Over The Net

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Over The Net is a classic beach volley game in which the rules are identical to those of volleyball: 3 ball contacts are allowed for each attack or defense and the ball must not be touched twice in succession by the same player. The matches last for 1, 3 or 5 sets and each set is won by the first team that reaches 15 points. You can choose any of the 12 (!) available teams. A single match can be played or you may choose to participate in the Sea Cup where the matches will take place in a series of seaside resort locations. The tournament keeps going at increasingly difficult levels up to the final goal, the much aspired Sea Cup! The gameplay is quite easy. Each human player is assigned as one man and, depending on how you set up the teams, the rest players are controlled by the computer. During a volleyball match, a shadow appears on the beach to indicate the ball's position so you can estimate where the ball will fall for the nearest player to get to that point and receive it. If the computer controlled player does not move, this means that the human controlled player is the nearest one and must rapidly move to the point where the ball will land.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The game's graphics are really good. The sprites move fast with nice animations whilst there are several background (mostly sandy) details including a few animated scenes. Although the Amiga version runs with 25-32 colors on-screen, it still has a bit better details than the DOS counterpart (that runs with 140+ colors). In comparison, I think Over The Net has better graphics than the all time classic Beach Volley. The in-game sound has a few sampled sound effects (ball hits, players' voices, crowd applause) whilst there is a nice introductory tune at the main menu.