Dead or Alive: Xtreme 2

Butt battles and jet skis in the same game? We must have died and gone to heaven! We've got the goods on DOAX2.

Click here for our in-depth video interview with Itagaki himself on Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, straight from Kona, Hawaii.

I'm not sure how tongue-in-cheek Tomono Itagaki's DOA Xtreme series was really intended to be. An offshoot of the Dead or Alive fighting series, DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball (DOAX) was the first time fans saw the girls of Dead or Alive kick off the shackles of the daily fighting grind for a more relaxed outing. And where else would the amply-endowed women of DOA be more comfortable than hanging on the beach while serving up a spike or two, with some revealing clothing to boot.

What's next? Solid Snake Indoor Tennis? We sure hope not.

But as gamers soon discovered, DOAX was not just a get-rich-quick scheme, and developer Team Ninja's talent should not be underestimated; DOAX was easily the best volleyball game of the Xbox generation. But this time around the ladies will be competing in other outdoor events that make DOAX2 one bizarre amalgam of beach sports and bikini bottoms.

Volleyball Reloaded

There are plenty of zany things to do in DOAX2, but at its core, it is still a volleyball game -- and a good one, at that. We were invited out to Kona, Hawaii to get our hands on the latest build of DOAX2, running in beautiful HD.

Anyone familiar with the original DOAX knows that Team Ninja's Volleyball mechanics are very good and pretty easy to jump into. The game plays very similar to the first, with basic 2-on-2 volleyball rules and easy button combinations to serve, jump-serve, bump, set, and spike. The pressure sensitivity of the Xbox 360 controls comes in to play, too, as it will in some of DOAX2's mini-games. The difficulty in this build seems tweaked slightly high, as it would take plenty of practice to win a game to seven. We expected it to get tuned down slightly before the game goes gold, though don't expect too much lenience; Itagaki games are known for their high level of difficulty.

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