Outlaw Volleyball Preview
December 04, 2002 - Dudes in skimpy outfits.
That's not all Simon & Schuster's Outlaw Volleyball has to offer, but in light of Tecmo's upcoming fleshy fantasy known as Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, it's got to be one of the features that'll differentiate this game from its closest competitor. Even if you really are into hillbillies and prima donnas in revealing outfits, you won't want to miss Outlaw Volleyball's innovative momentum/fighting system or that fact that the game will be fully compatible with Xbox Live for online head to head play and downloadable content.
Outlaw Volleyball is what happens when you take the putters away from the nutty characters in Outlaw Golf and strip them down to their unmentionables for a little digging and spiking. Developers Hypnotix promise that they're putting plenty of emphasis on the volleyball since they already know the humor and nuttiness of their "Outlaw" brand works.
You get 16 playable characters, eight men and eight women, including six from the golf game plus caddy turned volleyball referee, Heavy G. They each get multiple costumes with multiple textures so that female characters, for example, can mix and match bikini tops and bottoms once you unlock them. There will be 10 courts to choose from with five events planned for each in the game's main single player Tour mode. Courts range from sewers and rooftops to prisons and oil rigs, thereby taking volleyball beyond the hardwood courts and sandy beaches where the game is usually found. Furthermore, there will be several minigames, called drills, that will be the only way of developing the individual skills of each character. These minigames will teach both the gamer and the player specific volleyball skills like accurate spiking and defensive digging.
She looks like she could come off the bench for Team Ninja
There's no doubt that Hypnotix has put plenty of thought into making OV a fluid experience. The drills are the only way for you to improve your character in the single player Tour mode and this is critical since choosing new, more skilled partners for your character is tied to how you've developed them. Playing through matches unlocks the next highest tier of playable characters, but you won't be able to choose a new partner from a tier that you've opened up until you have the requisite amount of attribute points. So for example, you pick your character --there is no custom character creation-- from among four Chump level characters and you choose a partner from the same Chump level. As the two of you win volleyball matches you'll open up the next highest tier of characters, all the way up to All-Star. But you won't be able to trade your partner in for a new one until you've spent enough time completing drills to boost your overall player ability.
There is also a vague teamwork attribute that you can assign points to as well so that if you choose to play with computer assistance (you control your character, the CPU controls your partner), your teammate will do a better job of covering your mistakes and bailing you out when you miss a block or spike.
Controlling the volleyball matches themselves is simple. The A button bumps, sets and spikes depending on the position of the ball and your timing. Hitting X will attempt to block a spike at the net. So far we haven't really told you anything that makes this game outside the law as the name implies. But we will.
You can fight in Outlaw Volleyball. It's not quite the same violent thrill as a spontaneous brawl between the NHL's Buffalo Sabres and Toronto Maple Leafs, but the innovative system should make for some fine multiplayer mayhem. Fighting works in conjunction with the game's momentum meter, which needs to be explained first and should be thought of as a turbo or special move meter. Each time the ball is hit over the net during a point, the pot of momentum energy at stake increases, so that the team that wins the point will also win the energy that was accumulated during the point. The game rewards players for great plays so that if you and your partner score on an awesome power spike, the player who spiked it will get the lion's share of the momentum points and the teammate will get just a little. As each player accumulates momentum energy, by squeezing the right trigger in the right situation it can be used to deliver special spikes or make a dramatic dive for a save or provide a speed boost so you can get to a spot.
This look is so 1993
Just like Outlaw Golf's Beatdown Tokens, you accumulate Fight Coins in volleyball over time for decent gameplay. Spending those coins to start a fight will bring up a mini cutscene where you have to choose which opponent you want to attack. This is important because you want to take inventory of your momentum energy and that of each of your opponents because basically you're wagering all of your juice against theirs on the outcome of the fight. It's not quite winner-take-all, but it is winner-takes-all-they-need-to-have-a-full-momentum-meter. The intent here is to give a losing team a chance to get back in a game by grabbing some much needed momentum from their opponents. So if your character only has 10% momentum and one of your opponents has 90%, it's in your best interest to pick a fight with them because you don't have much to lose in that situation. And with a full momentum meter you'll have all kinds of awesome moves at your disposal.
The fighting itself will only be slightly more in depth than a typical hockey fight in a videogame. There's no jumping or footsweeps, but you will have limited combos with punching and kicking. After all this is a volleyball game and not Soul Calibur 2.
Visually Outlaw Volleyball is looking like a worthwhile Xbox game. The characters are at least as smoothed skinned and fleshy looking as those in DOAX. This early in the development cycle, the game's animations look as rough as you'd expect, but there are promising signs like flowing clothing and hair movements in addition to intricate facial animations. Also you get deformations in the sand with each step, nice particle effects with sand getting kicked up everywhere and surprisingly cool-looking transparent water that sparkles and shines. In the sewer level, you play ankle deep in water with fantastic sparkling effects on the surrounding walls of the dimly lit arena.
IGN will have much more on Outlaw Volleyball in the coming weeks including more information on the game's Xbox Live components and rumors of winnable downloads and online tournaments. For now enjoy the fresh media from the game.
