Kings of the Beach, featuring real-life pro volleyball players Sinjin Smith and Randy Stoklos, is a crazy-fun beach volleyball game that is most fun with multiple players.  To mix sports metaphor-wise the peeps who made this game hit it out of the park!  It's a little tricky to describe this game's appeal because if I hadn't played this game I wouldn't think of myself as a huge beach volleyball fan or anything, it's just that this game excels in all the key ways that add up to great fun.  

The game, right off the bat  (I'm on a roll!), allows you to play a match with any combination of player-controlled or CPU controlled players in the 4 roles, so you and a buddy can team up or compete.  You also can play against the game's progressively more difficult foes either with a cpu-controlled sidekick or with a friend.  As a welcome bonus there are also 3 tutorial courts to teach the basics of bumping, setting and spiking.  There isn't a blocking tutorial but it's basically like spiking in reverse, and I don't think there is a serving tutorial but pressing A and B at the same time is basically a never-miss underhand serve.  

The game provides a good challenge curve and provides a solid sense of progression.  The different foes you face have different mug shots, and their faces convey a lot of personality, so you feel you are taking down real people when you win.  You also feel a sense of progression when after every two matches you move to a new geographic location.  This gives new scenery and basing the locations on real cities gives the feeling of globe-trotting while going from place to place.  Some of the locations introduce environmental difficulty in the form of increased wind interference (interestingly the wind either blows left or right, never forward or back or diagonally).  Finally, when you are awarded with a password documenting your progress accompanied with a stylish graphic of a happy girl in a bikini the sense of accomplishment is all the more tangible.  

Also, the fact that the referee sometimes makes bad calls and you can change his mind by pressing select to complain at him is awesome and pretty hilarious.  

Graphics = 8

The graphics in this game are functional and stylish.  All the players' volleyball moves look as they should.  The volleyball shadow makes judging the timing of when to hit the ball really fair yet challenging to hit the sweet spot when serving and spiking and things.  The characters have lots of personality, kicking the sand when frustrated, jumping when mad at the referee, and they high five to congratulate each other.   

Sound = 9  

The sound effects are satisfying and high quality but what really impresses is the music.  I suppose more musical variety would have been nice, but I think it's somewhat more impressive that they created a single piece of background music that does not overstay its welcome in my humble opinion.  Judge for yourself I spose, I gave the sound a 9 marked down from a 10 only for the lack of variety during the matches.  There is also appropriate background music between matches and during the password scenes and even to accompany the players ritualistically switching sides every five points, but these bits of music are less indispensable than the main tune since that one is played the vast majority of the game.  

Addictiveness = 9 Depth = 7 Difficulty = 7

This game really has good volleyball fundamentals, but this leads me to a flaw I've found in the game.  The game probably shines best when you get 4 people gathered for some player versus player mayhem, but against the CPU, the game really has no choice but to make the CPU more and more skilled, and thus more and more likely to return whatever you throw at them, and when this happens it provides a very strong incentive to look for never-fail tricks to take the computer out.  While there is a brief sense of accomplishment when these tricks are found, it's a little like spending real money to become over-powered in a game, it sort of robs the game of its point.  The game is most fun when you are learning it and gradually overcoming enemies fair and square, when you get to foes who virtually force you to cheat the game's appeal sort of breaks.  In fairness to the game, it will probably take most gamers a long time (and a lot of fun) before they reach this level.  I penalized the difficulty down a bit since the CPU can be exploited in this way, depth too, but I kept the addictiveness high since the fundamentals are present and so strong and these beefs probably don't exist in player versus player mode which is where the game's most enduring appeal probably lies.  

Story = 5  

There really isn't an attempt to tell any story at all... so... yeah.  

Hope you enjoy this great game!

bsnowotter : this is a very good review you made here. Its has lots of detail and it was broken down into different categories. So Overall good job. Have a nice day.