Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 Review (X360)

Gameplay

The basic idea of DOAX2 is that you choose one of the lovely DOA girls and then go on vacation for two weeks. While on vacation, you can play volleyball, enter jetski races, go shopping, play a handful of minigames, or just relax.

Volleyball uses the A and B buttons to set the ball for your teammate or to hit it over the net. Depending on your position when you press the button, different things will happen such as you’ll jump up for a spike. Using the left analog stick to move around and aim the ball, the idea is to make sure you are in the right position but also to make sure that you are setting the ball correctly so that your partner will hit it in the right spot. In the first DOAX, the ball seemed magnetically attracted to the girls and as long as you were somewhat close to where you needed to be, you’d hit the ball. In DOAX2, things aren’t quite so easy and you are required to do a lot more moving around. The volleyball in the original seems downright boring in comparison.

Jetski races are pretty straightforward. You just hold down the accelerator and navigate around a series of buoys and try to get to the finish line. You can to tricks and stunts as well, but it is pretty easy to win if you just focus on racing.

Other minigames include a tug-o-war at the pool, a butt bumping game at the pool, and a waterslide where you have to control the speed and steering or your girl will fly out completely out of the slide. These games are all very simple and only really entertaining the first couple of times. You can also play some simple casino games.

Gift Giving

The other major aspect of DOAX2 is gift giving and trying to make new friends to be your volleyball partner. Each girl likes different colors and foods and has different hobbies, and you can give them gifts that they like in order to befriend them. Once they are your friend, you can team up with them to play volleyball. This is also how you unlock all of the swimsuits for the characters. Each character can buy their own suits, obviously, but for, say, Ayane to use Christie’s suits, you have to play as Christie and give the suits to Ayane as gifts. This is a very long and very time-consuming process because there are a ton of suits in the game. This is how you earn achievements, and it will take you a long time to earn them all. I know, playing dress up seems strange, but there is also something interesting and fun about it all. Again, this is something that you either “get” or you don’t.

Bottom Line

If you are a fan of the Dead or Alive series, you’ll like Dead or Alive Xtreme 2. It looks great, plays great, and can be a heck of a lot of fun if you are of the right mind to enjoy it. If you object to having pretty girls bouncing around in bikinis, well, you aren’t going to enjoy DOAX2 very much. For fans of the original DOAX, this game is unquestionably better than the first game and worth picking up. I have to admit, for the first day or so I had DOAX2, I was somewhat disappointed. It seemed like so much had been recycled from the first game and that the graphics weren’t that much better, but I was dead wrong. Before I wrote this review I threw in the first game just for kicks and was very surprised by how chunky it looked and played compared to the sequel. Not having local multiplayer is a pretty big issue and Xbox Live play isn’t really all that good of a replacement, but you’ll get over it. Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 is a fun game that is worth at least a rental.