The thing about the word “can,” however, is that it does not have any amount of certainty attached to it. Just as a new sports concept – or some variation of an existing one – has the potential to rock our worlds, there is also the possibility that it will fall flat on its face. That happens to be the case for Women’s Volleyball Championship, an all-girl volleyball game developed exclusively for – this one’s a shocker – PlayStation 2.

In the olden days (you know, back before PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 arrived), PS2 development was taken seriously. If a game was to be made exclusively for Sony’s platform, that usually meant the developers were looking for more than a cash cow. Otherwise they could have just spread the love to GameCube and the original Xbox, increasing the game’s potential for higher sales. But in today’s world, why develop exclusively for PS2? The reason could have been that Women’s Volleyball Championship’s developers were on a tight budget. Whether that’s really the case or not doesn’t matter, and won’t be a thought that crosses the average player’s mind.

You can’t criticize a game solely for its graphics, but let’s make one thing clear: Women’s Volleyball Championship is several years below PSone standards. There aren’t many animations, and of the few that were included, they are all shared with every athlete in the game.

Animations are just the tip of the iceberg. Individually, these athletes mean nothing. Collectively they mean even less. That’s because, unless you’re looking at them side-by-side, they all appear to be the same. They differ in height and not much else. Their faces look like they were painted on using a low-end EyeToy capture device, complete with that plastered-on appearance that was present in early versions of the character creation software. The frame rate and overall pace of the game is nothing to praise either. There were more impressive technologies present at the PSone’s launch back in the fall of 1995.

Wii Sports, as any die-hard sports fan should be quick to point out, showed that you don’t need great graphics to deliver great fun. However, you do need something substantial for players to become immersed in the experience. Women’s Volleyball Championship attempts this by merging the sports genre with – prepare yourself for another shocker – the button-mash-happy gameplay of Streets of Rage.

Sound too crazy to be true? Alright, so it’s not exactly like Streets of Rage. But the sluggish and confusing gameplay – which has players pressing a button immediately as the ball lands in their teammate’s hands, followed by other button taps to keep the ball in the air – feels like it came from a studio that’s accustomed to developing beat-‘em-ups. You don’t use the D-pad or thumbstick to move your athletes. No, this isn’t that kind of a game; instead, players get a title that mirrors Wii Sports Tennis for its lack of mobility.

With this in mind, it should be noted that the season, league and tournament modes do not add an ounce of excitement. They all lead to the same court, the same unwieldy gameplay, and the same graphics.

Women’s Volleyball Championship tries to offer variety with some team customization elements, as well as a character creation mode. But the latter is first limited by your athlete’s appearance, which is randomized, defeating the purpose of being called a “create player” mode. Second, this mode is little more than a time-consuming bout of randomized card selection. Several stat cards are randomly thrown onto the screen, you select three of them, and repeat the process.

After examining each mode, fumbling the controls and hoping the game magically improves itself, you notice something: there isn’t anything else to do.