yourself or to give as gifts. There are also hundreds of accessories to wear as well as gifts specifically for wooing the other characters.
