Lots of DOA love to go around. Oh, and you can play volleyball, too.^_^
Description
My former roommate asked me why I would want to play or even own this game. I told him I had never owned a volleyball game and I liked the DOA fighting game series. After popping the disk in and gazing upon the very suggestive intro, my roommate began questioning my sexual preference. For that reason, and because few females besides myself enjoy playing this game, I have decided to write this review. Not to mention that this game gets a bad rap from "elitist hardcore gamers."
The Gist:: Once you boot the game up and pick vacation you get a lovely CG movie illustrating how Zack acquired the means to buy an island. It isn't until you choose 1 of 8 of the DOA girls that you find out that they were duped into coming to the island. The story goes no further than that, because you spend most of your time playing volleyball, gambling in the casino, and buying gifts and skimpy bikinis for the girls. Nothing more, nothing less.
Are the girls hot?:: I guess, if you're into computer generated virtual women. I must say the overall visuals of the game are outstanding. The various beaches where you play volleyball matches are very detailed and beautiful. You actually see sand get kicked up as the girls dive and run toward the volleyball. The game visuals change from morning, daytime, and evening. At night you retreat to the hotel where you have the option of sending gifts, picking what swimsuit to wear the next day, or going to the casino. My favorite beach volleyball court is Bass Island. It is only available during the daytime since the tide covers the court during the morning and evening. Bass Island is the most visually impressive since you’re bathed in total sunlight and surrounded by the ocean. You can see the island off in the distance.
I'm sure many of you testosterone induced gamers still feel I haven't your question, "are the girls hot?" The character models of the girls are very impressive and the animation is down right scary. Let’s just say every girl is very anatomically correct. Some bathing suits seem to accentuate every "nook and cranny" on the character models. And each girl has a very distinctive body type. For example Ayane is very fair skinned, shapely and a little stocky in stature, which is pretty typical for a teenage Japanese girl like Ayane. Tina, on the other hand, is tall and very voluptuous, which I guess is based on the stereotype of buxom blond American women. The reason I say the animation is scary is not for any obvious reason. Everyone is familiar with the trademark DOA "bounce" that all the female characters have. The animation is just superb because each and every girl moves so realistically with their body language and movements in the Gravure movies. Gravure movies are basically when you select an empty beach and the girl you chosen wanders around the beach wading in the sand or in the case of Ayane doing stretching exercises. And you pervs out there can even control the angle of the camera as well as being able to zoom in and out at your leisure.
The only thing that might be a little off animation wise is when the girls dig or dive for the volleyball. It looks like they dive and just drop like a rock. But other than that the overall visuals of the game are some of the best that the XBox has to offer. Oh, and did I mention that the girls tan after continuous volleyball play during the day?
Pump up the volume!!:: One of the cool options in this game is the islands radio station that allows you to customize the songs being played during the day and during the evening. I will be quick to say that most of the songs picked on the in game soundtrack kinda suck. Thank goodness that the radio station lists songs copied to your hard drive from your music CDs. I can put songs that fit the game like the "Thong Song" from Sisqo or "Let Me be with You" from the Chobits anime soundtrack during the daytime, then switch to slow jams like "Beautiful" by Christina Aguilera in the evening.
Yes, Dennis Rodman does the voice for Zack in the intro and ending for the vacation mode which was cool. But all the in game voices for all the girls are in Japanese - which is OK, but since this game is released in America I think Tina, Lisa, Christie, Helena, and even Hitomi should at least have the option for English voice. Quite a few gripes have been made about this.
Bump and Spike!:: The controls for the volleyball portion of the game are very simple since you only use two buttons, but the buttons are touch sensitive. One button is to set the ball to your opponent and dig or dive for the ball and the other is for spiking and blocking your opponents’ spikes. When you press the button lightly you will tap or dink the ball over the net. Press it firmly and you will spike the ball. You will use the left analogue stick to control the movement of your chosen girl as well as direct your sets and spikes. The controls make this game seem shallow to hardcore gamers, but they don't seem to realize that each girl has different strengths and weaknesses. For example, Lei Fang is a good teammate who has good defense and technique. Lei Fang can dig any spike cleanly on the court as well as set her teammate up for good spikes. She can also block effectively. Lei Fang's weakness is that offensively she isn't very strong. Not to mention that if she tries to dig very hard spikes she will get knocked down. That's when you need to team her up with Christie who is very balanced and excels in offense. Christie can dig and spike with any character in the game. This team together is pretty balanced while providing very good defense and a solid offensive attack.
The volleyball matches during vacation mode only go up to 7 points. Games go pretty quickly early on in the vacation but the difficulty increases the better you play in the last 6 days of the 14 day vacation. So you will spend most of your time winning volleyball games to get "Zack dollars" to buy stuff like swimsuits and items for gifts. You can also go to the casino to get Zack dollars by playing games like Blackjack, Poker, Roulette, and slot machines. There is also a pool hopping mini game that can get you some extra Zack bucks, but it’s more for testing the button sensitivity by pressing lightly or firmly to hop across floats over a pool.
What about the swimsuits and stuff?:: There are over 300 swimsuits to collect, and there is a swimsuit list that you can use to check which swimsuits you have and need to add to complete each girls' collection (which I haven’t even done yet). Swimsuits range from tasteful one pieces to skimpy one pieces to bikinis to thong bikinis to the "Venus" which is in a class all its own. And only Lisa can buy it for a million Zack dollars. Many of you will spend hours giving you favorite girl of choice lots of gifts to get her to like you enough so that you can give her the Venus without her throwing it away. The girls have likes and dislikes. For example Lei Fang loves the color yellow, and is Chinese. So your best bet for getting Lei Fang to like you is to get her yellow swimsuits or items and buying her items that pertain to her ethnicity like Chinese fans and nunchucks.
There are plenty of other items besides swimsuits to customize your girl of choice, like sunglasses, different volleyballs, shoes, flowers to put in their hair, and even suntan lotion or sunblock. Another way to acquire rare swimsuits and other items like videos is when you receive gifts from Zack when you turn in at night in the hotel. You get videos of commercials of DOA3 fro America, the U.K., and Japan, as well as a first peek at the Ninja Gaiden trailer.
The collect-ability of swimsuits and items give this game tons of replay value, and even gives guys the option to be a "straight eye for the DOA girl" fashion guru. You will spend as much time matching the perfect swimsuit with a hat and nice pair of shoes as you play volleyball. It’s like playing dress up with dolls... only voluptuous, computer generated ones.
So is this game good?:: Well, since you can get a used or even a brand new copy of the game for 30$ or less I would say its a fun yet relaxing waste of time between getting your butt handed to you in Ninja Gaiden and kicking butt in DOA3. DOA:XBV is Tecmo's ultimate thank you to the fans of the DOA fighting series. The only disappointing thing for me is that Jann Lee was not in the game. DOA:XBV is a great multiplayer game and I highly recommend it for this reason alone. It only supports two players, unfortunately - 4 players would have been perfect. If you're into pretty graphics and virtual computer generated women this game is perfect for you. As a volleyball game DOA:XBV is fun but does not have the gameplay depth of Beach Spikers or even Outlaw Volleyball, but all in all it is a very well produced sports fantasy simulation/dating game.
