Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System

Developer: Nintendo R&D1

Publisher: Nintendo

Release Date (NA): March, 1987

Genre: Sports

Nerd Rating: 4 out of 10

Are you ready for some intense, ball humping action?

What’s that you say?

Oh, you heard me right.

Intense. Ball Humping. Action.

Yes, there’s plenty of it here in Nintendo’s attempt to bring volleyball to its champion console. Volleyball is another entry in Nintendo’s early sports series – part of what some refer to as the “Black Box” games.

I’m going to tell you right off the bat that I am not an avid follower of volleyball, nor have I played many, if any, other titles based on this sport; therefore I cannot measure the game in terms of accuracy. But then again, for a Nintendo cart released in 1986 (in Japan), who’s keeping score?

Let us begin.

The title screen presents us with the same silly music you hear in all the early release NES sports games. It’s signature, iconic, necessary – a staple. Any nostalgia-driven gamer blowing the dust off their ancient goods will appreciate this. Moving on.

You are given a choice between male and female volleyball players. From what I can tell they seem to play the same. They sure do pelvic thrust the same. The male AI did appear to make more stupid mistakes, but I doubt the developers would have gone through the extra effort back then to differentiate how a particular subset of players function. You also have a few different countries to choose from, but if it’s a single player game your default team is USA. Again, opponents from other countries didn’t feel any more or less difficult. I’m pretty certain it doesn’t matter who you pick here.

As far as plot goes – aaaah!

Gotcha!

This is a sports game, what do you want? A bunch of people got together to play volleyball and a crowd watches. There, there’s your plot.

Okay so graphically Volleyball isn’t impressive. Obviously you have to give it some consideration for when it was made. All of the early-release Nintendo sports games have a similar look; even Ice Hockey, published in 1988, still had a rudimentary graphical build.

You’ve got a real basic layout with the typical crowd making the standard furniture-scraping-against-wood-floor sounds. The men look like a bunch of greaser mooks and the women look like 60s go-go dancers. Really nothing special graphically-speaking.

The controls are fast and sporadic. While playing Volleyball you will be jerking and twitching like a madman in a straining attempt to keep the ball airborne. Surprisingly enough the contact box is pretty big, so you won’t be missing as often as you’d expect.

But don’t get me wrong.

You will still miss…a lot.

This is where the game really goes south. If you’re ready to have your ass handed to you as the AI scores point after point, then this is the game for you! Seriously though, after a while it feels like a parody. And you know, I’ll be the first to admit I’m not what some may call “gifted” when it comes to video games. I’m sure many of you will do better than me. But the way Nintendo’s Volleyball handles just feels…messy. Like it was poorly programmed overall.

Press A to serve/hit the ball and B to jump. Seems easy enough, right? Well, the jumping doesn’t always appear to work when you want. After some time playing I came to the conclusion that only the players up front can jump. And it also looks as though they have to be ahead of the line to do so, but even when this criteria is met sometimes a jump won’t happen. Again, maybe I’m doing something wrong but I don’t think jumping should be that spotty.

Occasionally you’ll attack the ball (yeah, official volleyball lingo), but somehow it won’t count. I don’t understand this. It appears as though I am hitting it as I would in any other circumstance, and yet the ref calls it as a point for the other team. Whatever.

The worst mark against functionality is how you control your players. While the ball is on the opposite side of the net you command the three front liners. But once it’s hit over to your side, all bets are off. There’s no telling who, or even how many players, you’ll be controlling. This can be a real problem since the controls are already jerky enough, and then all of a sudden Joe/Josephine decides to be a lazy asshole, stop, and let somebody else worry about it even though the ball is directly over him/her. It’s a pain. And you’ll miss the ball often.

What can I say about the music? Other than the signature NES sports title screen you have this endless loop playing during the match that is just plain silly. It almost sounds like something you’d hear from an old Looney Tunes cartoon. Or at the very least a Bugs Bunny-type game. It’s not bad, it’s not good. It’s not what you’d expect out of a sports game either.

Combined with the gratuitous ball humping, the ridiculous tunes make it very hard to take Nintendo’s Volleyball seriously.

What else can I say about it really? You kind of get what you expect. It’s not the best Nintendo Sports game. It is fun, I will say, as long as you don’t care at all about winning. And perhaps play with another human as opposed to the spike-happy AI.