"Hey Jimmy, give me a Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball. With xtra cleavage."

"Xtra cleavage."

"But hold the volleyball."

"Hold the volleyball!?"

"And hold the Dead or Alive."

"Hold the Dead or Alive?!?"

"Hey Jimmy, gimme some cleavage with nothin'."

"Nothin'?!?"

The girls of XBV hail from the Dead or Alive series of fighting games, which has graced five different consoles since 1997. Cutting-edge visuals, simple yet dynamic gameplay, and attractive women with ample and unnaturally animated breasts have been hallmarks of the franchise since its inception. Team Ninja seemed to be aiming for the same objectives with XBV, but in some areas, it has missed the mark.

XBV begins sometime after Zack wins the last Dead or Alive tournament and parlays his winnings (in a scene reminiscent of Ocean’s Eleven) into a bankroll and subsequently an island resort. In a stroke of brilliance, he decides to invite the seven women on the planet most likely to kick his ass (and newcomer Lisa, an American of uncertain racial origin) to the aptly-named Zack Island for a sham fighting tourney. Upon arriving, the ladies take the news with grace and spend their vacation playing volleyball, soaking up the sun, enjoying the casino nightlife, and ambiguously flirting with each other.

The main mode places you and the belle of your choice on the island for a sunny two-week vacation. Each day is broken into four time periods, three of which feature volleyball matches, poolside relaxation, shopping and courting the other ladies – the night is reserved for the casino. Your job is to make as much money as possible, and in turn buy as many items for yourself and as gifts, before the island unceremoniously erupts in fourteen days time, and you start all over again. Fortunately, each girl retains her inventory from game to game, though they don’t share – so if you’re a collector, be prepared to do eight times the work.

To play any volleyball outside of the exhibition mode, you’ll need to land yourself a partner. One girl (usually Lisa) will volunteer her friendship upon your arrival, and she’ll stick with you through your first day. However, if you can’t keep her happy by winning matches, or if another girl would better complement your playing style, you’ll have to find a new friend. Some of the more friendly ladies will be happy to join you at your first request, but if you’re playing (or courting) a bit…ter character like Christie, prepare to butter your prospective partner up with gifts. It never hurts to send a current teammate presents, either, especially if you’re not any good on the beach.

Choosing the right partner is more integral to a player’s success than at first it may seem. Each lady has a unique set of strengths and weaknesses, and you’ll need to find the ideal complement for those attributes to win consistently. Tina, for example, has the nastiest spike in the game, but her receiving is suspect. Team her up with Ayane or especially Helena, however, and you’ll be nearly unstoppable. The girls will often be affected by how much they like what they’re wearing or their partners – this last factor often hampers a well-rounded player like Christie who isn’t particularly endearing to her colleagues. The girls, however, lack the flair that made them so endearing in past iterations of the series – would it have killed Team Ninja to give Kasumi a vanishing feather teleport spike?

The core volleyball engine is simple, but it isn’t very intuitive. The player moves with the left analog and makes contact with the A and B buttons, and her partner can be positioned with the right analog. The main problem is the spiking control – the character jumps automatically (which is difficult to get used to as it is) and you must press A to execute a successful strike. Bumping and setting, however, are triggered with B, and the change of buttons will result in a lot of net balls early on. It’s also difficult to get down the timing of the more complicated serves, without the arcade-style power meters of a title such as Beach Spikers.

Other innovations introduced by Team Ninja are met with varying degrees of success. The degree of pressure on the analog buttons determines the power of the strike. In the case of a net attack, it’s the difference between a spike or a feint (or "dink"). Players can calibrate the pressure levels to their preferences, but buttons feel too sensitive no matter how the calibration is set. Unlike Beach Spikers, XBV features net shots but no out lines. The former adds to the unpredictability of shots, while the latter aren’t really missed. The dynamic camera of XBV merits notice for all the wrong reasons, as defensive positioning must often be set in the blind, and the player might not see his character going up for a block until it’s too late to respond.

Fortunately (and ironically), there’s more to XBV than volleyball. Your girl can spend some time hopping "lily pads" floating in a pool – you control her hops with pressure-sensitive button presses, and earn cash for completion and nice hops. After nightfall, you can try your luck in four casino games – slots, roulette, poker and blackjack. The eight slot machines are each coordinated to one of the girls, and each has their own idiosyncrasies – if she’s nasty, chances are, her machine will be too. Roulette features a confusing interface, with other bettors throwing chips all over and shouting in Japanese. I mistakenly threw down my entire bankroll my first trip there. The blackjack is fairly accurate, but the button choice is a bit unintuitive, and I mistakenly doubled down far too many times. Poker would be excellent if not for the lack of jacks or better winning hands, which makes winning more difficult and kills some of the strategy. The girls on the cards are a nice touch, but the lack of actual character models inside the casino is disappointing.

The last element of XBV worth noting is the extensive inventory and gift-giving system. It’s like Animal Crossing with breasts. The girls spend their money on exotic swimsuits, accessories, and trinkets, and can either keep them for their collections or send them to each other. Each of the ladies have a favorite color and theme – Ayane loves purple and Helena digs dolphins, for example – so you’ll have to match your gifts to their preferences or find them sitting in the trash. Likewise, ladies that are warm to you will send you gifts, including promo videos for various Team Ninja games past and future. Gifts that other girls accept remain in their inventories for future playthroughs, so you may well be able to see Hitomi slip into that skimpy Venus Suit she can’t buy on her own if you plan your gifts carefully. This customization and interaction gives what might otherwise be seen as a fanservice title a lot of appeal to female gamers, although my girlfriend is still disappointed she can’t choose her girl’s bikini wax.

Visually, XBV is one of the best looking games available for a console. DoA3 broke new ground in character modeling and animation, and even background texture work, and XBV looks at least as good in every area. The girls are attractive (and perhaps not as overly endowed as in games past, though I make just acclimated to "them") and playfully animated, though, like any other game, a few polygons may be seen to clip here or there. The interaction with the ground surface is perhaps the game’s most impressive visual accomplishment, as contestants will kick up clouds as they run and dive, and the imprints will stay visible as the play continues. On the child corruption front, XBV doesn’t seem to merit its M rating, as the ladies only wear attire appropriate for your local pool or beach. Despite some xtremely light lesbian innuendo, there’s nothing here even comparable to Vice City or BMX XXX.

The adage says that masturbation will make you go blind, but in XBV’s case, you’ll wish it made you go deaf. The soundtrack is littered with feel-good summer pop crap artists like Christina Aguilera, Baha Men, and The Spice Girls. Bob Marley’s buried in the there too, but even he isn’t enough to save this soundtrack, which lacks the variety and drama of past DOA selections. Thankfully, XBV takes advantages of the Xbox’s hard drive and allows you to select music you’ve uploaded, and even better, to deselect the default tracks. A volleyball game feels that much more epic with City in the Storm blasting in the background. Unfortunately, you can’t turn off the chirpy Japanese voice-acting in the game sequences. It’s very high pitched and a lot more prevalent than in the fighting games. NBA and WCW "personality" Dennis Rodman provides a blah performance in delivering about three total lines as Zack – a good idea, flawed in execution.

"A good idea, flawed in execution," sums up Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball quite aptly. The volleyball aspect is too clunky for newcomers to pick up quickly, too shallow for serious competition, and sadly lacking four-player and co-op modes, hurting its party value. XBV is far from a total failure, as it provides some simple back-and-forth enjoyment and gives players plenty to collect. Still, for $50 you can pick up Beach Spikers as well as some much more revealing DoA hentai off eBay and still have money left over for hand lotion. It may be the best part of volleyball, without the volleyball, but that simply isn’t good enough.

· · · Burgundy