Spike Volleyball Review

I’ve played a fair few matches in Spike Volleyball now, and, to be blunt, I still have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.

Even if you’re a volleyball fan, to which, admittedly, I am not, you likely still won’t be able to get to grips with this “game”. As soon as you start, you’re thrown into a tutorial going over some of the basics, like pressing “A” (if you’re using an Xbox controller like I am) once the ball has been served, or pressing X/Y/B to pass to another player after the serve. Then it goes over blocks, which took far too long to get past because it seems to me like they’re just flat out broken. I thought it was just me being inept, but remarks from plenty of others who have unfortunately had to suffer Spike Volleyball are plentiful.

That’s not the only thing that’s broken. Oh no, I won’t bore you with that list. Well, I’ll have to cover some to give this review a bit of meat. The most immediately obvious is the absolutely atrocious controls. You’re forced to use a controller, but you just end up button mashing; your players don’t respond, and you don’t really know how hard you’re hitting the ball because it’s not clear.

Animations are straight up terrible, and no dancing with Unreal Engine 4 is going to help that disaster. It’s almost like players point to where they want the ball to go and it’ll find something to bounce off to make it over there, be it elbows, heads or just...air. Make sense? No? Didn’t think so. At least it’s amusing when players dart across the court without moving their legs.

It’s a struggle to think of anything that isn’t flawed in some way. It boots up, at least, and the menus work. They’re reminiscent of the ones you’ll find in FIFA, but that’s about it. Teams are just flags for each country, with no recognisable players, or even the PES equivalent of a “Wayne Nooney”.

There’s online portions, but good luck ever finding a game. You’ll just have to play it with friends because there’s no way you’re ever going to find a random. There’s a single player career mode to keep you a little busy, with scouts and all! But then you actually have to play the matches, and suddenly you’d rather play volleyball with a bunch of OAPs than put up with this tripe.

To top it all off, Spike Volleyball retails at £34.99. I just can’t even get my head around it. You’d probably have more enjoyment flushing your money down the bog.

Two simple words: Don’t bother.