Arcade Volleyball

MS-DOS title screen.

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. It was later ported to Amiga and MS-DOS in 1989. The game uses the sport of volleyball as its theme, but has only a few similarities. 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.

Personal

I found this game among collections of free DOS software somewhere in the late 1990s and thought it was quite charming.

This game is freeware for all ports. I have beaten the AI on the MS-DOS port.

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

Longplay - Commodore 64.

Longplay - MS-DOS.

Game play - Amiga.

Game play - Master System.

Download

Arcade Volleyball has been released as freeware by the developers.

• Download (Info) - Dated 1988-11-18.

Links