From the first video excursions in volley sports (Pong) until Sega finally got it right with Virtua Tennis, the main ingredient holding back the volley sub-genre was the lack of a comprehensive control system. Virtua Tennis on Dreamcast was the first time it actually worked out and began a new age of tennis and volley ball games. Unlike the basketball games that each year warrant updates of team information, graphic gloss and interface tweaking, over the past year or so volleyball game updates have consisted of constant refining of the control scheme. While Summer Heat Beach Volleyball does nothing to reinvent the system it works well enough to compete with the oncoming cascade of volley titles and it’s the only one currently available for the PS2.

Breakdown

Ripping a page from the control scheme of Gamecube’s Beach Spikers, Summer Heat adds a few minor upgrades. The X button performs all of the basic action functions although the triangle and square buttons give you more control over subtle actions and a ghost arrow appears to show you which direction a ball is traveling before it gets there. What can be confusing at first is how to gauge the power behind your shots and control the balls direction. Relying more on the much touted pressure sensitivity of the PS2 controllers face buttons than any onscreen gauge, the longer you hold down the button the more power will be used to send the ball flying. After a half hour or so of complete embarrassment in front of the pixilated audience you should get the hang of it enough to get a couple of nice volley’s going. Frustrating enough, you only control one of the players on your side of the court abandoning any others to A.I. While the A.I is good it’s sometimes too good and you might end up feeling a little upstaged when your teammates play the net strongly.

Typical of shallow sports games Summer Heat has three modes of play - arcade, exhibition and tour mode which is a series of eight tournaments consisting of five games. Following suit is the requisite customization of clothing, players and accouterments with bonuses and unlockable minigames. Graphically, Summer Heat is on par with most although not as much attention was invested in the jiggly parts of the female anatomy as in other games. This time there are actually male characters in the game and the sun drenched lighting is surprisingly realistic as is the morphing sand.

Beyond an annoying announcer (when are sports developers going to truly get this right?) the soundtrack (which includes groups like Sprung Monkey, Pink and Freshmaka) is just right, if not repetitive, perfectly fitting the setting.

The only problem that exists here is that Volley Ball is one of those sports that is so much more fun in real life. While this is true of most sports its exceedingly so for volley ball since playing it on a screen removes all of its most valued virtues like sun, being on the beach, Baywatch Babes, etc. But with Xbox having two veritable volleyball games Summer Heat is the only chance for PS2 owners to get some virtual fun in the sun making it a perfect choice.

Posted: September 25, 2003