Bikini Volleyball

If there's one sport guaranteed to make you feel bad about yourself, it's beach volleyball. In a double pronged offensive, it not only brings about an attack of laziness-related guilt as you watch lean-limbed athletes effortlessly spring about like baby gazelles, but its toned, barely dressed players also make your flab feel like it's multiplied overnight.

Essentially, if you could be a body double for Johnny Vegas (or Dawn French) and the last time your legs saw the sun was during a day-trip to Weston-Super-Mare last June, your ego would far prefer you to watch a game of darts or a bit of snooker.

On mobile, however, beach volleyball isn't a bad sport to indulge in at all. It calls for similar skills to a tennis game, but adds a bit of strategy with the ability to block a returned ball at the net, as well as keep passing back and forth to your team-mate until the perfect opportunity arises for a well-placed downward thwack (or spike, to use the proper terminology).

Bikini Volleyball includes all of this, and many other core elements of beach volleyball. Namely, a tournament, skimpy swimsuits and a selection of lovely sandy beaches.

You create your player before starting the game – choosing basics like hair style, swimsuit and whether you prefer her pale and interesting or dipped in a vat of St Tropez tint. Importantly, you can also assign limited points to various stats, such as strength and technique.

Each volleyball match is played against a different pair of girls, with your partner controlled automatically for you. Pleasingly, the AI of the latter is good – she can be relied on to knock back shots and deliver better spikes than you, in fact. The opposition is solid, too, although fierce from the start.

Controls are basic, which means you can concentrate more on positioning and timing than selecting the right shot. One button controls everything, so you use it to serve (stopping a bar in the right spots for speed and accuracy), press it near the net to block, and hit it when the ball is high in the air to spike.

Basic passing shots are done automatically, though. You just need to move your player into the shadow of the ball in order to return it. This sounds easier than it is – even with the shadow, it can be tricky to get into position and often you'll need to do a last-minute dive even though you were stood right next to where the ball was headed.

Handily, the game has a radar at the bottom of the screen displaying where each of the four players are on the court. This may sound a bit unnecessary but the vertical aspect of a mobile screen means only just over half of the court is in view at any time. The camera scrolls quickly enough for it not to be too much of a problem, though – it just makes it a bit trickier to position your players in preparation for a returned shot, hence the need to rely on the radar.

Aside from a little clumsiness and a steep learning curve, Bikini Volleyball is neatly done, with plenty of strategy coming into play. For instance, you're soon thinking about not spiking when your opponents are hogging the net and can easily block the shot, and learning to use your team-mate, especially early on when she has more 'power moves' at her disposal.

These power moves can be bought from the game's shop (along with new bikinis and hairstyles, of course). Once purchased, every time you successfully hit enough shots to fill up the meter shown at the top of the screen, you hit a super spike or super block. The screen flashes green, your phone vibrates like a mini-earthquake and your player delivers a killer, almost dead-cert winning move. Impressive.

The game is also padded out with Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball style elements (for those that have played the console game). You can visit the hotel to rest and regain vitality between matches, for example, as well as change your swimsuit, which, strangely, also increases your vitality.

Another incentive to beautify your player in between games are magazine covers. Even if you lose a match, and the prize money that comes with it, you can still be awarded some cash if a magazine decides to put you on their front page. Magazine cover lines include, 'Who cares if I lose, I'm still beautiful'. Which is the sort of adage very attractive people can live by. And that's why we hate them.

Speaking of aesthetics, the game looks very pretty – and that's not just the contenders. The sandy beaches look as realistic as you could hope for, and spectators line the shore, no doubt appreciating nothing but the purity of the sport on offer.

Earning money for wins and saving up to buy new power moves, swimsuits (the skimpier the pricier, naturally) and hairstyles is a nice hook to keep you playing. One that the game really needs, because one match after another would get tiring.

Overall, Bikini Volleyball is not quite up there with Virtua Tennis, but it is one of the best volleyball games we've played on mobile. It's not the easiest, true, but a little effort never hurt anyone. Besides, keep reminding yourself it's far easier (and far less embarrassing) than having to do it for real.