Archive Review: Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball

(Xbox review)



Dead or Alive: Xtreme shopping simulator... with volleyball elements



I like your err... bra



I have always been a fan of the Dead or Alive beat-em-up series. I found Dead or Alive 3 particularly pleasing both to the eye and to the thumb. The gameplay was solid and although the essence of the fighting in these games has never been as complex as say, Tekken, it doesn't matter. I found the fights cool and easily complex enough. Dead or Alive 3 remains to this day one of my favorite Xbox games. One of the reasons I love this game so much is the actual characters in it. I find most of them really interesting and generally want to know their differing stories. Tecmo did good at creating a firm sense of reality with the inclusion of many styles of brawler from female ninja (Kunoichi) to Bruce Lee style bouncer. The games story mode included basic links to the story of the character you played as and it just was pretty neat to have this feature. Tecmo then decided to turn this fictional world into a more surreal one. It's time for some volleyball!?

When a publisher cashes in they normally make it obvious. Say a great game came out and the developers then forge a spin off that has no link to the initial games story... that is fine. Tecmo, on the other hand, went for the more serious approach. DOAX has a story oh yes, it has a story. Zack, a Dennis Rodman wannabe who has his actual voice in the game, was an awful kickboxer character in DOA3. He got lucky and won the lottery or something, I don't actually care, and done what anybody would do with a fortune... buy an island. He then announces Dead or Alive 4 - everyone turns up on the island, which resembles the one from Enter the Dragon a little too much, and gets ready but hold on! Zack is a joker, he has only invited the females along. Cheeky.

He announces that he was actually just messing and he simply wanted to watch the girls generally hang around an island paradise in skimpy beachwear - oh and shoot some volleyball, of course, whilst he watches from a window with his binoculars whilst rubbing his - thighs. The girls should have taken that dude and thrown him into the sea and checked out of the "Zack Hotel" but no, these girls are pretty mannered and go along with it. DOAX is born.

You select your character and head to the island. I went for Kasumi, I love her and I know your laughing. We, well I, went to the island after a basic cutscene. There are a few locations you can go to on the island. You have a series of shops, beaches, a jungle, your hotel with casino, and a radio station. Your find yourself spending most of the time hanging by the pool though. If your a warm blooded Alpha male like myself you will simply spend the first sitting of this game staring at the visuals of scantily clad females. You can even opt to watch gravure videos of them doing stuff in the location, like sunbathing or stretching. Its all very pretty, and I'm sure a lot of tissues were used at the Tecmo studio during this design phase, but please! I have some credit! There are videos...

So ignoring the glorious visuals what is there to do on Zack island? If your a girl, unlike me, you will tend to enjoy shopping and generally looking at sunsets while reciting such sentimental drivel as, "I will sleep well tonight," or ,"damn this cheap pair of shades". I personally am not so easy to please. I wanted to play volleyball, really. So I went to a beach and played. It's very basic. You use two buttons and direction. One button passes to your computer controlled teammate, the other strikes the ball over the net. It really is virtually as simple and basic as this. Sure you can hold the attack button down harder and strike it harder but who cares? Lets face it, volleyball gamers, all 4 of them, didn't buy this game! Who did? Hormone driven teenage fanboys or dirty old men. This game is so ludicrous in every sense of the word I am quite baffled to why it didn't actually get slammed by most reviewers. I am quite confident that the reason everyone seems to like this game is due to it's visuals and shopping and friendship system.

The friendship system plays like some banal Japanese dating game. You see in this harsh world of Xtreme beach volleyball it's not easy out there. It's tough to make friends and survive the grim sprawls of sand, sea, and sun. To get a volleyball partner you need to make friends. The mad thing is bitter rivals from the Dead or Alive story such as Kasumi and her half-sister Ayane can make friends in this game and shoot volleyball together! Well excuse me Mr. Developer man but shouldn't they actually be killing the crap out of each other here? To make friends with a girl you do one very simple, capitalist, materialist thing: Buy them gifts, lots 'n' lots 'n' lots of stupid pressies. Their friendship can, and must, be bought. Money can't buy me love? Hah! Whatever, it can in DOAX.





Bloody Jap money



If games really did influence the younger generations then this would prove entertaining. Then again, if all the big evil brand names had their way buying friendship certainly would prove hegemonic.

Shopping in this game is highly comical. You have a choice of three places to go to, well access (there just glorified menu screens - you don't actually roam around this island) and here you buy with Zack Dollars that you make by winning volleyball games and mini-games and gambling in the casino - I'll get to that a lil later. Now there are a vast amount of things to buy in this game. You can buy a plethora of swimsuits, some obscenely sexy, and other clothing like sunglasses, hats, sneakers, and even nail polish. Everything can be used so for example you can apply your nail polish or wear anything. There are more bizarre items too like a guitar - click play and you hear one crappy note! Why did they bother? You can also gain miscellaneous stuff like videos of trailers for the Dead or Alive games from the old days etc. This is all novel and fun but nothing more than icing for a pretty questionable cake - one of those ones that just isn't happening.

Whilst clicking through the stuff to buy you can turn your character into any form of sexy beach babe you desire. Maybe the simple look turns you on, maybe you want costumes? Who are we to judge. But I actually found this aspect sickening. Kasumi, the female runaway Shinobi of intense skill and prowess, can be turned into a "Towny". Yes, that's right, you can now transform this Kimono clad ninja babe into one of those girls who just doesn't know when enough sunbathing is enough! Get sunburn, wear cheap sunglasses and an old base ball cap and slip on the Nike sneakers! The fictional fantasy world of Dead or Alive is dragged down into social realism, real life stereotypes, and having to actually apply lotion! Fickle.

You have a choice; use lotion and keep pale or apply the oil and burn. Other more questionable items in Zack's shops include a TMP 9mm Sub-Machine gun? Why? I heard someone say something about Christie, a character in the game, liking guns hence the lethal weapon in the tranquil paradise. I consider this bizarre, wrong, and silly of Tecmo to include. Those fools... Oh did I mention the fact your wrapped gifts (you have to wrap them first) may be disliked. You need to experiment to find out what the girls want in order for them to like you. Not only are they materialistic they are rude and hard to please. Zack, just send me home now pal... What do you mean I've gotta wait two weeks?

So the casino. Kasumi dresses up in a black suit, hmm, and walks down those marble stairs. "Ah Mr. Bond, we've been expecting you," says Blofelt whilst stroking his white pussy. That has nothing to do with DOAX by the way, I'm just daydreaming. The casino can be accessed at night and consists of poker, slot machines, roulette, and maybe something else, I don't remember. There all marginally fun to play but quite honestly if I'm going to play virtual cards I'll do it on my PC online against Marcos from Brazil and Han from Hong Kong. The slot machines are just a mini-game, that's all. Another mini-game is poolside. Instead of sunbathing get your beach babe to play the hoops game. A series of floating pads are in the pool in a line and like a game of stepping stones you must jump onto each one and reach the other end. The distance you need to jump is determined by how hard to press down on A. After a few minutes this game gets boring and is quite frankly so trivial and basic it shouldn't be classed as a reason to consider purchasing this title - although falling in the water looks, well, nice :)

A neat feature of this game is the fact it is another recent title to include the custom soundtracks which Xbox owners so love to see. Personally I feel, like most sane people, that every game made for Xbox should have this feature like a rule of thumb. But programmers and money men are thick and live in a different world to us. Who knows what ticks in their $head$? I put a fair number of tracks on to rid the world of the tripe that the game has on for a default soundtrack. The default music is proof enough that Tecmo were on magic mushrooms whilst coding. Since when was Reel Big Fish good music? I now can't wait for a game that will put custom soundtracks to good use (WWE Raw 2: Ruthless Aggression maybe). DOAX is a pretty basic game that might prove fun to some yet lacking to others. Great graphics, hot girls, gameplay? You can't have it all!



Yeah man volleyball! No, hot girls though





Summary



Pros

Excellent graphics, wow that girl looks hot! Lots to buy.

Cons

Basic volleyball action, repetitive, no real point to any of it, no conclusions to any of it - *coughs* story?

6.8/10


The graphics alone deserve a 6, the rest is plain average


by Joey T 2003