Union Carbide
11-21-2006, 04:56 PM
I think I'm the only one on my friends list that wasn't too embarassed to buy this. Or maybe the only one with shitty taste. ANYWAY.
My observations after a couple hours of play:
Gameplay: Volleyball is harder than it was in DOAXBV. I haven't made my mind up if this is because it's actually harder, or if your partner's AI is dumber. The games are still to 7, score on receive, win by 2 or first to 10.
Jetskis are FUN. The Jetski game is very similar to Wave Race 64. In fact, I think maybe the only difference in the controls is the barrel roll command. So far I've only seen one course, a basic oval. You can have up to 4 player jetski races in "vacation" mode, depending on how many of the other girls are hanging out at the marina. Jet Ski races are also a viable replacement for playing volleyball in terms of money rewards.
Pool games: This has been expanded from DOAXBV's pool hopping game to 3 games: Vs Pool hopping, Butt Battle, and Tug-of-war. All of these can either be played against your partner, or anyone that happens to be hanging out at the pool
Pool hopping is essentially the same as DOAXBV, but multiplayer. While hopping, if you use the same color button to hop as the float you are hopping to you will get a small bonus award. You can't make much money here, it's barely worth playing, unless you really need to see bouncing boobs and your internet connection is down, or something..
Butt Battle is exactly as the title suggests. You and your opponent try to hip check each other off of a float. You can bump, power bump, dodge, and that's about it. Kind of boring, really.
Tug of War: You and your opponent are each on a float, holding a rope. You try to cause each other to fall off. You can do normal and strong pulls on the rope, feint, or rapidly press the A button to try to regain your balance. Feinting while your opponent tugs will usually cause them to fall. Otherwise, there isn't much here.
Beach Flags: You can play this game at any beach location. You and one opponent start prone with your backs to the flag. On go, you start pounding on the A button to attempt to run to the flag faster than your opponent. You then can dive to grab the flag if it's a close race.
As an aside, i've actually played beach flags in real life. It's usually played starting with 20 people and eliminating 1 person per round. I would have been more pleased with this game if you could start with 4 players. Still, it's pretty fun, if shallow.
Finally, there's the Waterslide. This is a race vs time to the bottom of the slide. The controls are simple (just the left stick is used, I think), but it's challenging. It took me 5 tries to complete my first run.
Graphics: The game certainly makes use of the 360's hardware. The models look good, and the textures are very detailed. Tan lines develop based on what suit your character is wearing, if you change to a different style of suit halfway through the vacation the lines of the old suit will be visible for a few days afterwards.
The animations are good with 2 major exceptions. Whoever did the hair modelling needs to lose their job. It's uniformly terrible on all of the characters with loose hair, really bad on characters with ponytails, and only looks good on Lisa and Leifang if she has her hair up.
The other exception is the boob bounce. As in all DOA games, it's controlled by the "age" slider. The only way to get anything even resembling real world bounce is to set the age at 13. Setting it to around 40 looks painful, and 99 is just comedic.
All in all, I'd recommend it as a rental. Like Britney Spears circa 2000, it's pretty but shallow.
My observations after a couple hours of play:
Gameplay: Volleyball is harder than it was in DOAXBV. I haven't made my mind up if this is because it's actually harder, or if your partner's AI is dumber. The games are still to 7, score on receive, win by 2 or first to 10.
Jetskis are FUN. The Jetski game is very similar to Wave Race 64. In fact, I think maybe the only difference in the controls is the barrel roll command. So far I've only seen one course, a basic oval. You can have up to 4 player jetski races in "vacation" mode, depending on how many of the other girls are hanging out at the marina. Jet Ski races are also a viable replacement for playing volleyball in terms of money rewards.
Pool games: This has been expanded from DOAXBV's pool hopping game to 3 games: Vs Pool hopping, Butt Battle, and Tug-of-war. All of these can either be played against your partner, or anyone that happens to be hanging out at the pool
Pool hopping is essentially the same as DOAXBV, but multiplayer. While hopping, if you use the same color button to hop as the float you are hopping to you will get a small bonus award. You can't make much money here, it's barely worth playing, unless you really need to see bouncing boobs and your internet connection is down, or something..
Butt Battle is exactly as the title suggests. You and your opponent try to hip check each other off of a float. You can bump, power bump, dodge, and that's about it. Kind of boring, really.
Tug of War: You and your opponent are each on a float, holding a rope. You try to cause each other to fall off. You can do normal and strong pulls on the rope, feint, or rapidly press the A button to try to regain your balance. Feinting while your opponent tugs will usually cause them to fall. Otherwise, there isn't much here.
Beach Flags: You can play this game at any beach location. You and one opponent start prone with your backs to the flag. On go, you start pounding on the A button to attempt to run to the flag faster than your opponent. You then can dive to grab the flag if it's a close race.
As an aside, i've actually played beach flags in real life. It's usually played starting with 20 people and eliminating 1 person per round. I would have been more pleased with this game if you could start with 4 players. Still, it's pretty fun, if shallow.
Finally, there's the Waterslide. This is a race vs time to the bottom of the slide. The controls are simple (just the left stick is used, I think), but it's challenging. It took me 5 tries to complete my first run.
Graphics: The game certainly makes use of the 360's hardware. The models look good, and the textures are very detailed. Tan lines develop based on what suit your character is wearing, if you change to a different style of suit halfway through the vacation the lines of the old suit will be visible for a few days afterwards.
The animations are good with 2 major exceptions. Whoever did the hair modelling needs to lose their job. It's uniformly terrible on all of the characters with loose hair, really bad on characters with ponytails, and only looks good on Lisa and Leifang if she has her hair up.
The other exception is the boob bounce. As in all DOA games, it's controlled by the "age" slider. The only way to get anything even resembling real world bounce is to set the age at 13. Setting it to around 40 looks painful, and 99 is just comedic.
All in all, I'd recommend it as a rental. Like Britney Spears circa 2000, it's pretty but shallow.