Volleyball World Cup Venus Evolution Isolation
The doors are wide open for PlayStation 2 publishers. We’re seeing all kinds of games thought to stay in Japan only like Shining Dragon. Women’s Volleyball, which is coming out from Agetec in August, is one of them. This might be the first time most of you have seen the game, but it is a localized version of. Spike got the license to the FIVB Volleyball World Cup last year, which Japan has hosted since the late 70s. Their goal was to make a realistic volleyball game by including actual players from Japan’s home team and adding exhaustion as something to manage. The top screenshot is from Volleyball World Cup: Venus Evolution.
This is a screenshot from Agetec’s game. The in game Fuji Television ads have been replaced with the Agetec logo. Actually, it doesn’t look like Agetec acquired any of the licenses that are associated with the game so you might be playing with renamed women volleyball players that vaguely resemble professionals. The localization for Women’s Volleyball is similar to NES sprite swaps back in the 80s. Remember for the NES? That was a modified Dragonball game. Agetec isn’t making as many changes to Women’s Volleyball as Ninja Kid (note: this was a Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro game), but it’s interesting to see how products can be altered for American consumption.
Aimp Skins Pack Sftnj. Images courtesy of Spike and Agetec.
TOKYO--When it comes to women playing volleyball in video games, most fans only know about Team Ninja's bodacious beach babes of the Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball series. Still, it's entirely possible to make a female volleyball game without the revealing swimwear and gravity-betraying jiggle physics, as the developers at Spike are proving with the upcoming FIVB Volleyball World Cup: Venus Evolution. We had a chance to check out the game on the floor of the 2007 Tokyo Game Show to see what it was like playing a volleyball video game that didn't immediately induce a staggering sense of shame whenever a woman walked by us. It's not surprising that a World Cup volleyball game would be released here in Japan. After all, the country has hosted the Men's and Women's World Cup games--held every four years--since 1977. For a Japanese sports game--which can get a bit wacky--Venus Evolution, despite its title (we'll be honest, we have no idea what 'Venus Evolution' refers to), is as straightforward and true to the sport of indoor volleyball as you could hope. The game's controls make heavy use of the different face buttons on the PlayStation 2 controller.