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Review special: “Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball” |
Probably the most surprising aspect of the entire game for me was the musical accompaniment. Having read the track and artist listings beforehand, the thought of having romantic sunset action between Tina and Hitomi to the musical excretions of the Spice Girls, Christina Aguilera and (OH JESUS NO) B*Witched turned my stomach… but it works. Not only that, it works absolutely perfectly. Take some happy, poppy nonsense, add a sprinkling of feminine empowerment, a few exotic island instruments, plenty of talk about “grooving” and “loving” and “shaking” and you have the perfect companion to a game that is after all, a holiday.
It is possible to customise your soundtrack using the XBOX CD-ripping facility - but I think the original soundtrack is by far both the best and the most appropriate.
I seriously hope that
this is DOA4’s actual tagline
Something else that surprised me, and another myth that needs debunking, especially given all the sneering innuendo and pathetic jokes flying around - Team Ninja seem to have actually gone out of their way to make this game incredibly DIFFICULT to masturbate to. I mean, god knows I’ve tried (purely in the interests of furthering public knowledge, you understand) - but in the end it’s just too much hassle.
The volleyball itself is generally too zoomed out and requires too much input from the player, the ‘gravure’ posing sequences last only about twenty seconds each, they don’t loop, and although you can move, point and zoom the virtual camera along all three axis, the controls to do so efficiently require more than one hand. And doing it over the ‘pool hopping’ sequence is just silly.So yes, you can do gravure-menu-gravure-menu-gravure until you’re … done, but it’s boring and awkward as hell, and chances are you’ll end up getting off over a NOW LOADING screen anyway.
So while it’s crap as a masturbatory aid, DOAX still succeeds miraculously in many, many areas - and one further, triumphant reason for it’s existence is in the capacity of a big, wet, sloppy “thank you” to fans and supporters of the DOA series. Now I must say, although I tend to object to gratuitous “fan-pleasing”, believing as I do, that companies have a duty to make things they think we should have, not things we actually ask for - that this is a wonderful gesture. Being the sort of drooling, single-celled “fan” that would appreciate something like this, I feel almost touched to be mentioned (and I know they mean me when they say “to ALL Dead or Alive fans” in the credits) - and to be a part of a series so prepared to send itself up, to exploit it’s cheesier, sillier side, to have a laugh with us - it warms my heart.
“Hey, you behind the wall, stop doing that
and come out here where I can see you!”
I remember when the game was still in development, and the slow trickle of images and movies began, showing clips of gravures, and CG scenes. It didn’t take long for people to begin screaming “what about the gameplay!?” — but having owned it for a couple of months now, I realise that that IS the gameplay. As I said right at the start, this is not a volleyball game with a bunch of other stuff orbiting it; no, browsing the shops, relaxing by the pool and listening to the soundtrack is just as fundamental to the entire package as anything else in the game.
The simple fact remains that in DOAXBV; colour matching nail polish and bracelets and using the ‘pool hopping’ mode to see which thong swimsuit reveals more of Christie’s backside are just as fundamental to the game as the volleyball mode, or the ‘dating’ AI routines, or the casino.The whole thing is just one remarkably silly excursion into the realm of the super-nerd - the chance, if you will, to interact with the girls of Dead or Alive in a far more intimate, personal level than any of the previous games permitted - a sort of incredibly asinine, idiots’ oppurtunity to shower your favourite girl (or indeed, any of them) with gifts, to follow them around, to make pointless girl talk with them and to revel in their marvelous, poorly-translated observations on things.
For many of us, this remains the only chance we’ll
ever get to splash all over Hitomi
I have to say, I personally don’t think that the videogame world, and it’s idiot cousin the internet is really ready for a game like DOAXBV. As a mindset we’re too wrapped up in our corporate vendettas and agendas; we’ve got too much to prove, and too much to lose to be able to accept this for what it is. People these days want to tier and unlock and hack and declare games broken in the fastest time possible … and this game is just, so incredibly anti-everything that that mindset stands for. It’s lazy, it’s endless, hell, it’s meaningless really, with an unprecedented emphasis on fun, friendship and happiness.Does the game have it’s faults? Absolutely thousands of them, but we’re not interested in those, because DOAXBV breaks so many of the codes and conventions of videogaming that I can just type any old crap in by this stage and nobody will care one way or another.
DOAXBV is just an amazing game; I think one of the reasons I love it so is because it’s just absolutely perfect for me. I am, indeed the ideal, perhaps even the entire audience. I’ve been playing DOA since the first arcade game, I have practically every home console release of the series, I have several DOA resin kits and action figures, I have thousands upon thousands of extremely naughty DOA-related images on my hard drive - and so it follows that obviously, only some sort of cataclysmic universal catastrophe could have possibly swayed me from loving this. Let this be a warning, or a caveat of some kind - your love for DOAXBV depends almost wholly on your love for the series, the girls, and the dress-up/dating tedium contained within.
As I keep saying, it’s not for everyone, but if you’re visiting this site then chances are you’ll love it. Hell, chances are you already have it. But if you don’t, and you answered my page one questionnaire, several decades ago - you have to get it. It is imperative above education, career, social and family responsibilites, and all else that you own it, and play it religiously.
Pay no attention to the cynics, the sneering poseurs and the corporate zealots, ignore the rational, sensible people, and stab the people who like “real women” in the fucking face: Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball is nothing less than epoch-making entertainment, indeed the very pinnacle of human achievement. Electricity was discovered so that one day we could power XBOXes, television was invented in order for us to be able to see girl ninja boobies, indeed, Homo Sapiens evolved opposing thumbs so that, ultimately, he could block a long pass and spike the ball alongside the far court. This, cannot, must not be denied.
The kind of mindset that conceived of such a game, and indeed those that approved it, worked on it and sold it must be applauded and encouraged like nothing else. The world needs more fun happy frolicking videogames (massive breasts always a pleasant extra here) and less of the grimy, sweary warehouse car-stealing shooting games that seem to be everywhere these days. Of course this game won’t succeed, of course nobody will care - but they should do. We all should.
Tomonobu Itagaki, you are a scholar and a gentlemen. Your sandals are fantasic, and I want you. On the beach. In the APOLLO.
