Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Summer Heat Beach Volleyball

Written by Chris Reiter on July 28, 2003

Full Review: Five words that start with "B" and equal money honey: Balls, babes, beaches, boobs, and butts.

A time for sun, fun, and dripping sweat: summer. It's a season to strip off our long john's and slip into something more...revealing. It's also the same time of year when the beach is a hot zone for many activities, one of those being the sport of volleyball. So in an effort to keep the tradition of the hottest period of the year alive, Acclaim has strapped on some bathing wear around their train of thought and has brain stormed a volleyball game that lets you in on the sexy, seductive side of summer in a way that makes the sport sizzling at its best.

When you have a collection of attractive young lads and ladies whose profession lies in looking good while bouncing stuff around (the ball, you idiot), you have got to have a series of gameplay modes to go along with that -- and so Acclaim's Summer Heat Beach Volleyball does. Arcade, Exhibition, Summer Heat U.S. Tour, Beach House, Mini Games, and Training are the names that round out these specific modes. Arcade, being the first, is the place where everything fits together. Arcade isn't actually the main mode, but it's where you can compete against a friend and even unlock goodies for later use in the Beach House schematic. Beach House isn't actually a playable mode; it's more like a getaway from everything else. Here you can access special stuff you've unlocked from music videos by a host of featured artists to game videos from Acclaim's upcoming game releases. Mini Games is also a nice "distraction" addition to the rest of the game, where you and friend can enter sessions of volleyball matchups like Nerd Smash (a whack-a-mole type game, where you'll earn points by beating up lonely dorks) or Ice Court (spiking is key to crushing your enemy's frozen structure with a ball). Exhibition is something of a practice match for the real deal (unlike the Training mode, which is practice for the gameplay) -- the Summer Heat U.S. Tour lineup. As Exhibition is a one player-only mode, it's also a single match of 15 point scores. Whoever gets the points wins the match, obviously.

Aside from everything else is the Summer Heat U.S. Tour. This is the mode of play that makes or breaks the game, and it's fair enough to say that the mode doesn't fall totally short of a fun time. While Tour is for the one player in us all, it's where the main attraction in getting into volleyball action counts the most. Because when you're choosing a character of your own, a computer to team with, and you match up against computer AI that becomes progressively harder as the season wares down, a sports game of any kind needs to supply its players with this kind of expansive experience. Through eight tournament levels (and five competitive rounds in each one), the Tour mode allows you to select your own multicultural character and a character for your computer mate to handle, based on their status bars (some are more powerful or quicker than others are, for example). Although, certain opponents have more skill than others...and as Summer Heat bases itself on whoever has the more functionality on the court, you may have to stick with certain choices of persons in order to achieve victory.

Playing Summer Heat isn't the most difficult game to comprehend either, though its learning curve does take a little while to get used to. During play the game engine etches in colored arrows that dictate where the ball is landing and where the ball is headed. These indicators make it easy to allow you to see where the enemy is positioning itself up. On the other hand, when the ball does arrive in your area, and you do hit it, using the left analog stick on almost a split second decision allows you to toggle where you want to nail the ball. The left analog stick also is used to move your character around the court, where in unison, if you move to the back side, your buddy moves up front. And if you're stepping to the left, they'll slink to the right, and so on (which gives the game a good advantage in being able to cover the tiny square playing field). As for scoring points, you basically have a set of three options to choose from: you can pass, you can setup a move, or you can attack on your own. Pressing the X button sends the ball over to your other character who then bounces it back for a triple combo finish. The square button too is a transfer-to-your-teammate maneuver, only once the computer receives the ball it'll instantly perform its own strike. Lastly the triangle button is the only one that automatically lets your guy or girl player pound the ball to the other side of the court in a spike or underhand move. What's interesting though is that the more you hold down on each of these buttons, the more power you'll place into the force of the ball -- sometimes so much that you can even end up knocking your opponents down onto the ground.

Sex sells, and Summer Heat is about looking good...for at least some of the time anyway. What's nice about the game's visuals are pretty much its star players. Every one of them is one dashing dude or beautiful babe after another. There's the male cast who mostly sport a pair of bathing shorts and a muscular chest, while the females who are more diversified, wear bikinis, and others dress up in a flashy one-piece suit...and one who even has her bottom half pulled down to the extent of showing off some butt crack action. Well formed, these models also animate finely with braids that flow in motion, limbs that move around in a realistic method of pounding, running, blocking, etc., and bodies that leap straight into the air or get knocked over in defeat: all of which is sight to see.

Like the good qualities, there are some lacking ones, however. These flaws exist mostly in the background details of the game. There are quite a few various beach areas to compete in (sunlight, sundown, and night time arenas populate these arenas), but it's just that you won't really see a whole lot while actually juggling the ball around the sand setup. In volleyball the point is just to get the ball from your side to the other side, and hope the other team fails to score by missing a hit or messing one up. Because the camera pans from side to side in an overhead/sideways view, the sites you'll see aren't that many; the camera mostly focuses on just the sand, the players, and the box you'll need to stick to the inside the whole time. And as there are a lot of yellowish morsels to stare at the whole way in, the attributes of its texturing aren't all that developed. Attention to the ground's surface seems to contain a nil satisfaction draw in, in that its structure is of one pasty color a lot of the time, while at others there's shady hole fillers...but still of a depth that's nothing truly outstanding.

Though outside the box (the one you'll be in a lot of the time) there do dwell gameplay movies. Before every match begins an intro clip of the hot spot setting you'll be vying in shows off surrounding city buildings, trees, boats, and even the spectators of the sport, which gives a good effect to the whole idea that you're not totally alone (though these extra instances don't bear the greatest traits either). But also after each point is scored (yours or the other team's), footage of the session's replay rolls, which not only does a bang-up job in its stirring slow motion imagery, it also lets you pause, zoom in and out, and even fast forward or rewind the movie to your liking (and if you're like me, you can stare at those divine chick breasts and butts for as long as you desire).

Placing the emphasis on the young and sexy style, Summer Heat manages to spin off some of today's hottest music tracks treading in for your ear drums to warm up to. Genres of dance, techno, alternative, funk and the like are what makes these tracks suitable for the type of sandy sport that volleyball's action revolves around, from popular artists like Sum 41, Pink, and Freshmaka. Even though these hip tunes do work for the game's summery stage measurement, there aren't really a whole lot of these tracks available, and you'll find yourself listening to almost the same songs over again more than you'd like, questioning, "Didn't I just hear this same single about five times in a row already?"

Other disappointments inch into the game's other sections as well. Firstly, there is a good assortment of voice acting bytes for when the game is playing, how the teammates tell their better half to spike it, or that they're claiming the ball, or when they yell out to go get "it." There's even an announcer that introduces the matchups and calls out details to either announce or denounce play efforts. The thing is though that the characters or the announcer ends up usually repeating their selves through every face-off, thus having more of a tendency to annoy in its repetitive nature. Also in the fact that there isn't a whole lot of audio to hear from the faintness of the ball bouncing to the grunts of the players makes the overall sound design the least impressive aspect Summer Heat Beach Volleyball has to offer.