Outlaw Volleyball

PS2 review by James Frazer, published on Sunday 23rd October 2005

I’m not a videogame developer, nor a publisher. If I was, you could be pretty damn sure that I would stick to the more popular genres instead of sneaking off to some dark corner and try something lucky and unexpected. I mean, what exactly could the meeting over at Hypnotix have gone like?

You know what this world needs? A damn fine volleyball game

That’s my guess, anyway. Perhaps it’s in the water or something, or maybe the employee’s strip off into bikinis and bathing suits at lunch times and play volleyball in the car park. I sure as hell don’t, and nor do you. So what exactly is it about Outlaw Volleyball that makes it a decent purchase?

All I can think of is “Wow!”.

One of the selling points of the Outlaw series is, besides the mindless violence, jugs. And lots of ‘em. Not of the pottery kind, but rather on sporty, toned and tanned scantly-clad females, all twisting and turning in poses that’ll make you melt like butter. So of course you’d expect the visuals and physics of said cleavage to be spot on- I don’t admit to having watched boobs bounce up and down all day every day, but by George the visuals here are immensely good. The girls look impressively fit and fine, bouncing around like It’s a Knockout, flesh bubbling about in all places and arses that could swipe and charge a credit card.

So that’s it; review over. 10/10, buy this ‘game’, take it home and close the curtains for some good night action.

It’s quite tempting to leave it there, but Outlaw Volleyball is so much more than a glorified shag-fest. The way players jump, dive and smash the ball is quite incredible, there’s nothing here that suggests someone getting lazy halfway through production and tying up loose ends. For review purposes, I zoomed in on some action during the replay to check out the….ball play, and I was impressed to see that their hands actually touch the ball, and not get within inches of it for the game to recognise that it is in their possession.

I doubt if anyone’s going to bother reading this caption either.

The models themselves aren’t your usual Barbie-doll figurines; instead, each is tailor made so you can see the muscles bulge under the skin along with the soft curves of female…shoulders. Hair styles are all different too and pony tails swing about as players move around the court, bouncing and teasing as they go along….

Just a shame the same can’t be said for the environments surrounding these fine athletes. Buildings look like drab affairs, with dull grey colours and unimaginative settings. Aside from a level in which you play on water, there’s no interaction with them at all and you sometimes feel that your eyes weren’t meant to stroll much further than the bra strap on one of the girls. Creating ripples in the water as you run around in said level was quite a nice touch, but this reviewer feels that more could have been done to set the scene. Perhaps playing on Miami Beach in front of traffic and gleaming casinos and hotels would have been nicer instead of underwater sewage works and urban areas.

It’s also quite hard to imagine exactly what they were trying to achieve sound-wise, too. I found the music far too out of touch with a fast paced, sweaty sports game, and even though Xbox gamers have access to custom soundtracks, we PS2 owners have nowhere to run.

I know what game these two are playing, and it’s not volleyball.

There’s a commentator included too, who has to be the most annoying guy in the world. His speech is constantly repeated, so you can hear the same phrase over and over again until you find the “Mute Announcer” box in the options screen. Thankfully, the girls aren’t anywhere near as bad. Despite never being able to shut the hell up (nice to see they incorporated some touches from the real world, eh guys?), banter between teams is really good, and even if they say “I got it” more than is human, I’m struggling to think of something else that they could say in exchange for it.

The meat and bones of Outlaw Volleyball is the violence between characters. Outlaw Golf allowed stressed-up golfers to beat the crap out of their opponents through pressing buttons that were shown on screen. By releasing his or her anger, that would free their minds to play a bit better on the courses, with the loser of the fight becoming more anxious and nervous.

So why on earth was this rather innovative system thrown out for the dull one-on-one fighting? All that happens now is two characters trade blows until one falls, with the winner gaining momentum for the game. So instead of timed button presses, games are reduced to button-bashing madness, with no skill involved at all. A huge shame.

Admit it, you’re looking at Donna’s tiny pants aren’t you?

To top that off, I found that the momentum gained from fighting rarely gave an advantage to teams. A spike, where you attempt to smash the ball hard into the ground so the opponent can’t defend it, is supposed to be charged up to a power spike when enough momentum is harvested, like Game Breakers from the NBA Street series. But after a few hours of practise, it seems as if this new fangled power spike is indeed no more advantageous than the original spike; teams can still defend against it as well as before, which puts a whacking big question mark over the need for fighting. It’s like a mini game tacked-on to remind you that this is an Outlaw branded game.

Another set-back is the camera. Whilst perfectly placed at the end of the court, when building up to a spike, it zooms in on that teams half of the court, leaving the attackers with no idea whatsoever of the defensive formation, and in return the defensive team have no idea where to place their players.

I found the controls to be rather like Virtua Tennis, in that an idiot (like me, for example) could pick this up and start scoring points from the off. You simply aim where to hit the ball, get somewhere near it and smack it one. And the aiming is quite precise too, so non-Volleyball fans can make it look as if they’ve been playing the game for years.

I’ll give you a ‘player reaction’ alright…

There is ‘Net play available, which I don’t have access to unfortunately, but I did play a two player game with my younger brother, who sadly seemed far more interested in girly bits wobbling about than actually hitting the ball. The exclusion of a 4-player mode vastly reduces any fun offline, as having 3 mates smashing the ball around court whilst tight jeans bulge further would have been quite a sight. Or not.

Outlaw Volleyball is an example of those games that shouldn’t work, but do. I was literally crying with laughter when I pulled this out of the post bag at the office, waiting to rip it to pieces and label it as a glorified sex toy. Well it is, but there’s some damn fine gameplay there too. Such a pity they didn’t bundle a one-handed controller with it…