A dynamic interactive environment lets you use objects around you as weapons. It's a very, very cool feature. Punch buildings to watch them collapse, then use the building rubble, a train car, or a steel girder to throw or use as a make-shift club to pound your enemy into the ground. A nice radio-antenna can impale your enemy, sending them to their doom, but watch out-they can pull it out and throw it back at you! Hand-to-hand fighting can get brutal. Mash the buttons like a madman and watch your monster throw some amazing punches, kicks, and combinations. It sucks, but sometimes you have to watch helplessly as your monster gets pulverized no matter how hard you work the buttons. Don't worry, you'll come back regenerated and re-energized. As soon as you re-spawn, grab the nearest object, chase down your foe and beat him with it.
This game is all about monsters, mayhem, and mega-destruction. At the end of a tough day, what's better than 100-foot monsters fighting each other for complete supremacy while taking out cities, canyons, airports, and power plants along the way?-LL
Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball
Console: Xbox
Publisher: Tecmo
Hot: Bodies galore
Not: Gameplay leaves you wanting more
Score: 0 0 011/42
Ever since Doom marched onto the scene in the early '90s, violence in video games has been blamed for all sorts of real-life tragedies. So if kids allegedly pick up pistols and jack sports cars after an active round with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, maybe Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball will incite a riot of a different breed.
Tecmo isn't shy about it, either-Dead or Alive is one seriously sex-filled game. It's right there on the box cover: three busty beauties showing off their assets with no volleyball in sight (there's even a companion 2003 calendar). The game isn't grossly gratuitous, mind you, but it surely isn't as clean as a Walt Disney toon. There's nudity, albeit brief, and a slew of orgasmic bouncing to be seen throughout. Boobs jiggle, without a doubt, and a voyeuristic mode allows digital deviants to zoom and/or pan around the game's eight virtual vixens as they relax on the sand or get a tan poolside, wearing nothing but a titillating thong.
The plot isn't very coy. Dropping his millions in Dead or Alive tournament loot on a tropical isle, Zack opens a resort hotel and casino, conning all of the feisty gals from the previous romps into coming to his luxurious estate. Once there, they indulge in two weeks of-what else?-volleyball.
That, my friends, is the meat and potatoes of the game, but it's far from a hearty Campbell's helping. While the action calls for much pressing of the Xbox pad's sensitive buttons, after an hour of trial-and-error matches, you'll be an expert. The key to winning is timing hits and spikes with your saucy partner, so once you're synchronized, you're golden. It's a much faster-paced sport than Sega's Beach Spikers-and the silicon actually wobbles here-but there's still no real challenge. Your reward: an array of stylish and skimpy accessories available at two island stores. Swimsuits range from an American flag bikini to a jeweled two-piece that leaves little room for imagination, but items rotate out of the shops on a daily basis, so it's tough to collect everything. As an added bit of strategy, passing along gifts to your teammate accelerates their morale.
To boost the g-string accumulation, you can wander over to the casino floor to try your hand at an impressive lineup of gambling sims (poker, blackjack, roulette, and slots). Tread lightly, though, as your fortune can be built or broken at the tables, just like in the real Vegas.