Video Game review: Dead or Alive 4

Dead or Alive 4, the latest game from Tecmo’s Team Ninja, is the first fighting game for Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Anyone familiar with the past DOA games will know for the most part what they’re getting into, but will be surprised a fair bit of changes in the game play that ultimately make the game better and much more challenging than any of the past Dead or Alive games.

This iteration introduces three new characters. La Mariposa is a masked Lucha Libre who has plenty of high flying moves and damaging throws to keep up with the other fighters. Kokoro, an apprentice geisha who really wants to be a martial artist, specializes in hard hitting open palm attacks. Eliot, a teenage boy who somewhat looks like a girl, incorporates a style similar to the praying mantis and is arguably the best of the three new characters, though they all are a welcome addition to the roster, which ends up rounding out at 22 playable fighters.

At first glance, this may just seem like the same old DOA with better graphics and a few more characters, but you’ll quickly find that among and expanded arsenal of moves that all of the returning characters sport, the series’ patented reversal system has been finely tuned so that your timing in pulling off reversals has be damn near immaculate, thus pretty much eliminating the feeling that you’re just playing a game of rock paper scissors. These changes also serve to make tougher to master characters, like Russian commando Bayman and Pro Wrestler/Biker Bass Armstrong much more powerful should you undertake the task of learning to use them.

The backgrounds also play a much more important role this time around. Many stages, such as the Las Vegas inspired strip of road feature obstacles over which players can be knocked. The aggressor can then run at that obstacle, vault over it and deliver a brutal drop kick to their opponent knocking them even further back and giving them more of an advantage in setting up a new attack when their stunned opponent recovers. It’s no surprise that many people who’ve played past DOA games adamantly are having a hard time with this one. It’s that different from a game play point of view.

Some stages even feature hazards that both fighters need to keep an eye out for, such as speeding cars that either fighter can use to their advantage to try and catch an opponent off guard.

Of course, the series’ mainstay of multi-tiered, destructible environments is back. Thanks to the Xbox 360’s increase in power, putting someone through a window, throwing them from a rooftop and hitting them with a punch hard enough that they tumble down a flight of stairs never looked so good. From the veins and muscles on Jann Lee’s arms to the denim texture on Zack’s jeans the characters in the game look great. They move at a constant 60 frames per second with extremely well done animations to the characters themselves, as well as hair and clothing that go off without even the slightest hiccup. At the same time, the difference in the characters’ appearance between this game and the last one is a bit more subtle and isn’t immediately apparent to most people. The backgrounds in this game are a vast improvement, however. Many of them teem with life in the and ambient sound, such as the arena packed with fully animated, cheering and screaming fans or the wildlife running loose in the African plains as you and your opponent beat each other senseless, each of the backgrounds is a pleasure to look at. Small touches such as glass bottles that fall and shatter and fruit that rolls away when someone slams into a kiosk in the marketplace stage, or leaves, small branches and cherry blossoms that fall from a tree when someone is thrown against it do much to add to the sense of realism that comes from the combat in this game.

As far as audio is concerned, it works in the areas where it matters most but falls flat in others. While every connecting hit, grunt, groan and appropriate sound effect when something on the stage is destroyed is very well done and fits perfectly, I was personally under whelmed by most of the music tracks in the game. I try not to hold that against the game since it’s more a matter of personal taste than anything else, though.

The game offers a standard array of story mode, time attack, versus, team battle and survival, as well as watch mode where you can watch two AI controlled characters battle it out, as well as an album where you can take shots during watch mode and view them here. There is also an online mode, but I haven’t been able to play that due to the fact that I don’t have Xbox live.

The story mode is little more than a few cut scenes done with the game engine in which one character exchanges a few words with another before they fight. Some characters have to fight a boss by the name of Alpha 152, who is something of a clone of Dead or Alive heroine Kasumi, while others will have a showdown with a rival of theirs, such as Tina Armstrong having to fight her overbearing father, Bass. Each story is concluded with a beautifully rendered ending cinematic, most of which are enjoyable to watch. While it would’ve been nice to see the characters in the game fleshed out a little more than they are, many people have come to expect a minimal narrative from fighting games. DOA 4 does a good enough job with the story, but I personally would have like to seen more.

As always the game has a ton of extras. For instance, there are a ton of extra costumes that you obtain for your characters. Some are really cool, such as Jann Lee’s yellow body suit with black stripes down the sides similar to what Bruce Lee wore in Game of Death, or Ryu Hayabusa’s demonic looking red and black ninja costume that he had in Team Ninja’s outstanding Ninja Gaiden. Some are for more comedic effect, like Bass’ Viking costume or Bayman’s scuba gear and other, more revealing cotumes, such as Christie’s dominatrix costume or the Japanese schoolgirl outfit that three different female characters sport.

There also several different hidden characters, all but one of whom were characters in past Dead or Alives. Helena, Leon, Gen Fu, Ein and The Tengu are unlocked by beating certain game modes with one character or with a certain number of characters, but its good to see that none of the playable characters from the older games were left out. The most talked about of the hidden characters however is armored soldier of the future Spartan-458, created by Bungie, the developer’s of the Xbox shooters Halo and Halo 2. Like the main character of those games, Spartan 458, also known as Nicole, wears the dark green Mjolnir armor and is tailored towards players who prefer slower, but harder hitting characters. Unfortunately, she isn’t playable in the story mode, so how a super soldier from a few hundred years in the future ended up back in the 21st century is anyone’s guess. She also has her own stage, the Nassau station, which is a space station hangar that overlooks the planet its orbiting. It features several nods to Halo, such as destructible energy shields and several vehicles, such as the warthog and a destroyed Covenant Banshee that act as obstacles fighters came throw each other in to while Halo’s theme music plays during the battle.

If you enjoy fast paced fighting games with great visuals and satisfying combat, Dead or Alive 4 is ideal for you. With its diverse cast of characters, there’s someone for every one and with its non-stop action and much deeper fighting system, this is a game that will have you wasting countless hours for quite some time.

9.2/10