Since completing my lengthy ranking of all of the PSM swimsuit issues, I’ve been continuing to go back through a massive pile of gaming magazines for an even lengthier writing project (stay tuned to IC2S in the near future for that). Skimming through gaming history has been fascinating, but it has also made me aware of several eras of gaming history that passed me by. For example: we all know and remember Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (in part because I won’t shut the fuck up about it), but did you know that there were four other sexy beach volleyball games that released in a one year period from 2002 to 2003? And as weird as that is, it’s not even the weirdest detail: this sport was apparently so important that each console had its own exclusive sexy volleyball title! Suffice to say, I had to check these games all out and compare them! So let’s enjoy the waning days of summer reading about all the balls that were getting slapped in the early 2000s…

Beach Spikers: Virtual Beach Volleyball

Console: Gamecube

Release Date: July 12, 2002 (originally released in Japanese arcades in July 2001)

Developer: Sega

Publisher: Sega

What is it?

One of Sega’s many Virtua-sports titles, Beach Spikers started off as a fairly big hit in Japanese arcades. It was ported to the Gamecube a year later, it kicked off this trend of sixth console generation beach volleyball games.

How does it play?

Beach Spikers plays how every good sports sim should, translating the feel and strategy of real-world volleyball to video game form, while being easy to play. You have a lot of control over where you send the ball and how you respond in any given situation. Positioning also matters a lot, because you have a very small ring in which you can return the ball: if you’re on the edges of this, then your return will liklely be weak or fly off wildly, often costing you a point. There’s a pretty high skill ceiling here, so I imagine that there’s some people who have put in the necessary practice and gotten downright godly at playing Beach Spikers.

How does it look?

Beach Spikers looks like a Dreamcast game… that’s not to say that it looks awful, but it has clearly been made very early in the sixth console generation, in that awkward time when developers were still coming to grips with the new technology. As a result, character models are fairly low-detail, swimsuits are clearly just a skin textures with little-to-no bump mapping, and animations are stiff and awkward. Sand does deform somewhat and stay that way through the match though, which is pretty cool! The lighting can also get downright gorgeous at times, which elevates the proceedings immensely.

How’s the soundtrack?

Breach Spikers has a generic, unlicensed rock soundtrack. It’s just straight-up background noise, that’s all.

Also worth noting, the menu has an announcer who enthusiastically calls out every menu item you select… it gets really annoying fast. Like, dude, I know it’s World Tour mode, that’s why I picked it!

How sexy is it?

Beach Spikers is going for authenticity, so sexiness hasn’t really been emphasized here to the degree that it would be in many of its successors. All the outfits practical and fairly realistic. There’s a sense of matter-of-factness to the game’s sex appeal: this is just beach volleyball, of course it’s sexy!

That said, there are seventy outfits and colour variants available to choose from, and a full half of these show off a fairly significant amount of cleavage. Despite being practical and realistic, all of these suits are still showing off a ton of skin. To put it in perspective, there are several swimsuits in DOAXBV which are more conservative than every single outfit in this game. In addition, none of the in-game characters are real people, which means that Sega made the conscious decision for this game to feature only women, and then make them all conventionally attractive. It’s pretty clear to me that there was a conscious effort to tastefully lean on sex appeal, while trying to stay authentic to the beach volleyball experience.

Who are the characters?

Beach Spikers doesn’t really have characters per se. There are sixteen countries with two players per team, for a total of thirty-two in-game characters. That said, they are basically just pre-made create-a-characters, which brings us to the real exciting bit: Beach Spikers‘ world tour mode allows you to create your own duo, and has a ton of face, hair, and outfit options to choose from! You may not get any sort of personality from these characters, but at least the create-a-character mode gives you a lot of attachment to your players!

Also: I find it hilarious that Team Canada’s two players are named Olvis and Quilico, what the fuck, haha.

What’s the verdict?

Beach Spikers is a lot of fun! It aims to be an authentic volleyball experience, and it absolutely nails the assignment. I can absolutely see how you could sink countless hours into this game. Becoming more skilled at it and then going through a world tour playthrough seems like it would be really fun!

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Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball

Console: Xbox

Release Date: January 21, 2003

Developer: Team Ninja

Publisher: Tecmo

What is it?

Do I really need to explain this? Not only is Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball the only game on this list that anybody remembers, but I’ve covered it (and its myriad of sequels) several times in the past. Check out those links for your deep-dives.

Funnily enough, while the Dead or Alive franchise was often accused of being a Virtua Fighter rip-off, Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball would also be accused of being a clone of Beach Spikers: Virtua Beach Volleyball (for his part, Tomonobu Itagaki claims that the similarity was coincidental and that a volleyball mode was originally planned for Dead or Alive 2).

How does it play?

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball stands out from its competition by being more of a vacation simulator, rather than a pure volleyball game. You spend as much time relaxing, shopping, gambling, and watching the girls frolic as you do actually playing volleyball. This gives the game a really soothing atmosphere which makes it a lot more compelling than its thin content would have you think.

That said, the volleyball itself is fun. It’s quite simple to get the hang of and controls very intuitively. One could argue that this gives it less depth than some of the other games on this list, but it’s enjoyable, and the other activities on offer help shake up any feeling of monotony. My one complaint about the volleyball in DOAXBV is that the camera often leaves your character off-screen, which can make it hard to position correctly (although this would be fixed in its sequels).

How does it look?

Like most of Team Ninja’s games, DOAXBV is gorgeous-looking. They’re clearly utilizing the same tech as Dead or Alive 3, with highly-detailed character models, impressive sand physics and lighting. Unfortunately, you spend too much of the game staring at menu screens, but when you are in the action, it’s a technical showcase.

How’s the soundtrack?

DOAXBV features a licensed soundtrack with lots of chill reggae and bubblegum pop from recognizable artists such as Bob Marley, Spice Girls, Baha Men, and Christina Aguilera. The soundtrack helps sell the chill vacation atmosphere of the game and emphasizes that Team Ninja aren’t treating this game as a joke.

How sexy is it?

This first game is tastefully restrained in its sexiness (mostly). Sure, it’s kind of laughable watching the girls aimlessly stand around looking sexy, but there’s a clear level of respect for the characters at the end of the day. There’s a voyeuristic quality to the game: you’re just getting a glimpse at these sexy ladies having fun and hanging out. They’re having fun for themselves, they’re not just trying to look sexy for you, which is honestly more arousing than if the game was going all-out.

Of course, you can dress the girls up in dozens of different bikinis, some of which get ridiculously revealing. Getting those swimsuits requires hours of grinding for currency and staring at menu screens, so if you want to maximize your experience you’re going to have to do your chores first.

Who are the characters?

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball features all of the girls from the mainline Dead or Alive games up to that point, plus newcomer Lisa.

What’s the verdict?

While I’m still not a huge fan of Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (or its sequels), I cannot deny that it’s fun and relaxing in small doses. The non-volleyball activities also help to keep things somewhat fresh, which definitely helps it to stand out among all the other sexy volleyball games that released at the time.

Also, side-note: I blamed this game for tarnishing Dead or Alive‘s reputation in my Love/Hate article, but I now think that things are a bit more nuanced than that. After all of my writing project research, it’s clear that Dead or Alive was kind of doomed from the start. From the moment Tecmo marketed the first game as “sexy Virtua Fighter“, the series was always associated with sex. Every mention of Dead or Alive had to have an obligatory reference to boobs, despite contemporaries like Soulcalibur having just as much fan service (if not more). It seemed like there was the potential for Dead or Alive 2 and 3 to transcend this reputation, with near-universal acclaim for their fighting systems showing that there was more to the series than just sex appeal.

Then Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball came out. On the one hand, this brought the series a massive amount of attention: the game came out in January 2003, and it was still in the public conscious more than a year later, with everyone still talking about how sexy the game was. However, this increased public conscious was a double-edged sword: it meant that more people just viewed the series as porn without actually playing the games, and it also meant that future Dead or Alive games had to lean harder into the sex appeal to satisfy the audience they had cultivated. That worked at the time, but with gaming culture becoming increasingly more diverse and mature, such overt sex appeal would rapidly limit its audience.

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Outlaw Volleyball

Console: Xbox (ported to PS2 in Europe in 2004 and North America in 2005)

Release Date: July 8, 2003

Developer: Hypnotix

Publisher: Goddamn Simon & Schuster Interactive!?!! (Seriously!)

What is it?

Developer Hypnotix released Outlaw Golf in 2002, establishing a blueprint for sports games featuring wacky, over-the-top, low-life characters. Naturally, such a blueprint would apply easily to volleyball, whose reputation as a “sexy” sport would no-doubt draw an audience with the game’s lurid content and M-rating.

Hypnotix, for their part, would end up being acquired by EA in 2005 (shortly after the PS2 port of Outlaw Volleyball released). They would go on to be assimilated into the EA Sports development arm, where they’re still making sports titles to this day. I mean… that’s got to be a best-case-scenario when you’re acquired by EA, right? If nothing else, titles like Outlaw Volleyball helped the studio develop a sports game expertise that kept them relevant!

How does it play?

Outlaw Volleyball isn’t quite as authentic as Beach Spikers, but it is far closer to an EA Sports-style sim than you would expect. While there are some arcadey elements (such as a turbo meter you can use to get guaranteed points), the game is clearly going for the look and feel of televised volleyball, complete with an announcer, instant replay, and screen transitions with a network logo.

Of course, this is also an Outlaw game, so that means that there’s some extra violence thrown in for the hell of it. You can cross the net to fight a player on the other team, which plays out like a fighting game. This is a hilarious concept, but in execution, these fights play awfully, with extremely stiff and simplistic controls lacking any depth. Aside from the comedy of beating your opponent senseless, the only reward you get for it is that the loser suffers a major stamina penalty, although this does not have much of an effect on gameplay.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that a massive chunk of this game’s appeal (?) is its comedic writing, so you’re probably going to spend a lot of time early on listening to/watching the bevy of comedy skits that play out before the match and between serves. Many of them are groan-inducing, and they start repeating very quickly, but I did get a fair few laughs at how ridiculous and shameless this game gets… sometimes, these laughs were even with the game, rather than at it!

In terms of game modes, you’ve got standard exhibition, random match, training, and tour mode (basically, your single-player campaign). There is a four-player mode, and I can just imagine how fun it would be to get the boys together, crack some beer and illicit substances, and then have a laugh while playing this game.

How does it look?

Outlaw Volleyball looks and feels like a budget title. The character models are decent by sixth-generation-standards, but everything else is pretty poor. Sand doesn’t react to your movement at all, bystanders look like they were rendered on a SNES, background objects would have been too bad for even Pokemon Sword & Shield, etc. They got the absolute most important things right, but that’s about it.

How’s the soundtrack?

Outlaw Volleyball‘s licensed soundtrack is identifiably “early-2000s”: lots of rap, post-grunge, punk, and nu-metal. Despite this, there’s not a single song on here that anyone has ever heard of. It’s clearly a case where they didn’t have the budget to license any big hits, so instead they just settled on a bunch of facsimiles of popular sounds. The music here feels like something an executive would say “the cool kids were into”.

That said: goddamn Steve Carrell voices the game’s announcer!? This was 2003, so it would have been pre-fame Steve Carrell! That’s so cool!!

How sexy is it?

Outlaw Volleyball has eight female characters (it also has eight male characters, but the game is clearly not prioritizing their sex appeal). Each character has three different outfit options, all of which show off a significant amount of skin. Each outfit also has five different colour/pattern options, which gives the characters surprising amount of customization! These outfits can get so revealing that they rival DOAXVB for sheer exposure. Oh, and fret not: of course there are jiggle physics… they’re not great, but at least they’re here, because Hypnotix know what their audience wants.

That said, I don’t think “sexy” is the right word for Outlaw Volleyball. This game is downright trashy, and proud of it. The game has such a gaudy, raunchy, over-the-top attitude, that you can never be sure if they’re trying to be sexy, or if they’re trying to be funny. Like, when a nearly-naked character enters the court doing a lap dance routine, am I supposed to be aroused, or am I suppose to laugh at how ridiculous the whole situation is? Whatever the intent, the absurdity of the sex appeal got a fair few laughs out of me.

Also worth noting: this game came out while cheat codes were still a thing. Guess what the primo cheat code is in this game? If you guessed “big boob mode”, then congrats, you are on the same wavelength as Hypnotix. Enter a quick set of commands during a match and the characters’ boobs will balloon to ridiculous proportions. Funnily enough, they actually look extremely squished and are so big that I don’t think that the jiggle physics even work on them anymore, so I actually think that the game is “sexier” without this mode on. Then again, if you’re looking to maximize the comedy, then this is a must-have cheat (along with the standard big head mode).

Who are the characters?

Like I said earlier, Outlaw Volleyball has sixteen characters to choose from (eight male, eight female). They’re all a bunch of broad stereotypes, although this does mean that they have a fair bit of individuality. Highlights include:

• Lizzy, an English punk. Just… imagine the most offensive English stereotypes, and you’ve got Lizzy. I nearly spit out my drink when I picked her on the character selection screen and she shouted out “Bloody nice choice… for a wanker!”
• Shawnee is this game’s indigenous character… hoooooo boy, in a game defined by broad, raunchy humour and stereotypes, Shawnee has aged the worst by far. She references rain dances, runs around with tomahawks and a bow, has a fucking eagle that just hangs out with her… yikes.
• Doe Joe is the Asian stereotype… He knows martial arts, obviously. He also has a thing for Elvis, for some reason?
• Summer is literally just a stripper. That’s her entire personality. She starts the match doing a chair dance and her voice lines are all about her sex work. Suffice to say, she’s arguably the trashiest character in the entire roster.
• Clem is your generic redneck. I legitimately laughed out loud when I saw that he hails from “Swampass, Tennessee”.
• Natasha’s your USSR woman stereotype: short hair, super muscular, declaring her love for Mother Russia, firing off machine guns, and downing vodka in between serves.
• Donna is literally just a New Yorker. Seriously, I don’t think they were going for anything more than that with this character.

What’s the verdict?

I’m not really sure who Outlaw Volleyball is for. Its volleyball gameplay is a bit more involved than DOAXBV (which would have been its direct competition at the time), but then that gets diluted by the arcadey elements and fighting system. The “outlaw” gimmick doesn’t even do it that much of a service either, since DOAXBV already had the sexy volleyball market cornered, so you can only really appeal to an even trashier audience niche. That said, I honestly found the game to be kind of enjoyable, in that rare “so bad it’s good” way that video games struggle to achieve. Unfortunately, it feels like it would get old very fast, and I don’t think that the volleyball gameplay is good enough to stand up on its own. Certainly not a classic, but I can see it being fun on occasion, especially with friends!

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Outlaw Volleyball: Red Hot

Console: Xbox

Release Date: July 8, 2003

Developer: Hypnotix

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Interactive

What is it?

A baffling, stripped down mini-version of Outlaw Volleyball with some exclusive content. Bizarrely, this game was only available by renting from Blockbuster. Outlaw Volleyball released when DLC was in its infancy: with that in mind, it makes a bit more sense why they would see a deal with Blockbuster as a better financial opportunity. However, if it came out even a year later, this definitely would have been a $3 DLC pack: that is the level of exclusive content we’re talking here.

How does it play?

As you would probably expect, Red Hot plays identically to Outlaw Volleyball… it’s just significantly worse as a complete package. You’ve only got two game modes available: Exhibition and Free Play. At least the four-player mode is still here, so you could get some fun out of the game if you have some friends to share a laugh with. However, the game also makes the insane decision to lock all but one of the tutorial videos!? Did they just assume that no one was going to bother to learn how to play this game?

How does it look?

I’ll give Red Hot some credit: the hell court is actually pretty cool looking. Otherwise, this game is just reusing assets from Outlaw Volleyball, so it looks slightly-less mediocre than that game did.

How’s the soundtrack?

We’ve basically got the exact same soundtrack as the main game. The only major difference is that the stage intro is no longer voiced by Steve Carrell, but rather some other random guy… until the match starts, and then it’s back to Steve Carrell (who just says his lines from the main game). They clearly just couldn’t/didn’t want to pay Steve to come back to the studio for this.

How sexy is it?

Only four of the ladies from Outlaw Volleyball are playable in Red Hot… and, my God, they picked the absolute worst foursome for this game. They’re all dressed in devilish new outfits, but these aren’t particularly arousing or revealing. Worse, you can’t change their outfits and you get no customization options… lame!

Who are the characters?

Like I said, Outlaw Volleyball only has four playable characters. The character select screen shows the rest of the cast as locked, teasing that you might have some sort of reward for playing the game. As far as I can tell, Hypnotix just couldn’t be arsed to modify the character select screen, so they permanently locked them away from us.

As for the characters, we’ve got Chica, Donna, Harvest, and Natasha. Chica, Donna, and Harvest are all so boring, and easily my bottom three if I was ranking the female roster on sexiness. Natasha is about the only character I’m fine with, since she’s at least kind of funny and interesting. I’m just shocked that they didn’t want to use Summer, the literal stripper character, and put her in a slutty Halloween costume? Insane choice.

What’s the verdict?

Look, maybe I’m being a bit harsh on what is effectively a demo disc with some exclusive content… but Red Hot is not even good as a demo disc, because you had to pay for it. You could rent Red Hot… or, for the same price, you could rent the full Outlaw Volleyball game and get a significantly more complete experience. Or you could actually rent a game that’s good. When just renting the game for a couple bucks is a bad choice, you know that you failed to a catastrophic degree. There’s no scenario where choosing to play Red Hot over literally anything else makes any sense, making it one of the absolute most baffling games I’ve ever experienced.

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Summer Heat Beach Volleyball

Console: PS2

Release Date: June 30, 2003

Developer: Acclaim

Publisher: Acclaim

What is it?

Of all of the games on this list, Summer Heat Beach Volleyball is the one that is most clearly a ripoff. Publisher Acclaim* clearly saw that Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball was an Xbox exclusive, so they rushed to release their own sexy volleyball game for the PS2 before anyone else could, hoping to make some desperately-needed bank. Unfortunately, the game sold poorly and its failure helped fuel Acclaim’s bankruptcy only a year later. Oops!

It doesn’t even end there though for Summer Heat Beach Volleyball: according to good ol’ Wikipedia, the rights to the IP were purchased by Throwback Entertainment in the bankruptcy proceedings. They announced that they were going to release a sequel on the seventh generation consoles and seemed legitimately excited about it, but no game ever materialized and no cancellation was ever announced… I just think it would be hilarious if there’s secretly a sequel to Summer Heat Beach Volleyball that’s been stuck in development hell since 2006.

*Acclaim were so notorious for the poor quality of their releases that people would refer to them as “Ack-Lame!” Obviously, this is a major reason why they ended up bankrupt.

How does it play?

Summer Heat Beach Volleyball feels very arcadey. The volleyball controls are quite simple, but there’s one main mechanic which the entire game is built around: aiming the ball on offense. When you are serving or spiking, you can hold down a button when the ball’s in the air and then aim where your shot will go with the left analog stick. This gives you a lot more direct control over the ball than any other game on this list, and in a very simple, intuitive, and skillful way! If nothing else, this helps the game feel pretty fun at times!

However, this emphasis on offense has its issues. The defensive game kind of sucks, especially because your AI companion is an idiot. They very rarely act when the ball is returned by the other team, so you end up being the entire defense in an effective 2v1. I legitimately think that this was an intentional design decision, because it means that you’ll be forced to use the ball aiming system all the time.

The other big issue with the game is that it floods the screen with massive arrows showing you the exact path that the ball is going to take at all times. You don’t really pay attention to the characters or the setting, it ends up being background noise in a “chase the arrow” simulator. Your optimal action is always to just go where it tells you to.

Oh, one other weird thing about this game is the “Beach House” mode. This essentially acts as an on-rails, in-game menu: you hold down either L2 or R2, which causes you to move back and forth through a beachside house and interact in first person view with some items (trophy case for records, TV for unlocked movies, etc). I do not know why they wasted development time on this largely-useless feature…?

How does it look?

Summer Heat Beach Volleyball looks dated, even by 2003 standards. Bystanders, which the camera lovingly pans by before every match, would have looked poor on the PS1 and they don’t even have any animation: they just stand there, motionless! Everything looks second-rate and it just reinforces the notion that this is a low-rent version of DOAXBV. The character models, one of the most important things in a “sexy” game like this, are uncanny. While the bodies are actually pretty good, the faces on every character look terrible. The game is seriously in need of a good, distinct art style (I really have to hand it to Team Ninja, the anime-like art style of DOA2/3/Xtreme 1&2 really holds up, and Summer Heat Beach Volleyball is a good reminder of how easily it could have failed).

At least the sand deforms slightly when you take a step, so it’s got that over Outlaw Volleyball.

How’s the soundtrack?

Surprisingly, Summer Heat Beach Volleyball actually has some recognizable names on the licensed soundtrack! Sum 41, Kylie Minogue, Pink: recognizable! But does it make any sense listening to “Fat Lip” while playing sexy beach volleyball? Not really…

How sexy is it?

Summer Heat Beach Volleyball is easily the second most overtly “sexy” volleyball game on this list (after DOAXBV, of course). As soon as you go to the character select screen, you are greeted by the jiggliest boob physics this side of DOA. Like, even the small-chested Asian character’s boobs jiggle like mad, it’s hilarious. They clearly put a disproportionate amount of effort into this physics system. Unfortunately, the aforementioned uncanny faces really do not do this game any favours in terms of sex appeal.

Each character has only two swimsuits, with five colour variations each, which doesn’t give you a whole lot of variety. That said, all of these suits are quite revealing and wouldn’t look out of place in DOAXBV (aside from looking significantly less-detailed).

However, what really wins this game some sexy points is its well-designed replay system. This allows you to rewatch the last set with very intuitive rewind/pause/fast forward controls and you get free control of the camera. This is fantastic for virtual photography, allowing you to get your chosen girl into the perfect pose for a well-framed shot!

Who are the characters?

Summer Heat Beach Volleyball does not have a create-a-character mode, instead having a set character roster… unfortunately, none of them really have any “character” to speak of. That said, this game has a wild character roster. We’ve got nine girls, six guys… and then there’s six joke characters. That’s right, the men are as important to the devs as the fucking joke characters. These joke characters are: a wooden mannequin, two Greek statues, a crash test dummy, and two glitch characters (one of whom looks suspiciously like Cortana). Between this and the Beach House mode, it’s clear that Acclaim did not have their development priorities straight. You couldn’t have allocated some resources towards making your character models look good? No…?

What’s the verdict?

Summer Heat Beach Volleyball just feels cheap. Everything about it is just the second-rate version of DOAXBV, which makes it seem like a disappointment in comparison. The offensive game is fairly fun, but the game is seriously lacking in any other depth to make this something I’d want to keep playing for any length of time.

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So, why did we suddenly get five beach volleyball games in the course of one year? I can only really speculate, but I think that the monumental success of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was a big influence. After its success, publishers were scrambling to create their own extreme sports titles, and soon the market was flooded with all manner of Tony Hawk clones. However, these developers started trying to differentiate themselves and branch out to other, untapped sports. I suspect that beach volleyball started gaining attention as a good sport to branch out to due to its easy association with sex appeal. Sex appeal in games had really started to ramp up towards the end of the PS1-era (especially after Tomb Raider and Dead or Alive really pioneered the concept), so it makes sense that all of these games would lean into that to a greater-or-lesser degree.

For the sheer hell of it, here’s how I’d rank the beach volleyball games I’ve played in terms of overall quality (relative to one another):

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Y’know what? Let’s sneak a cheeky bonus entry in here as well…

BMX XXX

Console: Xbox, PS2, Gamecube

Release Date: November 15, 2002

Developer: Z-Axis

Publisher: Acclaim

What is it?

Once again, we have “Ack-Lame!” up to their usual shit. The concept is simple: “what if BMX, but with boobs?” For obvious reasons, BMX XXX is one of the most notorious and trashy games of its era.

Z-Axis were the developers behind the Dave Mirra’s Freestyle BMX games. These games were blatant Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater clones, but were fairly well-regarded nevertheless. However, the while developing the third entry in the franchise, Z-Axis and Acclaim decided to pivot in a more adult direction in a desperate attempt to make their game stand out in the sea of Tony Hawk clones. The resulting shitshow was glorious:

• Dave Mirra went on to sue Acclaim for associating him with the game and tarnishing his reputation in the process. In addition, no celebrity BMX riders or licensed equipment chose to appear in the game due to the controversy.
• The game was banned in Australia (not exactly a rare occurrence, but still notable).
• It was also banned from sale at Wal-Mart and Toys “R” Us, the two biggest game distributors at the time, kneecapping the game’s attempt at standing out in the market.
• Sony would force Z-Axis to remove all nudity before they would allow the game to release on PS2… which completely defeated the purpose of the game.
• The game ended up selling terribly and was another big factor behind Acclaim’s bankruptcy a couple years later.

How does it play?

Trying to make precise movements in this game is really frustrating. You can turn in place freely, but if you actually want to move anywhere, you have to start pedalling in that direction. You can’t just walk the bike to a particular point, you have to go there with some acceleration. That means that you are going to overshoot your target frequently, even if you’re right beside them. This is especially annoying when you’re trying to line up a trick, accept a mission, or complete a challenge.

The game has a fairly standard, Pro Skater-style mission structure, where you accept challenges from NPCs in each stage. These can get really annoying because, if you fail, you have to go back to the quest-giver and restart the quest (including any cutscene they may have, although you can skip them at least). Considering that all of these challenges are timed, you’re probably going to fail at least once, leading to a lot of tedium.

That said, BMX XXX is still working off of the solid skeleton of the Dave Mirra games (which, in themselves, were using the blueprint set by Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater). With that kind of iron-clad foundation, it shouldn’t be too surprising that the moment-to-moment gameplay is decent enough. Maximizing your scores and learning how to land tricks is enjoyable, but it’s not exactly an original formula either.

Also worth noting: the game’s sense of humour is about as juvenile as you’d expect. Dick and ball jokes are forced in everywhere, the first level has you ferrying hookers to a love hotel, there’s a pimp strutting around, one mission has you delivering monkeys in diapers, etc.

How does it look?

You’d think that you’d want to make your “BMX, but with nudity” game at least look good so you can show off that saucy content, but apparently not. Despite being a next-gen title, BMX XXX looks worse than some PS1 games. You can count the number of polygons these characters have on two hands (and still have fingers left over for your mom). This is particularly surprising, considering that Z-Axis’ previous BMX game looked significantly better. Apparently, the adult pivot caused Z-Axis to throw out a lot of work that had already been done on the game, but Acclaim didn’t give them any more time to complete it. Combine that with developers disagreeing with the new direction and a rapid realization that the game was going to fail spectacularly, it’s little wonder that a bare-minimum effort was put in.

How’s the soundtrack?

Shockingly, BMX XXX has a licensed soundtrack with multiple notable names on it. Like, I can understand why Saliva’s “Click, Click, Boom” and Motley Crue’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” appear in this game: those bands are trashy enough that I can see them signing on for a titty BMX game. But the moment you start the first mission and Green Day’s “Basket Case” is playing, I was floored. Did they know that they were being put into fucking BMX XXX??? For that matter, did KRS-One and De La Soul?

I will say though, N.E.R.D.’s “Lapdance” is the perfect kind of trashy atmosphere for this game!

How sexy is it?

Look, I was not kidding when I said that this game’s graphics wouldn’t look impressive on PS1, let alone next-gen consoles. The graphics are far too shitty to be even remotely arousing, which is a massive issue in a game whose entire premise revolves around titillation. Most people who make articles about this game don’t show how poor the nudity is in this game, but I’m here to deliver. I honestly don’t think it’s even good enough to warrant an NSFW warning, but I’ve elected to hide them behind the spoiler tag below:

Click here for the saddest video game titties of all-time!

If the sight of low-resolution nipples hasn’t gotten you hot and bothered, then BMX XXX also has unlockable FMVs. Acclaim scored a brand deal with real-life strip club, Scores, which was fairly popular at the time due to endorsements from some of their celebrity regulars. They agreed to have Acclaim film some of their girls performing dance routines which would be unlockable rewards in the game. Obviously, this is tacky as all hell, but it’s a hell of a lot more arousing than the attempt at polygonal nudity above. That said… I’m not ashamed to admit that Scores’ “Logan” is fucking hot (if she ever appeared in anything else, let me know in the comments).

That said, I really wish that the editing of these videos was better. Each video is about thirty seconds long, and no shot lasts more than a second, so they are very disorienting. This editing style allows them the videos to look flashy, but I barely get any time to appreciate the girls and their dance routines before they’re over. In addition, only three of the eighteen FMVs feature any actual nudity. Making matters worse, the PS2 version of the game has zero nudity, because Sony would not allow Acclaim to release the game unless it was completely excised. That’s right, not kid-friendly Nintendo, who released the game completely uncensored, fucking Sony.

As is usual for these kinds of games, you have to grind through a lot of shit to get any of this “sexy” content. The FMVs are locked behind completing challenges on each level, but there are cheats at least which can instantly unlock them all. The same cannot be said for the ability to make your biker topless, which is not available until you’ve gotten the highest score in two freestyle challenges. That’s a lot of effort for what amounts to lackluster softcore porn at best.

Like Outlaw Volleyball, BMX XXX isn’t really sexy, it’s just trashy. However, at least Outlaw Volleyball can claim to be a fantasy of trashiness: BMX XXX is just plain tasteless. It feels like an insult to the audience’s intelligence, especially considering how flaccid the game’s adult-oriented gimmick ends up being.

Who are the characters?

BMX XXX has an underwhelming character roster. There are a bunch of pre-made characters, but they’ve clearly been made in the in-game character creator (which is where the in-game nudity is, so that’s clearly the intended way to play). There is, however, an unlockable joke character called “Amish Boy”, who has unique assets that you can’t use in the character creator. That’s… something, I guess.

Also worth noting, this game’s entire point for existing is “BMX, but with boobs”, so it’s kind of funny that they even bothered incorporating male characters at all.

What’s the verdict?

BMX XXX is one of the most embarrassing video games ever made. I don’t know if I can put it any more succinctly than that.