November is the time of joy, when violent and very exciting video games hit the American and European marketplace. We have Gears of War, Resistance: Fall of Man, The Legend of Zelda and plenty more. But a majority of these games as you can tell are pretty serious and requires you to perform quick thinking, and everyone hates to acknowledge a thought process. But there is at least one game that takes away from all the violent actions of video games and puts you into a more relaxing atmosphere and strangely it’s a spin off of a popular semi-violent fighting game. Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 is a sequel to its first game released back on the Xbox back in early 2003. This is a spin off of the Dead or Alive series, the popular fast fighting game that started on the Playstation and made its way through the Playstation 2 and onto the Xbox system, and ever since Dead or Alive 3, the series has been exclusive to Mr. Bill Gates’ system. Now while this title may not look like a game from the series, it certainly has a few aspects of the fighting games. Namely the women and of course what makes it what it is, the breast physics. What can a Dead or Alive game be without sexy voluptuous virtual women? Well in Xtreme 2, the game would be nothing. The game offers plenty of mini-games that show off some of the women’s sexy side, but its obvious what the message is displayed here, Sex really does sell.

Now when you first startup Xtreme 2, you will be given a couple options. First off is the obvious Zack’s Island which puts you into, somewhat of a story mode (although it’s more like a free adventure experience considering no character has their own story told). In the previous story, Zack obtained gambling winnings at the end of Dead or Alive 3, and bought his little own island which he named… Zack Island (how clever!). This little island is a tropical paradise with beaches, jungles and plenty of shops, hotels and casinos to go around. The first game had one main purpose, and that is volleyball. The sequel as you can tell erases the beach volleyball part of its name only because now, there is more to do rather that bump that ball. Instead of just making another volleyball game, Tecmo games went out of their way to make more of a mini-game title with up to seven different activities you can unlock. The game still focuses partially around volleyball, but now it’s all about the vacation feel.

When you start up a new vacation, you must choose a character, and each character has specific likings and disliking, such as Kasumi’s favorite food is Strawberry Millefeuille, while someone like the American Tina enjoys Seafood. This will play a giant role in how you play the game as you will be making lots of friends and partners who will send you presents, and vice versa. But when you start a new game, you will automatically receive a partner selected for you, someone who meets your best interest. Each character will have a different partner when you start off, but you can carry over you previous characters status from a play through. A game lasts roughly one sitting, depending how fast you are and which activities you do. This may sound like not that much, but… actually yes; it’s not that much but with all the achievements, choice of characters and activities, you can have some fun. On the first day though, you will be treated to somewhat of a tutorial mode, where your partner will show you the ropes. So she’ll introduce you to the shops, and compete with you in some mini-games such as beach volleyball and Jet skiing. After the long day you’ll be able to select which hotel you wish to stay at, and there are three available, one is the Gemstone suite, a fancy room that pleases characters such as Helen. There is also the Seabreeze Cottage which is found at the eastern part of New Zack Island with what they say has a nice view, although you wont be able to see anything but a still image of the room. Lastly is the Moonlight Reef. This is a well designed room with spots of coral on the wall, even though it’s a bit crowded; it’s a non distracting place to look at. Ok enough of the rooms, let’s get to some gameplay.

Now when you first start the game, you will only have three of the seven games open, Volleyball, Jet skiing and pooling hoping. All of the other games can be purchased in one of the shops for an amount of money. Each shop will sell different things, and with three different shops, there is plenty of variety. The Accessory shop is the first shop you might visit, as it has accessories that you are able to equip to your character or give to another character, this of course adds a bit of variety to your characters visual appeal. Zack of All Trades is a shop on a boat that will sell you some of the weirdest stuff that most of the characters in the game will actually enjoy, such as sketchbooks, laptops and funny enough, Xbox and Xbox 360 systems can be purchased. The last shop is of course what everyone would have expected, the Sports shop. Here you are able to purchase various swimsuits for high prices (that is why you might not be spending a lot of time in there). But this is one of the better stores as you can customize your character all you want in the sexiest way possible. Here you are also able to purchase Jet Skis with more horsepower behind them. As you get through the game and you race more, you’ll find it’ll become a tad more difficult so you need to upgrade to a faster and/or more durable machine. Unfortunately each machine ranges from five hundred thousand Zack dollars to two million, so that’ll be a good chuck out of your pocket. Sending presents to other characters also modifies with their appearances. Depending if they accept the item you’ll see a change in their look as they equip numbers of items to their collection. The shops are a major part of what you are able to accomplish throughout the game and will come in some use when you want to change your characters look from time to time.



The first and obvious mini-game you are able to access right away is Volleyball. Just like the previous title, you will be given an easy control scheme involving the left analog stick and two buttons. With B you are able to pass your character the ball with ease and she can do the same. A is the big button though, with this you are able to pull off plenty of moves, from regular bumps over the net or hard spikes. Timing is also a big part of the game because it will lead to either success or failure during a game. When serving you can do two attacks, the standard bump over the net or you can perform a more powerful jump attack like you see from professionals, but it is a bit harder to pull off. With this comes timing, so when you throw the ball up in the air you will be given a specific time to hit the ball before it hits the ground, or hits the net and you loose a point. When doing a power serve the ball will go off screen for a second so you won’t know when to strike it, giving that a slightly more difficult time to get around. When ever you accomplish a good serve or volley, you’re character will shout out “good shot” or “nice serve” something along those lines and you will be given an bonus 1000 Zack dollars that will be added to the final total at the end of the volleyball game.

The other commands of course are when the ball comes to you, you can press A to bump it over, but that’s boring, so best if you pass to your partner who sometimes will pass back to you, and you hold right and A (just like you would do to pull off a power serve) and you’ll float in the air till you hit A again, striking the ball. You can hit it hard; nailing the opponents or you can tap it softly over the net, catching them off guard. The final command is mainly a block but will come at a risk. Going up to the net and pressing A will cause your character to jump in the air, attempting a block maneuver. This is good if you have good timing and you are in the right place at the right time, but ultimately this leaves a big gap open for your opponent to hit if you are slow or go up too fast. The Volleyball mini-game in Xtreme 2 is the most enjoyable game although the only problem that was given was the camera angle kind. It sometimes puts you off balance as you won’t know all the time what side you are your partner is on, confusing you and leaving a huge open spot for the fairly decent AI in the game. There is also a lot of repeating phrases. Each character has a catch phrase but will say it over and over again. They do have a couple but you’ll notice them saying it numerous times throughout one battle. Online support is another major part of most games now a day, and looking at Xtreme 2, you’d think there was some. Luckily two of the seven games have online and multiplayer support, one of them is Volleyball. While this is nice, the game only supports up to two players on a one-on-one battle, with each character having an AI partner. It would have been nice to have a two-on-two game instead of relying on a computer to do your secondary planning. Like the previous title in the series, Volleyball once again is the most addicting sport in the game and you will find yourself playing it the most as it earns you lots of Zack dollars.