Arcade Volleyball
Arcade Volleyball | ||||||||||||||||
DOS - Screenshot - Title screen. |
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Arcade Volleyball is a single-screen action video game developed by Rhett Anderson and Randy Thompson originally published in COMPUTE!'s Gazette as type-in code for the Commodore 64 in June 1988, and later ported by to Amiga and MS-DOS in 1989 as freeware. The game uses the sport of volleyball as its theme, but is closer to the game Rebound. Only servers can score, scoring occurs when the ball hits the ground to the player opposite the serve, or in a failed attempt to return the ball within three hits.
The original C64 version had two players on each team which moved in tandem as a single unit. The game ended when one team reached 15 points. AI could be hacked on, but it was quite poor. The Amiga release used a single player on each side, a solid net where the ball wouldn't go under it, and a player needed a 2-point margin on their opponent to win after getting 15 points. The DOS port was essentially the same as the Amiga port, only with poorer graphics and sound. A fan game was made in 1995 called Zorlim's Arcade Volleyball which replicated much of the game and added better graphics and sound.
Contents
Personal
Own? | No. The game was never sold. |
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Won? | Yes. I've beaten the AI of the MS-DOS port. |
Finished | Late 1990s. |
I found this game among collections of free DOS software somewhere in the late 1990s and thought it was quite charming.
Review
4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
Best Version: Amiga?
— This section contains spoilers! —
Good
- The player icons, with their giant grinning heads and bulbous noses and eyes, are charming.
- The game's mechanics are enjoyable to learn.
- For the DOS port, the AI is pretty darn good.
- For as primitive as the game is, it offers a wide array of control customizations.
Bad
- The graphics are terrible across all ports. The DOS port especially needed better coloring.
- The sound is also terrible across all ports.
- It doesn't take too long to master the play mechanics, and, after that, there's nothing left to do with the game.
- The AI in the Commodore 64 port is really bad, and it's very easy to take advantage of it.
Ugly
- There just isn't much to the game. You'll see everything it has to offer in about a minute.
Media
Videos
Play Online
Representation
Strong female character? | Fail | There are no women. |
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Bechdel test? | Fail | There are no women. |
Strong person of color character? | Fail | Nobody has a specified race. |
Queer character? | Fail | There are no queer characters. |
Download
Arcade Volleyball has been released as freeware by the developers.
Links
- Video Games
- 1988 Video Games
- Video games published by Compute!
- Amiga Games
- Commodore 64 Games
- DOS Games
- Video Game Genre - Action
- Video Game Genre - Single-screen
- Video Game Genre - Sports
- Media Theme - Sports
- Multiplayer
- Multiplayer Simultaneous versus
- Software Distribution Model - Freeware
- Software Distribution Model - Open source
- Video Games That Can't Be Owned
- Video Games I've Beaten
- Video Game Rating - 4
- Video Game Graphics Rating - 2
- Video Game Sound Rating - 1
- Video games which can be played online
- Video games without a strong female character
- Video games that fail the Bechdel test
- Video games without a strong person of color character
- Video games without a queer character
- Video Game Prime Order - Action, Strategy, Adventure
- 2-bit Color Graphics