Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball is a pure fan service title aimed at the core male audience of the videogame industry. What is "fan service", you may ask? If you've never heard the term before, think of it in these terms.... Imagine the hottest male or female star you can think of and give them a swimsuit issue where they wear the skimppiest, smallest, tightest, almost nothing clothes you can think of and then have them behave in the most provacatively sweet and sexy way while posing in the little nothings and you will almost have an inkling of what fan service really is! But, the Japanese are experts on the subject of fan service and take it to a level generally unseen stateside and that's why we have DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball! This is game is a guy's digital vixen paradise and a feminists "no objectification of women" type worst nightmare. Now that all of that's out of the way, I must say that I really liked this game! In fact, I found myself playing later into the night than I should have trying to master my perfect spike and watching replays of my opponents eating sand when they missed one of my shots!

This game is very simple and I do mean simple! The game has only two-buttons that are usable besides the analog stick. In a way that's good because half the time you can't see the whole screen anyway. It seems like there's always some point within the match where you're wondering where your character is, but don't worry. The courts are so small that as soon as you nudge the analog stick you'll see her. The control is supposed to depend on how hard you push one of the two useable buttons on the controller, but most of the time it doesn't seem to matter so I think it's more about timing than pressure. The only time pressure seems to matter is in the "hopping" minigame. Yes you read right "Hopping". Your character hops across the pool on little square buoys and gets points and money for making it to the other side.

DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball is played out over the course of a day during a 2-week vacation that the girls have been tricked into taking by Zack from previous DOA games. The things you do during a day take up time and when night falls you go back to the hotel and have access to the casino minigames and the ability to go through your items (which you can also do poolside during the day).

Aside from actually playing volleyball, DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball is a shopping game. You can buy different swimsuits, accessories, exotic foods and volleyballs among other things, to keep for yourself or to give to other characters as gifts to win them as your partner. Giving gifts takes up a good portion of your day and not all characters are out and about on a given day, but there is always a chance to do so at night in the hotel, but be careful because food and drinks can go bad before the day is over.

Another aspect of the game is are the Gravure scenes. These a basically short "fan service" movies of your character that take place when you take your character to a gameplay area or another character in an area where a single character is when you give them a present. These are purely optional, but I had fun with them. The girls talk and do cute things like dancing hula or practicing martial arts. I can just imagine all the guys out there zooming in on crotch shots. Pretty pathetic, but I'm pretty sure that was the original intention! Ha!

While the backgrounds and the courts in DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball aren't at all spectacular or even imaginative, the graphics of this game (the major portion of which involves the DOA girls) are beautiful! The girls movements are fluid and cute (how many times have I used the word "cute" now?). And when you start to notice the slight movements and subtle actions they make you begin to really think that the programmers had way too much time on their hands or maybe they're really obsessed with girl watching. Hmm. Maybe both!

The soundtrack for DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball is really great considering the simplicity of this game. The game has quite a number of songs from popular recording artists like Christina Aguilera, Baha Men and Reel Big Fish among others. Plus there is the ability to add your own tracks to the line-up via the in-game Radio Station. Just rip the tracks from your favorite CDs to the Xbox hard drive and add them to the playlist.

I really can't give DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball a great rating except for the sheer novelty of the game. I did enjoy it. Some women will hate it. But it really can be fun. I can see it getting tired pretty quickly, but it's been fun and I enjoy the shopping! Now to go and buy that hot new bikini that I would never buy in real life!

Cynthia Threadgill

Questions? Comments? Stupid Remarks? Email: Cyndy01@swbell.net

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