The game comes with a choice of two courts, one in California and one in Mexico although the differences between them are pretty limited, and after choosing your court of choice you are thrown directly into your first game, no tutorials, no instructions either. There is the option of some video guides but that’s not so much training as just watching someone play the game, quite a significant difference. Controlling your players is done by pressing buttons on each side of the screen for each player which dictates the particular shot you wish to play, a spike, setup, smash and block are all available but what you don’t have control over is the direction, a pretty major flaw and so your control is pretty limited.

Timing is key to the game and you have to preempt many of the shots as choosing your shot too late will see the ball fall dead on the sand, however it feels very sluggish as you need to choose your shot way before the ball even reaches you. While standard beach volleyball is played to 21, this game is the first to 5, maybe due to the fact that this is the Lite Version (more about that later), so games can be over very quickly. The graphics are satisfactory, however the animations are poor and your characters seem to walk like robots which adds nothing to the overall feel of the game. Sounds are limited but effective when used. Another annoyance is the fact that in the Menus there is both a Menu & OK button which do exactly the same thing, it’s not a big thing, just indicative of the a game that hasn’t been fully thought through.

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