World Tour Mode
This is the deepest mode in Beach Spikers, combining progressive tournaments
with a little Tamagotchi action. The catch is that you control only one player
on a team -- the other is driven by the AI, and only improves with experience
and proper coaching. Create a custom team and rise to the top of the Tour.
Raising Your Partner
We're not going to sugarcoat it
here. At the beginning of World Tour Mode, the AI partners can't play to save
their lives. They will regularly miss returning serves, they won't rush for a
bad toss, they won't place themselves properly to set up for a spike, and forget
about their attacking ability. For all the good they do, they may as well not be
there. To build them up, you have to build your Teamwork rating and increase
their abilities. After each match, you earn points to upgrade your partner. A
win is worth three points, a loss is worth one, and then you receive between one
and five points depending on how your Teamwork rating is doing.
The Teamwork rating starts at 50% and fluctuates according to how you respond
to a partner's performance -- the game supplies an opportunity to do so after
every other court change (or every 10 points, if you like). There are four
options: Praise, Encourage, Reprimand, and Nothing. There's a certain amount of
randomness to how a partner will respond, but in general, the best choice is the
obvious one, whichever suits how well she's been doing in the game. Selecting
Praise when she's been doing poorly doesn't work -- she may suck at volleyball,
but she's got a pretty refined BS detector. In the early going, Encourage is the
safest bet, usually good for a moderate increase in the Teamwork rating. Later
on, when she's getting better, select Praise for big increases.
Spend points in between matches according to which areas a partner needs to
improve on:
- Serve: The power and accuracy of a partner's serves. In the beginning,
she'll serve only weak underhand shots. As this rating increases, she delivers
serves with more power, and uses the jump serve more often. At 20, she'll
deliver only accurate, powerful jump serves.
- Receive: The ability to receive -- to get to where the ball is in time and
get it back in the air with a quick recovery. Low receive ratings means the
ball will frequently bounce off her head. As this score improves, she'll get
better at running and diving for the ball.
- Attack: The ability to score with accurate spikes and other shots.
Partners can attack to begin with, but they won't charge the net effectively,
and they definitely won't attack with much power. Building this score up means
that a partner will aim her shots well and spike with greater power.
- Block: The ability to line up with an opponent and block. This doesn't
make itself obviously known until the block score is pretty high, but once
it's maxed out, she'll be a very effective shot-blocker -- not perfect, but
equal to the best AI opponents.
- Toss: The ability to set up shots for you. The better a toss, the better
the power of the subsequent spike, so this is important in the early going
when you, the player, are doing most of the attacking.
- Power: This increases the power level of serves and spikes, so level this
up in conjunction with the Serve and Attack abilities for greater power.
- Response: Similar to Power, this is an omnibus rating for quickness and
responsiveness, which helps with tossing and receiving abilities.
In the beginning, the most important ratings are Receive and Toss, because
those are the abilities you'll want a junior partner to use most effectively. As
she becomes a more effective player in her own right, build up her Attack and
Serve abilities. It also helps to kick up her Block skill relatively early,
because the AI tends to be better at blocking than a human player.
Team Strategies
This is a brief guide to the relative
abilities and tendencies of the AI teams in World Tour mode. It's worth noting,
however, that this applies to each team's default abilities. Beach Spikers
employs what developers like to call "adaptive AI," and what we gamers like to
call "that [expletive] [expletive] catch-up AI [expletive] [expletive]
[expletive]." This is particularly noticeable when you're playing one of the
mid-tier teams -- if you beat them very badly in the early stages of a match,
the game will ratchet up their returning and blocking abilities to present more
of a challenge. Keep that in mind when you're playing someone like the
Netherlands.
Also note that the pairs do not consist of clones. Each player has differing
strengths and weaknesses, some of which can be exploited. If you can pick out an
opponent who's weaker on the return than her partner, for example, aim for her
with serves and spikes.
Lower-Tier Teams
- Spain: Sunny, warm, plenty of ocean frontage on the south side of the
Iberian peninsula, but apparently they don't play a whole lot of volleyball
there. Team Spain has no shot-blocking ability to speak of, fields serves with
middling skill, and doesn't spike effectively at all. They do like to
occasionally try a drop-shot on the attack, though, so play relatively close
to the net.
- England: Come on, are you joking? England is a lovely place in many
respects, but it doesn't appear to have produced effective volleyball talent.
This team is weak in all areas, and you should be able to steamroll them with
ease.
- Jamaica: Team Jamaica doesn't seem to quite have the discipline of its
Cuban neighbors. They serve well enough, but they're lousy on the return and
possess a generic, low-power attack. Don't ever worry about being blocked.
- Germany: It stands to reason that a near-landlocked nation wouldn't be
that great at this sport. There are beaches on the Baltic Sea, but not ones
you'd really want to play volleyball on. Germany is alright at shot-blocking,
but terrible at receiving, so serve and spike hard.
- Thailand: Cute outfits yes, remarkable volleyball skills no. If you lose
to Thailand, a team with no offense or returning ability whatsoever, you
should be very embarassed. Or, alternatively, you can blame your brain-dead AI
partner, if it's early in the Tour.
- Mexico: See Thailand, but omit the part about the cute outfits.
Middle-Tier Teams
- France: We figure they play a lot of volleyball down on
the Riviera. France can be a difficult opponent, because both of its members
possess a strong serve and spike. However, they're very weak at returning
serves and attacks, and don't be afraid to spike at will, since France can't
block well.
- Netherlands: Hey, the one with the pigtails is pretty
cute. The Dutch are a very average team, with no obvious strength or weakness.
They serve well, but not overwhelmingly so; their attack is straightforward;
their blocking abilities are hit-or-miss. Don't underestimate them, but don't
be too afraid, either.
- China: China is a somewhat unbalanced team. One of their
members, the one with her hair up, is very powerful all-around, but her
teammate isn't nearly as effective. Thus, you should focus on the weaker
member and take advantage of her poor return abilities.
- Japan: Team Japan is invincible! They will never be
defeated! [Editor's note: The author made his way through World Tour mode as
Team Japan. In reality, Japan is curiously average -- you would think the
developers would have made them more powerful as a point of national
pride.]
- USA: The Americans are a fairly straightforward power
team, with good spikes and serves, but their big weakness is blocking. If you
see one of them rush the net, don't be afraid to target the empty corner of
the court with a hard spike -- likely as not, they'll mistime their block for
an easy point.
Top-Tier Teams
- Cuba: The duo from the sunny Caribbean are among the best
shot-blockers in the game, which is a difficult skill to overcome when you're
used to mopping up the weaker teams with a power offense. Try to use the A+B
one-touch attack when you see them rush the net, and try and deliver most of
the spikes yourself -- the AI partner, even with high attack ability, doesn't
use that skill so often.
- Australia: The Aussies are an interesting team to play
against, because they're effective without being unusually powerful. Their
attack and defense are based mainly on speed and finesse. Expect a lot of
drop-shots and well-placed low-power spikes. They'll beat many of your spikes
with their quickness, so aim well to land the ball out of their reach.
- Brazil: Get ready to get wrecked. Brazil is the toughest
AI team in the game, with no clearly visible weaknesses. The only reliable way
to beat them is to play the net aggressively and block their offense -- it's
tough, but it's the only way to go.
On to
Multiplayer...
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