Games That Matter ~ Xbox ~ Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball

What kind of review do you give to a game that has been the ONLY good Xbox game in Japan, and climbed the charts to #2 in the beginning of 2010? One that's honest, and one that you're brave enough to take.

With that being said, I rented DOA Volleyball during this past spring break, waiting to be immersed by the gorgeous graphics, especially the bitc...err I mean the beaches of the game. So, once I turned it on (and preparing to get turned on myself)I saw the opening movie.

As I watched it, I finally saw WHY nudity is written on the back of the box for the game, the opening movie had about five seconds of nudity with one girl (Christie), but her private parts were covered by the shadows from the moonlight.

Once the opening movie had ended, I started to play the game and chose one of the girls to play as. What I found out while exploring Zack Island was that you could put in your custom soundtrack! Yay, I've been waiting to use this feature since SegaGT 2002! Okay, that was used, but once I played my first game of volleyball, it was actually kinda boring. Sure, the girls were there, but you couldn't really get the feel of playing volleyball.

Anyway, after that I headed to the pool where my girl was resting. It was nice to see her rest by the poolside, but after 30 seconds, it goes back to the main menu at the poolside. I found that part very stupid, but I did play the Hopping game with my girl to earn some money. That is nice and all, but it just gets old.

So, after playing volleyball and resting by the poolside, it was suddenly nighttime! I couldn't go out onto the beach anymore! But I could play casino games (what fun), and I got a present from Zack, which was nice. But all of that got sooo old that I just went to bed (you can't see your girl in the casino or in bed). Also, don't forget that one day in Zack Island is probably about 15 minutes play time.

Ahh, another beautiful day to play volleyball...Wait, what? My partner's ditched me and now I'm all alone? Damnit! Now I don't get to play volleyball unless I persuade one of the other girls to be my partner (with gifts or just plain asking them). Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone to play volleyball with me, so I was left alone, relaxing, once again. Don't get me wrong, letting your girl rest is good, but it gets boring, besides, it's a fake, pixelated character! You want to be turned on, go get a dirty movie or magazine!

Basically, this is how I spent my 14 days on Zack Island, and for a video game, it wasn't really much of a game. It was boring and I would recommend this game for a rental, or if you're willing to be turned on by anything animated. Me, I'll wait till the price drops to $20-$30. Let's just hope that if Tecmo decides to make another DOA Volleyball game, it better have a lot of "game" in it. 7 out of 10.