Dead or Alive 4

Just what your Xbox 360 has been waiting for, bouncy décolletage beat'em up action.

In this day and age there are a few fighting games that need no introduction. Since the Dreamcast (Soul Calibur) there has always been a fighting game at launch that usually has jaw dropping visuals. There was Dead Or Alive 3 for the Xbox and to a lesser extent DoA Hardcore for the PS2.

So needless to say, when Dead Or Alive 4 was announced for the Xbox 360, gamers were very excited. Even Xbox.com displayed video (albeit grainy video) of the game as a sales point. Unfortunately, the game had been delayed for a month at launch time and the finally makes it to the UK on January 27th.

Finally we have the game, and it’s very enjoyable. Firing up the game you see the traditional Team Ninja intro for most DoA games with the ocean and the lightning. You know you’re in for something good.

On a high definition TV, the graphics are outstanding in 720p or 1080i – especially the backgrounds. I have to say that viewing the game in 480p isn’t as stellar. It looks great, but it looks similar to the DoA game on the Xbox. The characters all look very nice, but it is the backgrounds that really catch your eye. Two backgrounds are especially good: the Las Vegas like setting and the wildlife preserve setting. Note that in the Vegas scene the operating marquee displays your Gamer Tag quote. Pretty neat.

There are many different modes in the game: Story mode (follow a ‘story’ of a character), Time Attack Mode (best time), versus mode (duh), Survival mode (beat as many people as you can with limited life), Team Battle mode (duh), Sparring mode (training), watch mode (duh), and of course DOA online.

Story mode has got to be the silliest thing I’ve ever seen. Only a Japanese game would call this a ‘story’. While playing as one character, you just start fighting, then towards the end of your story, you go to the produce market and want to buy ….some lettuce! Then you ask the shopkeeper to give you a discount on lettuce (mind you, here in the USA, lettuce is about a dollar a head, maybe that’s 3 billion yen, I’m not sure). He of course says no, and then another woman character comes in and buys the lettuce, making you mad enough to fight.

Survival Mode is my favourite offline game. Tecmo has integrated Xbox Live leaderboards into this mode – so after you are knocked out, you are taken right to a rank screen showing how well you did on points and KO’s against everyone else that has played the game. A rank of 20,000 never felt so good.

I’ve heard of some silly reasons to fight, but lettuce has got to be the silliest. When you defeat all your enemies in story mode you are treated to a cut scene. Following this story, Kasumi decides to dance around in a thong, take a shower and make a salad with some of the goofiest music this side of Sonic-R. Then someone is at the door. The end. Not all of the stories are this lame, but they aren’t great either.

Control in the game takes some time to get used to. While many of the moves are going to be familiar to experienced DOA players, there are also some new moves. The biggest addition is the ‘enhanced’ countering system. With this system not only do you hit a button to counter an attack, you also have to point in the direction that your opponent is going to hit you. Getting counters down is essential to winning in DOA, however during some games, I see it being more of a counter-fest. Many people often complain that fighting games are nothing but button mashers and the counters are supposed to negate those quick reflexes. The idea is noble; however if you’re just hitting the counter button to offset someone hitting an attack button, it doesn’t really seem productive.

Tecmo was nice enough to show the combos for each player on screen; however they are shown as Japanese moves and nothing that you really understand. I’d rather see "super high kick/punch combo" than the Japanese name for it. A major beef of mine is that the manual translates the buttons. In the manual they say that the "F" command is the “X” button. You know what would be easier to comprehend? How about just saying press "X" instead?

Each character has their own fighting skills. I feel that some characters are better than others, and quite often the better characters have bouncier chests. Yes, the boobs are back in Dead Or Alive 4. They literally defy physics. All chests aside though, by using the character you’ve chosen with the environment you are in you can really do some serious damage. The ladies tend to have these amazing spin kicks and some arenas have electrified walls or multi-levels that your opponent can fall through when using these kicks. Going back to Vegas, you also have to watch out for traffic when fighting in the street. It’s not hard to avoid but it’s a nice little extra challenge.

This is the second DoA game that’s online and the first for the 360 (of course). In the online game, you can purchase an avatar and dress him/her/it up as you see fit. I chose and alligator just to be different. While you’re in the lobby, you can physically see your opponent’s avatars and you can watch the current fight on the in-lobby monitor. It’s a neat idea, but really doesn’t do much for me.

There are a variety of online modes such as tournament, team battle and survival. They are all a lot of fun. In an online game such as this you need to be able to time your moves appropriately and you are only as good as your opponent’s bandwidth. Most of my games were pretty good but lag did show up here and there. After every fight you are given a rating which also doubles as your skill level.

Also online, Zack’s shop is back and has just as many weird things as he did in DoA Volleyball. The one neat thing is that you can ‘buy’ your way out of every item and background rather than unlocking it in every mode – if you have the money to do so.

The achievements for this game run the gamut and allow you to get some points but challenge you to unlock many events. You do get achievements by finishing story mode or beating a survival time or –get this – losing to someone online 5 consecutive times. Guess which one I won first. That one doesn’t get you any gamerpoints however.

If you’re a fan of the genre or just looking for something to really show off your Xbox 360 console, Dead Or Alive 4 is a must have game. There’s nothing incredibly new or earth shattering here, but you can absolutely enjoy it for the fighting game that it is.

This review courtesy of our friends at Gameshark .