{"id":18825,"date":"2019-03-11T00:01:01","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T00:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=18825"},"modified":"2019-02-20T13:17:49","modified_gmt":"2019-02-20T13:17:49","slug":"spike-volleyball-ps4-xbox-one-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/11\/spike-volleyball-ps4-xbox-one-pc\/","title":{"rendered":"Spike Volleyball (PS4, Xbox One, PC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As far as sports video games are concerned, there\u2019s not a whole lot out there for indoor volleyball.\u00a0 Oh sure there are a few beach volleyball games here and there.\u00a0 In fact, one of my favorite sports games is SEGA\u2019s Beach Spikers on the GameCube.\u00a0 But now there is a new indoor volleyball game with Spike Volleyball for PS4, Xbox One, and PC (reviewed on PS4 here).<\/p>\n

Spike Volleyball takes a more simulation approach with more realistic controls and gameplay.\u00a0 You must choose different buttons to decide which player will hit the ball, and once you do that, you must quickly decide how they\u2019ll hit it.\u00a0 On defense, you can choose a formation for the players by the net to have, and then press the square button at the right time for them to jump and block the shot.\u00a0 Serving is about what you\u2019d expect.\u00a0 While I do appreciate that the controls require you to use more strategy and teamwork, two volleyball staples, I also feel they controls are a bit too complex sometimes and I think the game could\u2019ve benefitted with a simplified Arcade Mode.<\/p>\n

Speaking of modes, there are plenty to choose from here.\u00a0 Some of these modes overlap into one another, but the Home section is more for single players and includes Friendly Matches where you play a round with two teams.\u00a0 Career Mode lets you play a whole season, and there are also weekly online challenges.\u00a0 Finally you can edit your team colors and nationality.\u00a0 In any mode you can also choose to play men\u2019s or women\u2019s teams.<\/p>\n

The Play section is more for couch multiplayer, and includes a Tournament mode, a tutorial, and the aforementioned friendly matches and career.\u00a0 In Online you can do ranked or friendly matches, as well as the weekly challenges.\u00a0 In the Team mode you can edit your teams and manage which players you have.\u00a0 There is also a Scouting Mode where you can use in-game credits to scout for new players.\u00a0 After you play certain rounds, you\u2019ll have a new player to add to your team temporarily.\u00a0 And finally in Options you can toggle settings and view credits.<\/p>\n

Aside from the complicated controls, I had a few other problems with this game.\u00a0 The CPU is very hard, even on the Easy setting.\u00a0 And while the background stadium graphics look great, the players themselves look like they could\u2019ve been done on hardware from two generations ago.\u00a0 And they don\u2019t move realistically sometimes and don\u2019t even look like they hit the ball, making it hard to follow.\u00a0 I think only die-hard indoor volleyball fans will enjoy this game.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing violent or objectionable here.\u00a0 You sometimes see the players getting hit by the ball and getting knocked down, but that\u2019s it.\u00a0 Reading skill is helpful for the text, and younger gamers may find it a bit too difficult.\u00a0 Spike Volleyball is rated E for Everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As far as sports video games are concerned, there\u2019s not a whole lot out there for indoor volleyball.\u00a0 Oh sure there are a few beach volleyball games here and there.\u00a0 In fact, one of my favorite sports games is SEGA\u2019s Beach Spikers on the GameCube.\u00a0 But now there is a new indoor volleyball game with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18825"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18827,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18825\/revisions\/18827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}