Outlaw Volleyball from Simon & Schuster Interactive along with developmental
help from HYPNOTIX is the second in the series of “Outlaw” games
which are games consisting of taking a sport such as last year’s Outlaw
Golf and smacking it upside the head with a lot of attitude, provocative female
characters, bizarre personalities, and commentary that’ll keep you laughing
and playing for hours on end.

The game is centered around 16 main characters (and 1 downloadable as of this
date) who each have various grades of volleyball skill in terms of power, speed
offence and defence and are all looking to be the dominant force on the volleyball
courts. Most of the main characters from Outlaw Golf have made the return to
Outlaw Volleyball with the addition of a few new faces. Here’s a few of them;
Leon an Expelled Pro Football Player, Shawnee A Native American
with a great set of “Tomahawks, ” Lizzy the British Brawling
sensation, Killer Miller the newly paroled convict, Harvest
the Environmentalist, Natasha the female version of Russian actor Dolph
Lungdren, Nikki the wannabe rock sensation, Doe Joe the Biggest
Japanese Elvis impersonator on the face of the earth, Country Clem
the constant Drunk, Donna the tough woman from the Bronx, and Chica
the spicy Puerto Rican sensation.

Gameplay
Outlaw Volleyball plays like a volleyball game supposed to be fun and simple.
There are 3 game play modes in Outlaw Volleyball they consist of the following:

EXHIBITION
Exhibition consists of playing a single game against the computer or gathering
up to 3 friends and having a ‘volleyball throw down‘ in your own home.

TOUR
Tour is a great part of Outlaw Volleyball where by excelling in the tour mode
you are able to unlock more characters, more courts to play online and offline,
and also different clothing (trust me there is some provocative clothing
in this game). You can also use the drills feature to raise the stats of
the characters you have unlocked for online play and to make the tour mode go
a bit easier. The drills test your serve, bumping, and spiking abilities. As
a reward for completing these challenges you are given stat points to use on
your characters to make them more efficient in tour mode and online play.

XBOX LIVE
Of course, Xbox Live, I’ll cover that in the next section, read on spiker!

Xbox Live
Now
this is the quote “Meat and Potatoes” of Outlaw Volleyball
where you can take either a random team from all the characters or your tour
mode characters online and test your skills against the world. Although Outlaw
Volleyball is a peer to peer game, meaning you can only play one Xbox against
another Xbox, you can have 2 people per Xbox for a total of 4 player competing
online which is pretty sweet and can be fun for everyone involved. Downloadable
Content is still a factor for the longevity of the title, but as stated above,
only one download has become available to date.

Control
Outlaw Volleyball’s controls are very easy to master, in fact after a few games
they’ll fell like second nature to you. After a while the focus in ‘OV’
will shift from learning the controls to learning the strengths and weaknesses
of your opponents, which even while in online mode will still be a considerable
factor.

Graphics

OV shows off some of the impressive power of the Xbox console with the bump
mapping features. All of the characters are well designed (especially the female
ones) with tattoos, earrings, the facial hair etc (fortunately the female characters
do not have facial hair, hence my nightmares have stopped). Although the hair
styles sometimes seem to be “gravitationally challenged,” for the
most part they are well done. The characters have various actions that are automatically
performed at different times for points earned and points lost.

Audio
The Audio in this game is good but could have been much better. Outlaw Volleyball
consists of rock metal and hip hop tracks that are played throughout the course
of the games. The music of ‘OV’ is headlined by the band Diffuser,
which includes three sample tracks that are in the game on a sampler cd when
you purchase the title. The music is not really exceptional overall, but gives
great promotion to lesser known labels. The play-by-play commentary is voiced
by Outlaw Golf’s own Steve Carell; while the commentary is funny
at the start expect it to get very repetitive very quickly.

Replay Value
While Outlaw Volleyball is a good party game for online or offline with your
friends if you don’t find people to play this game with you can expect
it to get old real quick. Although the game is well done and continues the great
tradition from the “Outlaw’ series of games this game can become
boring if you don’t have friends to play with, but a definite party game
for you and your friends.

Overall Score
Overall Score: 8/10 [Not an Average]

Additional Comments
Outlaw Volleyball is a good game, well done and a lot better in my opinion than
Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball in terms of a solid volleyball game for
Xbox, however can become stale when in the wrong company.

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