Power Spike Pro Beach Volleyball

Power Spike Pro Beach Volleyball

Infogrames' lone venture into volleyball is a decent effort, but you really have to love volleyball.

I can't remember the last volleyball game that hit the PlayStation in North America, and perhaps that's because there never was one. There's a reason for that. Despite the growing popularity of volleyball worldwide, particularly beach volleyball, not that many people play it. But Infogrames has at least gone out on a limb and brought us a game that no one has ever made. Does that mean, just like Tony Hawk, we will have a bombardment of volleyball games thrust upon us? Fat chance.

At least Power Spike Pro Volleyball is, at its core, a good game. It's the visuals that cause most of the problems. If this game were on the PlayStation 2 or even the Dreamcast it would instantly be a much better game. Normally, graphics follow gameplay in our list of priorities, but better animation, better character models, a decent frame rate, and well, a lot of other things, could have made this a more complete volleyball experience. As it is, Power Spike is a bare-bones volleyball game with a good game concept and little else.

I played a lot of beach volleyball while growing up; I took part in a six-man high school volleyball team as an outside hitter. I still like playing volleyball but I have never had the urge to play a videogame version of the sport. Perhaps it's because I have seen so few v-ball games, and the ones I have seen are really bad. But I do know that until I was forced into writing this review, I wasn't jumping at the chance to play it.

Though I tried to avoid playing it, once I got the hang of the controls, Power Spike Pro Beach Volleyball turned out to be quite entertaining. The thing about it is that as a two-player game, the game controls are amazingly good. Volleyball is sort of simple that way -- you hit, pass, block, serve, and set. You can hit strong, technical, or normal spikes, which bring a good amount of variety to the game, and the ability to aim your shots is especially key. To do this, aim a moving cursor around the opponent's side of the court before taking the shot. If the cursor were a little less jumpy, it would be even better.

Power Spike does take a bit of practice. I spent at least a half-hour in practice and still didn't know what was going on. Not until I played an actual tournament, and read the loading screen "tips" section, did I know what to frickin' do. For this game to really accessible, the practice mode could have been better conceived. Lots of tips should have been given to help in the very basics, such as timing a hit, timing a pass and setting the ball to specific places. Of course, I did learn these things in the easy mode of an exhibition, but this needs serious work. For a good example of how to train a player, developer Carapace could have played about an hour of Virtua Tennis to get a glimpse of some fantastic training minigames.

I would say that biggest weakness in Power Spike's gameplay is the missing sense of timing players will feel. A lot more focus on when to set up and when to spike would really have made the "power" part of Power Spike a lot more satisfying. As it is, I've won a few world tours and I still don't have the spiking thing down perfectly.

Having said that, Power Spike is amazingly accurate in relaying a good two-man volleyball game. The AI is smart, playing the court with a surprising amount of finesse, blocking close sets, and hitting the ball in open spots. Also, several aspects of the defense are well set up. Once you know where to set up on defense (taking the angle when your team mate goes up to block), and you get the timing thing down, you can pick up a lot of the defense's hits, creating long, intense volleys and enduring games. To get the best spikes and passes, a set of circles appears in the sand to indicate the perfect place to stand or jump, and it's a helpful little indicator.

With Power Spike, players can play in world tournament (a multinational round-robin tournament), exhibition (a single game), or a practice game (unlimited time). The Create-a-player mode is modest, but it provides the chance for players to build their athletes up, and that helps create a deeper replay value. You can set a good amount of game difficulty settings, such amateur, pro or all-star, and in Create-A-Player, you set up his or her looks, playing characteristics, and the attire. These settings increase after winning each tournament.

As for presentation, Power Spike is underpowered, to put it nicely. The intro FMV is totally predictable, choppy and rough looking and the winner's celebration (after winning a tournament) is utterly feeble. The thing about this game is that there is a game here, but it's poorly dressed and underfed. A better practice mode, a little variety in mini-games, things like spike contests, and serve contests could have rounded this game out well.

In this day and age of graphic dominance, Power Spike is an instant loser. It's true that graphics don't a game make, but man, Power Spike could really have used the help. The game is good, but no on wants to look at it, cause it's just plain ugly.

The list of technical shortcomings is huge. The character animation is absolutely horrible, chopping up in every single way. The character models are thin, indistinguishable, and faceless. Perhaps they were conceived with faces, but the final result is sheer blandness. Do they even have eyes? I can't tell. It's as if skeletons striped with paper machete skin were jumping around the screen. Power Spike de la Muerta? Hm.... To add to that, the male characters are thin, tiny, and the ones with hats and shirts on look just like they're wearing old-fashioned swim trunks from the '20s. Either that, of they're on the swim team.

And hey, if you have Gabby Reece as the title's pin-up girl, show a little cleavage, will ya? I mean, not only is she a great athlete, she well built, er, too. For that matter, all of the characters could have been sexier. Pro beach volleyball is made up of sun-tanned, perfectly honed athlete gods, and a bus-full of the real life pros, many of which are re-created here, are damn sexy to look at.

Sound? Huh? The most memorable part of this game is the oft-heard "no one!" or "ughhh!" during a match. This is the code word for no one is blocking, or no one is there, and it really doesn't help one bit in this game. True, it's what they say in the real games, but if it were put in and actually helped, that would be nice. As it stands, it seems like they're speaking to ghosts about some previous date they had on an astral plane on Saturn. In other words, it don't make sense.

As for the music, it's your standard, OK, sub-standard, rock and roll garbage that's just thrown in to fill up the aural space. Occasionally during the middle of a match some really God-awful disco crap chimes in and then just as mysteriously disappears. There wasn't much thought given to the music here.


Under its shabby looking exterior, Power Spike Pro Beach Volleyball is a good game concept that works at a bare-bones level. There are no extras, and there isn't much replay value once you have beaten the game in world tour once or twice. But you really have to love volleyball a hell of a lot to want to play this, and what's more, you won't impress any of your friends with the graphics. It's a pretty good game to play by one self, and it's more fun to play with a second player, but again, you'll have to forgive a lot of the game lot to enjoy it. Only the grittiest, diehard volleyball players will want to play Power Spike Pro Beach Volleyball, if even they are interested.

In This Article

Power Spike Pro Beach Volleyball

With real players, real locations, and precise volleyball physics, POWER SPIKE PRO BEACH VOLLEYBALL is a real score. You'll play in real-life environments set in 14 different locations spanning the globe. Travel to Sydney, Osaka, Los Angeles, and lots of other great cities as you spike and dig your way to hard-fought victory. If you'd like to see how your own creations fare against the world's best, create your own player based on a list of physical traits and abilities, then pick a partner and play. If you have a few friends over, you can even serve it up four-player style.
Platforms:PlayStation, PC
Publishers:Infogrames, Electro Source
Features:Number Of Players, Memory Card, Vibration, DualShock
Release Date:November 22, 2000
Power Spike Pro Beach Volleyball
Power Spike Pro Beach Volleyball