"In case you were wondering: the only "nudity" (as mentioned in the ESRB "mature" rating) is in the intro video [a bare backside, FYI]...While parents will read this and be wary, consider: it's moonlit, you don't see jack squat, it's a cartoon character..."

---from the review

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You might also wish to buy: Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball Calendar

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Sidebar::

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What's in a rating? This is not a new gripe for me: for the full deal, see my editorial from winter 2002, on "Why 'Ludicrous Gibs' is 'Cool' and 'Suggestive Themes' are BANNED." Yeah: Why is that? I guess I'm just a bit miffed that a Dead or Alive series that has been rated "T for Teen" since the beginning, must now be "M for Mature" for all the wrong reasons. IF ESRB thinks that teens are better suited to a fighting game than a volleyball game, hey...whatever. I just prefer to play volleyball with girls in thong bikinis more than throwing them out a second story window. Does that make me "mature"...? Yeah; I guess so.

Isn't this game "sexist" to women? In what way...? I see ads all the time where a studly guy is in pants one size too tight and no shirt on. Women never seem to complain about the "degrading view of men" in those ads, do they? Nor do they complain when countless ads are of idiot, meat-headed men next to their superior, business- suit-wearing wives. Again; not sexist, say the sexist- seekers. Yet this game has women playing against other women in a volleyball match, and the idea is this is a sexist game. <Brrriiiing!> <Brrriiiing!> Hello? Is this Mrs. Pot? This is Mr. Kettle. You're Black!

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Feel free to contribute. As always, review submissions are accepted!

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Dead or Alive: 

Extreme Beach Volleyball 

Click graphic, above, to order this game (X-BOX)

A Techtite Review

Can anyone think of a more unusual game concept, than making Dead or Alive into a game of beach volleyball...? Given how successful the concept truly is, one wonders what this will lead to. How about Doom: Extreme Demon Football...? Halo: Extreme Interstellar Ring-Toss...? Super Mario: Extreme Plumber's Baseball, with pipes as bats...? My personal favorite: Tomb Raider Extreme Gymnastics. Not that keeping Lara Croft alive never felt like gymnastics to begin with.

However, all joking aside, Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball is truly fun. Furthermore; it's use of the females from DOA-3 makes perfect sense. Consider: if you were the game designers at Tecmo, and you had an idea for a cool volleyball game --which this is-- would you spend millions to make a whole slew of brand-new bitmaps and textures and characters' models from scratch, or would you simply use the top-notch characters from your best-selling game? When looked at this way, this isn't that peculiar of a game concept at all.

This really isn't a bad volleyball game, either, presuming you like volleyball. Button "X" controls a typical hit or spike of the ball; "B" is for a simple volley in the air, for when you want to prepare the ball for a spike by your partner. Distance from the net is also controllable, which is key to winning the game; far from the net guarantees almost every spike is blocked; getting close to the net allows you to block spikes, while preparing for spikes of your own. Animation includes some nice alternate spikes and blocks, including some nice jumps, ducks, and other maneuvers to make the game seem very "alive."

Not that volleyball is all you can do on the island. Go to the pool and engage in a challenging, well-animated, Super-Mario jumping puzzle across floating tiles in the water. Meanwhile, in between tournaments, you can try and coax stronger players on your volleyball team. If they refuse, you can use your winnings and "bribe" them with a gift (knowing what they like is an added puzzle). A music room allows you to use audio tracks you've copied onto the X-Box's hard drive, and use them as background music in the tournaments. Lastly, going to a beach with nobody present leads to various cutscenes, of your chosen character dancing, exercising, sunbathing, swimming, or whatever. Of course, this is a volleyball game at its core, so this is all mere icing on the cake.

Come nightfall, the casino opens, allowing you to use your volleyball winnings on the gambling tables. Poker, Blackjack, slot machines, and the roulette wheel each have enough added fun to be more than just another Vegas "sim." It's a nice touch that all playing cards are of the various DOA ladies (a similar deck of cards was even offered online as a promotion upon the game's release). It also helps that each game has enhanced levels of play (in poker, Joker's are "wild" and offer chances to double your pot, or lose trying). Personally, I used the casino only as a lark, since the real way to get cash is by volleyball. Given how easy it is to lose your money completely, this "casino" is more of a fun time than a profitable one (which, I suppose, means it is a perfect casino-sim).

You may ask what all this money is good for. Well, that's the interesting part; they're for additional costumes and/or accessories, all of your own choosing. Sunglasses, baseball caps, jewelry, and as many as 100 separate bathing suits are all purchasable and wearable by your chosen character. In addition to accessories you can buy, Zack offers gifts to all the ladies at the end of a day, whose value depends on how well you played. My favorite gifts were videos of classic moments from Dead or Alive history. It was nice to see the original DOA-1 promo in the high-res, DVD-quality glory of X-box, and not the low-res video of yesteryear.

Gripes...? Not a one. I had incorrectly surmised that the ladies cannot "keep" their collected suits & accessories game-to-game, though I have since learned this is not the case, so the rating has been bumped up accordingly. My bad. Prior to day 14 (when the game automatically ends), placing all your favorite collectibles and suits into your "collection" keeps it forever for that character. In fact, play as a separate character with the same saved game, and you'll see the prior character wearing the suits you collected for that player, randomly, throughout the game from now on. I still have a small gripe that the ending is the same for each girl (couldn't it be different for each?), though that's a minor gripe I'm willing to let go.

Now, all that remains to gripe about is not the game's fault per se, which is the (IMHO) incorrect rating: M for Mature. Sure, there are girls in thong bikinis, though come on; the only nudity in the game is in the intro, and it's not any more "scandalous" then the far-more-explicit, bare-butt shower scene in DOA3, which was "Rated T for Teen." So why'd this game get an "M" rating by comparison...? Check the sidebar to see me vent some more about this, or, better yet, just move on...

Perhaps the ESRB is concerned because of how real these girls look. Few games have as much realism in their characters as this, with hair that blows in the wind, alternate accessories (you can even choose her bracelets, hair bow, and sandals), and a number of in-game animations of her biking, swimming, or sunbathing. With realism like this, even the ex-cast of Baywatch would be impressed. Perhaps this is the sort of realism that led to the Mature rating. Yet I still wonder where such parents were, two years ago, when we were throwing these exact same characters out a second-story window. Again: Dead or Alive is rated Rated-T-for-Teen. This is "M for Mature". Go figure.

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