The thing about Volleyball
Summer Heat Beach Volleyball offers up a more in-depth volleyball experience than the aforementioned Xbox sim. Summer Heat offers three different kinds of move for each situation, whereas DOA: XVB only offered one. These come in the form of the short, medium and long variety of shot, with each one having their own sort of advantage. When making or returning a shot, a reticule of sorts will appear. The longer you hold down the button before you come into contact with the ball, the more accurate the shot will be, but failure to release the button before hitting the ball, and the shot will fail. Shot selection seems to be dependant on both your location on the court and the button combination pressed, so being close to the net while the opponent is returning your shot will result in your player making a block, whereas if you are in the backcourt, you would go for a normal return shot. This can lead to the minor problem of your character performing a different kind of shot than what you want them to do. Unfortunately, once you’ve got the hang of the games system, it begins to devolve into a volley-set-spike fest when playing against the game’s relatively incompetent AI. AI tends to be weak early on in the arcade mode and tournaments, only beginning to become a challenge at the very end. They leave their corners undefended earlier on in the piece, yet they will hardly skip a beat in the final rounds of the game, no matter the difficulty. The other problem in regards to the players themselves is that 2 or 3 of them completely dominate the rest. Surely Cheltenham could have spent a little bit of extra time ensuring that the game was balanced.
Summer Heat Beach Volleyball features a stack of different play modes. Arcade mode provides an opportunity for you to play a bunch of 10 point matches against the CPU, unlocking a few objects along the way. The opponents start off fairly weak, but are quite a challenge by the final match. The Summer Heat US Tour mode allows you and your team-mate to compete in a variety of tournaments across the United States. This sort of tournament mode is a step up from DOA: XVB, but we believe it still needs some sort of structure similar to that of Virtua Tennis 2, where characters’ skills are developed by participating in mini games and so on. Each tournament victory will win you something nice for your trophy cabinet, as well as unlocking some stuff. Mini game mode gives you access to a variety of mini games such as Hit the Nerd (or something like that) for playing with friends. Training mode teaches you the basics of the game while unlocking various costume accessories and other players for use in the other modes. Finally, the beach house allows you to wander around a house, viewing all of your trophies and things that you’ve unlocked.
Length isn't really an issue in Summer Heat Beach Volleyball. There are 20 tournaments to compete in during the Summer Heat US Tour, not to mention the fact it expects you to do this on three difficulties. The arcade mode is in a similar boat in regards to being completed on three difficulties, but is over much more quickly than the main tour mode. There are over 200 items to unlock, including new swim suits, music videos and videos of upcoming games. Once the single player is out of the way, you can play with up to 3 friends (provided you have the required kit) in the various multiplayer modes.
Sand in your eyes
Acclaim seem to have come up with one of the most mixed graphical efforts we’ve seen in a long time when it comes to the visual presentation of Summer Heat Beach Volleyball. The character models are rather lacking when it comes to detail – in fact, other than hair and clothing colour, it’s probably hard to distinguish most of the characters on the court. Animation of the characters is much too stiff for the sort of game at hand, not to mention that the flow from move to move is very unimpressive. Of course, in true Acclaim style, unnecessary attention has been placed on the bounciness of the women’s breasts – something we knew would happen from the very second that this game was announced. Fortunately, the playing environment of Summer Heat is much better than the dreary presentation of the game’s participants. Environments boast vibrant colours and are full of life – there’s a stack of spectators and other things you would generally expect to see in a beach volleyball game. Players also kick up sand when running around the court, though this detail is somewhat neglected in the fact that it is undone after every point is scored. Summer Heat's camera is simple, with only one angle for each side of the court, though the angle sometimes results in misjudging the distance between your player and the ball. Finally, Summer Heat lacks any sort of support for 60 Hz or widescreen, so you’ll have to live with a game that’s 17% slower than the rest of the world.
If you like artists such as Kylie Minogue and Pink, then you’re in for a bit of a treat with Summer Heat’s soundtrack. Thankfully, the entire score doesn’t consist of fruity pop music, as music from a few other genres has been provided for the purposes of variety. Unfortunately, with only 11 tracks all up, and up to three to four being played each match, the score becomes repetitive quickly. Other aspects of sound are reasonably good, such as the players communicating with each other on the court – if you’ll excuse the stereotypical accents. The worst part of the overall experience would have to be the announcer, who speaks in one of the most annoying tones we’ve heard in recent times. On the positive side, he doesn’t actually say too much, and you can skip his entire spiel at the start of the match. Gamers with reasonable sound systems are in luck, as you can listen to the entire Summer Heat experience in glorious Dolby Pro Logic II.
Sand in your knickers
Summer Heat is one of those annoyingly mediocre titles. You know it could have been better with a bit more time in development, and a few tweaked ideas, but it’s obvious in this case that Acclaim was out to make a quick buck on the back of the success of DOA: XVB. For fans of the sport of volleyball, your best bet is either this or Beach Spikers for the Gamecube, but the fact of the matter is that nobody has actually done volleyball correctly thus far. It’s best to rent it if you need a quick bash at a different game with a few mates, though the more budget price point could lend itself to an impulse purchase if you enjoy the game.
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