David's opinion

You can't go wrong with this game. Dead or Alive Xtreme Volleyball (from now on DOAX) has a most delightful addiction to it. The gameplay is a masterpiece of simplicity and when all said and done, this game rocks. If you haven't played DOA3, I suggest when you buy DOAX, Hire DOA3, beat it using Zack, watch his finishing movie, and then load up DOAX! It's a real pleasure to watch a movie from one game, which then correlates to the starting movie in another game.

All the girls from Dead or Alive are back for some fast paced volleyball action! Choose from Hitomi, Tina, Ayane, Leifang, Helena, Kasumi, Christie, and the gorgeous new addition to the girls, Lisa to battle it out against one another, in 2 on 2 matches over 2 weeks, to see if you have what it takes to be the best Volleyball player on the island.

When you think of this game don't think "It's just a volleyball game” as DOAX has been named the first ever Sports Fantasy Simulation. The volleyball is great, don't get me wrong, but DOAX also has loads of mini-games such as a casino that you can visit before you go to bed each night and the games on offer include Roulette, Slot Machines, Blackjack and Poker. Be warned, it is very easy to bet every cent you own away and leave no money for gifts and other goodies from the stores around Zack Island as a couple of the games are very addictive.

When you actually get into the volleyball, you notice that the controls are very basic. A to attack, B to receive, and the Left thumb-stick to move. The A and B buttons do different things depending on how hard you push them and you can change this to what's known as the "Digital” setting. This allows the X and Y buttons to be used in game as well. It also makes the "Hopping game” at poolside a whole lot easier! The right thumb stick also serves a purpose as it moves your team mate into whatever position you tell them to go to. If you can learn how to control both yourself and your team mate at the same time, you'll be a fierce opponent to anybody who opposes you.

Fortunately, your team mate moves around by herself and is quite willing to win the point without your help. She'll spike, she'll block, and she'll even set you up to spike! Can it be made any easier for you? On the note of spiking, there isn't exactly a jump button if you want to go for a spike. The spiking is done automatically. All you need to do is direct where you want it to land and push the A button or the X button as hard as you want the ball to go. It can take a bit of practice to get the hang of, but thanks to the simple controls the learning curve is minimal. One feature or rather, lack of a feature is that there is no difficulty setting in the game options and if you haven't mastered the volleyball part of the game in a few days, you probably never will.

If you've ever played volleyball before, you'll have no problems learning the rules to the volleyball in DOAX. Each team has 3 moves if the ball comes to their side of the net, which is basically the time to receive, set and spike. The aim of each rally is of course to get the ball to touch down on the opponent's side. The first team to do this seven times is the winner, unless both teams are equal at 6, in which case the game keeps going until there's a winner by 2 points. In DOAX volleyball however, if you break their serve, you get a point. This is different to normal volleyball where you have to be serving to gain a point.

DOAX has superbly detailed graphics and Xbox owners lucky enough to also own a widescreen TV can enjoy the feature of widescreen DOAX too. The game looks a whole lot better this way, as the camera angle can block out a player occasionally on the normal 4:3 ratio television. Along with that, DOAX also supports full In-game Dolby Digital surround sound. This can only mean audio and video goodness for those with elite setups. DOAX offers the option for custom soundtracks, but you may already like the songs that are on the disc. There's great variety, and really something for everyone. From Spice Girls to Reel Big Fish to Christina Aguilera to Bob Marley. Though, the song that fits in with the DOA girls the most would have to be the title song: Meja – How Crazy Are You.

DOAX offers over 100 accessories and swim suits to choose from. Once you unlock a swimsuit, you can use it in exhibition mode at any time. Exhibition mode is where you can play with a mate on the same team or VS each other. There are 10 beautiful locations where you can play volleyball to choose from as soon as you load up DOAX for the first time. This is also the only place where you can select the difficulty/A.I level of your team mate, and your opposition.

Graphics wise, DOAX blows most games out of the water. Even the water effects are stunning, as you see the girls dance and play in it. Each girl has her own stunning polygon body, which is rendered to perfection by the lads at Tecmo. They couldn't look any more realistic if they tried, especially in the cut scenes! What's even more surprising is that In-game looks almost as good as the cut scenes! We all know the DOA series is outstanding when it comes to cut scenes, but this is really something special.

I don't believe the graphics score a perfect 10/10, as I don't think any game has ever deserved that yet as there are always one or two graphical niggles in even the best games... Saying that, I do believe they could have worked on the DOA girls hair a bit more, it doesn't really move around as freely as you'd expect it to when they're bouncing around on the volleyball court, although I can assure you other things bounce around just fine! Though, if I had to give DOAX a score out of 10 for graphics, it would be 9.95.

If there's one thing in this game that truly caught me by surprise, it's the sand. By the end of the game, the sand is all messed up, and there are foot holes everywhere. This is just a work of art. I don't remember ever coming across a game that has gone in to so much detail with sand. Some games just have all surfaces as rock hard, but not DOAX! When you first start a game, it's all perfectly neat, like the tide came in over night, and nobodies used it all day ... Then you can mark your footprints in as you walk around, and it all looks too realistic to be in a game =).

After beating the game several times, I'd have to say that you can sometimes get caught up in getting money to buy new bikinis, and forget that it's a volleyball game. I've gone through the 2 week vacation several times not playing a single game of volleyball, betting my funds away at the casino and ending up quite well off! Be careful though, the casino has a tendency to make you lose all your money in consecutive losses for some reason... I mentioned before the 4 games you can play at the casino, Roulette will probably turn out to be your favourite. The poker game doesn't really offer that much and it's very hard to win on the slots. However the Roulette game is fun, and all the mini games are well designed and very user friendly.

Multiplayer is an extremely fun part of DOAX, especially when you've got a few different bikinis up your sleeve. Unfortunately, although it is weird that DOAX volleyball is 2 on 2, you can only play with 1 friend at a time, and you can't be on the same team. This isn't ideal, but it's still fun. Just make sure your friend is enjoying him/herself and you can have a ball. Although if you have 3 mates over, you're more likely to pull out Halo or Mech Assault for the serious multi-player. Though I doubt any male could say no to "testing out” DOAX and the graphics make it an excellent title to use to show your Xbox off to your mates.

You're probably asking yourself "What happens when the 2 week vacation is finished?” Don't be alarmed, you simply watch the finishing cut scene, then the credits, then another cut scene (that I suggest you all wait for, although you might not find it amusing...) Then it goes back to the start menu. From there, you can use the same vacation file to start a new vacation with a new character, but you don't delete any bikinis or items that you've earned.

All games do come to an end so enjoy DOAX as we may never see a game like it ever again. I'd say there's around 30 – 40 hours of gameplay in it for the hardcore DOA fans, before they get all the swimsuits. But if you wanted to get absolutely everything, it would probably take around 60 hours. DOAX actually has no high-scores, or any bosses at the end. It's just you, the beach, the babes and the volleyball.

I loved DOAX and give it 90%

Shane's opinion

There is no denying that DOAX is one impressive looking game. The scenery is the vision of what the perfect tropical island should be like, the water looks fantastic and the games selling point, the girls in skimpy bikinis are the best looking in-game 3d characters created so far ever in a game. Not just because of their, or rather lack of, apparel but the fact is the animations and the 3d models both combine to make extremely realistic looking players. Nothing above what we saw in DOA3, but Tecmo certainly know their stuff!

While David obviously enjoyed the game, I am sorry to admit that after waiting so long for this title, I was at least expecting the volleyball side of things to hold my interest and at least be as fun to play as something like Virtua Tennis. I'm not comparing the two games in so far as they both have pretty simplistic controls and consist of getting a ball over a net to your opponent, but the volleyball in DOAX just doesn't have the depth to warrant any long term life for this game.

Tecmo did the right thing by making the games controls as simple as possible, but I never had the feeling that I was in total control of where I was placing the ball over the net. I also would liked to have seen the game take on a more structured approach and offer extra items as prizes in a tournament based system rather than the open ended system that exists in the game. It seems all you do in the game is play volleyball, visit the casino and flick through menu after menu which you repeat for 2 weeks during your stay on the island. Of course there are loads of items and bikinis to buy for the girls on the island and a major part of the game involves buying them gifts in the hope that they will want to partner up with you. Beware though, as many of them harbour grudges from past DOA games so if you have no knowledge of which characters like each other, and also their likes and dislikes, finding a partner can become an exercise in frustration. Do a bit of homework though and it becomes alot easier to find a volleyball partner.

In the games defense I am enjoying the multiplayer side of things and having a lot of fun playing the game with my mates, even my wife has chipped in for a game or two, something she isn't normally interested in. Unfortunately as a single player experience DOAX isn't much more than pong in bikinis that lets you play dressups. The casino is a nice distraction but lacks ambience. You never see anyone else in it and you can't buy drinks or interact in anyway except to gamble. It would have been nice to see more interaction between the DOA girls in other areas of the game such as the casino to give you more chances to win them over in the hope of teaming up with them.

While a great graphical showcase of how good games on the Xbox can look, the game itself seems to be rather shallow. Once you have played through Zack Island a handful of times with a few of the girls and checked out a bunch of the bikinis and played all the mini games, DOAX is most likely to sit in your game pile awaiting your next multiplayer session with your friends. Two of them will have to sit by and watch though because for some reason, DOAX only supports 2 players, a final source of confusion in a great to look at, but ultimately disappointing game.