Platform

GameCube

Sega-AM2's newest title, Beach Spikers: Virtua Beach Volleyball is now available for the Game Cube, and the game is awesome. Beach Spikers does for volleyball games what Virtua Tennis did for Tennis games. It not only raises the bar for future games in the genre, but also gives gamers a fantastic single or multiplayer title that is easy to pick up and play, yet also contains enough technique to keep players coming back for more.

Beach Spikers is an easy game to learn to play; only the control stick and the A and B buttons are used during game play. A, B, and A+B are used for three different types of serves, blocks, spikes, and launches. When you are serving or spiking the ball, a meter on the side of the screen goes up and down, representing your power level.

After the ball has been served or launched, a target-like circle will appear on the sand, showing where it will land. The closer you get to the center of the target when hitting the ball, the better your character will hit/save the ball, and the power bar for spikes will also be higher.

Landing a powerful spike will also trigger a replay, often showing your opponents hitting the sand in their attempt to save the ball and your characters celebrating their point.

In addition to the arcade mode, where you start in the quarter-finals and go through a total of four matches to victory, Beach Spikers also contains a training mode, showing you how to do all of the moves in the game, with tutorials covering serving, recieving, tossing, attacking, and blocking the ball.

Beach Spikers also has a versus mode, with four different types of games for up to four players:

Beach Spikers- The main game, for 1-4 players. You can change several small features, like the number of points in a game, as well as choose to play on any of the game's 9 stages, each with a different look and theme, and taking place at a different time of day. (Some of these stages must be unlocked first.)

Beach Flags- An odd mini game; you don't even play volleyball! Four characters lay down in the sand, and when the game starts, you have to tap the A button as fast as possible and get your character to the flag on the other side of the screen. This continues until three players have been eliminated.

Beach Countdown- Instead of a volley ball, you play with a BOMB! There are no spikes in this game; instead, you have to keep the bomb going back and forth over the net between all the players, as a timer on the bottom of the screen counts down. Dropping the bomb causes an impressive-looking sand explosion to occur.

Beach P.K.- Taken from the game's training mode, in this mini-game for 1-2 players, you have to try and get the ball to hit a certain area of the sand while the other player attempts to block your shot.

While the arcade mode is fun to play through, the real "meat" of Beach Spikers when playing alone lies in the game's World Tour mode. In this mode, you create a character, choosing her name, hair type/color, face type/color, and choose from a large number of swimsuits and sunglasses. Using the L button, R button, and C-Stick will allow you to zoom in and out and rotate your character for your viewing pleasure. (Ya pervs!)

You then create a CPU partner, and assign her points for various stats such as power, serving ability, and blocking ability. As you only start out with a few points, your partner will not be the smartest of players at first, and will often make many mistakes during your first game.

When changing sides during a game, you get the oppurtunity to comment to your partner on her progress. There are four comments: Praise, Encouragement, Scold, or No comment. Each decision you make will affect your partner's playing ablity for the rest of the match, making them play better or even worse than before. The better you do in each match, win or lose, the more stat points you earn to make your character play better, and after a few well-played games, your partner will signs of great improvement. You can also play as your edited team(the game will allow for three edited teams per memory card) in all of the other game modes, but when playing single player games, the CPU will still control your partner, where as normally you have control over both characters during a match.

Besides arenas to unlock, there are also hidden swim suits and sunglasses to find as well. Some of them are obtained by entering a "password" at the world tour mode name select screen. These codes will give you swimsuits, hair styles, and even face/skin types from Virtua Cop, Fighting Vipers, Daytona USA, Space Channel 5, and Phantasy Star 2, meaning that you can make Ulala, Honey, and Nei. In addition, Dural(both gold and silver) is awaiting to challenge you in the World Tour Mode!

Closing Comments: I have not played Beach Spikers multiplayer yet, but I don't think I need to to see that it's going to be an awesome 2-4P title. The game is a lot of fun to play and the controls are easy enough that anyone can get into the game within a few minutes. The game is also very import-friendly, with the text being 90% English. The only problem some importers may find is in the World Tour mode, as the stats are listed in Japanese, and during games, the four comments you can make to your partner are also Japanese, but they are listed above. These are extremely minor and I wouldn't hesitiate to import Beach Spikers if you are able.

There's really not too much that needs to be said about Beach Spikers' visuals; the pictures should speak for themselves. The game is easily on par with Virtua Fighter 4 for the PS2, only without all the "jaggie problems" present. The characters animate very well and everything runs along smoothly at 60fps. The sand also gets "distorted" and footprints stay present during a match, just like with the snow in Lion's and the sand in Jeffry's VF4 stages. Beach Spikers' BGM is pure AM2, with cheesy rock music, that actually fits the game very well as it has a "beach/surfer rock" sound to it, and the sound effects are crisp and clear, complete with roaring crowd and trademark cheesy AM2 announcer. You even get the classic Genesis "Sega!" sound when you start up the game.

In short, I've only had the game for a day, but Beach Spikers is already among my favorite games of this year, and easily the best volley ball game ever released. The game is like Hot Shots Golf and Virtua Tennis in that even if you're not a big fan of the sport, the game is so easy to play and so much fun that it will appeal to everyone. BUY THIS GAME...It's "Digital Crack" for the Game Cube, and will go nicely for playing when you're taking breaks from that "other" Game Cube game that was just released that you may heard some talk about.


Lee
EMail lyteedge