Beach Spikers, however, has already proved that there can be more to Volleyball than the participants, and with its intuitive Virtua Tennis-style controls and challenging play mechanics it grabbed the attention of sports fans who were less interested in accurate "physics" than they were in a decent game of Volleyball. So, how will Outlaw Volleyball, with all its jiggling body parts, coarse language, risque closeups and all-American design fare when put up against the Japanese competition - Tecmo's comparitively classy Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball, and Sega's positively sterile Beach Spikers?

The intro gives a good idea of what's to come, with some horribly classless set-pieces introducing the game's characters. The front end and player setup options are all well-done and easy enough to find your way around - the game exudes an easy charm from the word go.

Taking its cue from recent sport-sim successes, the game features a comprehensive and, by-and-large, highly enjoyable training mode which takes the player through the finer points of serving, bumping, spiking, defence and blocking with a selection of minigames featuring dancing and taunting supporters and posters of the game's characters. The minigames are also used for levelling up the characters in the game. Complementing these minigames are a collection of 'drill' videos which feature characters from the game explaining how to play. These are almost unanimously informative and entertaining and, on occasion very, very funny, and help to further the generally slick and professional presentation of the game.

The game proper takes a lot of getting used to: playing in Exhibition mode with the aid of a crosshair showing you more or less what your opponent is planning is a great way to ease yourself in, although the signposted nature of the game when played this way invariably results in rallies that are too long and, by-and-large, not a great deal of fun.

Commencing down the many and varied Tournament routes, however, results in an unpleasant surprise - the crosshair disappears, and you're left playing a guessing game as to where to position your players, with not a hint of the swinging, anticipating camera which gives Beach Spikers players a chance to react. Given the frantic pace of the game, mistakes are not an option; being positioned wrongly WILL result in the loss of a point, with virtually no chance to recover. This is incredibly frustrating and although the more you play, the more you can read what is forthcoming, it's all too easy to imagine gamers in pursuit of more relaxing fare giving up on this game within minutes of starting their first tournament, where the only points won are more a result of appalling opposition play than of any skill on the part of the gamer.

The variety of rules which can be applied to the game in tournament mode up the difficulty further - incredibly restrictive time limits are not unusual later on in the tournaments, which, depending on your patience levels, can be seen as extending the longevity of the title or making an already frustrating game still more so.

Controls are effective once learned, but perhaps not so natural as they should be. Serving is achieved by two seperate clicks of a button, while general bumps and spikes are initiated and controlled by holding down the same button and releasing at the right time. The game can be played to a certain degree using just the A button, but X and B allow more advanced techniques such as returning the ball at a variety of speeds before the usual three contacts have been used.

There is a further complication with the addition of a "turbo" feature which allows players to run faster and hit harder once their turbo bar is full enough for them to do so - this bar is based on a number of fairly nebulous concepts (for example "how good your shots are" - a difficult concept to quantify) and is initially hard to follow. The additional complication of using the button effectively in tandem with the rest of the controls ensures that there is a long term challenge here for those who are prepared to learn the game inside out, but feels alien and awkward to start with, particularly for gamers used to the clean and simplistic controls offered by Beach Spikers.

For one final confusion, a (thankfully switch off-able) fighting system has been built into the game for those moments when you want to stop playing volleyball and start hitting someone on the opposing team. While this clearly wasn't an afterthought, and some attention has been given to the system, even in the context of this none too serious title it feels like a tacky bolt-on and doesn't improve the playing experience.

The Western design style is a welcome and refreshing change in this particular genre; most of the characters look genuinely unusual in this context given their lack of Japanese features, but the style is effective and when they start to move the characters have a feel somewhat similar to the Ready 2 Rumble games. The camera can be set to a variety of styles, none of which are as friendly as the default camera from Beach Spikers but most which are more than sufficient to allow the game to be played without lost points being blamed on lack of visibility.

The acting is of incredibly variable quality - some characters are voiced very effectively, but some (particularly Lizzy, with her entertaining part-English, part-Australian lilt) have the potential to grate very quickly. The authentically zany announcer is initially quite entertaining, and adds to the irreverent mood of the game, but quickly becomes stupendously tiresome (even before he starts repeating himself). Thankfully, he can be comprehensively silenced (almost as though the designers knew that people would be doing this, they have included an "off" option which skips what would be otherwise lengthy, and quiet, sequences if his volume was simply set to zero). Custom soundtrack options are well implemented; the always welcome 'shuffle' feature ensures that your playlists will never get repetitive, and comprehensive balance controls make it easy to set your sound exactly how you like it.

Ultimately, this a difficult game to recommend to anyone who wants a decent game of Volleyball, other than to those who don't own a Gamecube and can't sample the delights of Beach Spikers. Despite the more comprehensive set of drawn out challenges, it doesn't have the long-term appeal and playability of that title, or the "charm" of DOAXBV's well-established character roster; and while there are certainly worse games you could waste your time with, the puerile appeal of this kind of game wanes quickly, particularly when the actual game engine is as relatively weak and quirky as this one.