Review: International Volleyball 2009

Some fun in volleyball games

Before International Volleyball i had my doubts again. The third time testing a sports game for a sport that doesn’t had many games. One failed (Handball Simulator 2010), one was surprisingly good (Rugby Challenge 2011). This one? It’s in the middle of those two.

Serve's up!: You can serve in three different ways in IV2009.

Again, I thought this would be a game with a lot of controller trouble, but it really isn’t. If you enter training mode as soon as you start the game, you will learn that volleyball on the computer is really easy. It’s basically four or five buttons you use a lot. Then you have your own choice what kind of shot or serve you are going to use and it really doesn’t matter if you hit the right buttons, as long as you hit one of them. The game is surprisingly fun and good for some time, but gets boring when playing long matches. Volleyball isn’t the ultimate sport to make a PC game from.

Not again: I didn't even know Luxembourg had a volleyball team.

Got this one: I got all the time in the world, piece of cake to catch this one.

That being said it simulates volleyball the way it should be done. You sometimes feel that you play volleyball for real and even if the graphics doesn’t match on the pitch, the game got some cool animations. The replay feature where you see the point ball from the net is also brilliant. The audio isn’t really so good, but I heard the crowd shouting for their national teams several times. Credits for bringing that in the game. This game surprised me a lot and is a lot of fun, but not for too long.

Failed blocking: If you don't stand right in front of the shot, you're not going to block it!

Gamescore

International Volleyball 2009 (2009)

Graphics: The graphics hasn’t been in the creators mind for one second and everything looks pretty boring. Some fine animations now and then, but it isn’t enough to bring the score upstairs. 2/10

Audio: There isn’t really much sound present, but you’ll have the basic volleyball sounds you’re problaby so familiar with. The audience was unusually loud sometimes and this made this game a lot better. Nothing is worse than playing in front of an audience that just sits there and shuts up. 4/10

Gameplay: A very fun game indeed. Full of surprises these “not so famous” sport games. Well, it’s fun for one or two matches, but then things start to get to familiar to what you just watched. No licenses of real volleyball players and every player are named from “Number One” and further. Would have been funnier if they at least used real fake names. 5/10

Controls: As mentioned, the controllers looks tricky at first eye, just like Rugby Challenge. After some practice and the gaining of skills, you will manage to get some points. Maybe not win some matches, because the game is pretty hard, even on easy. You steer all the players on your team as if they were just one and this works very well! 8/10

Overall Score: International Volleyball 2009 isn’t a big game and maybe I’m giving it some sympathy votes, but the game was actually pretty fun for a while. As this one being the only volleyball game I know of (except for blubby volley), it’s get the first place on volleyball games list hall of fame! 5/10