The Morning After The War – a DOA4 review
I didn’t get any sleep last night. I went to bed around 4am after a ridiculously long game of Civilization 4 with prod and boondoggler. We finished that sucker with a time victory, in the top three spots which is something of an achievement. Boondoggler and I were jockeying for second until he pulled-out a late war on the Malinese to boost him 50 points ahead of me. It was inspired and made those final 15 turns take that much longer.
So, deprived of sleep, I feel ready to tell the world about “Dead or Alive 4″ for the Xbox 360. I’ve been a huge fan of the DOA series since it debuted on the Playstation 1. It was one of about 4 titles that I had for that platform and it certainly was the most-played. Well, I did have that 60 lap endurance race in Gran Turismo that might have skewed the numbers a bit.
What is Dead or Alive 4? The subscript suggests that it is a sequel and you would be right in thinking so, though the number might be a bit misleading as the release of DOA:Ultimate could be considered a point release to DOA3. The online component made DOA:U a solid addition to the series, as well as delivering both DOA1 and DOA2 to the Xbox platform at long last. Then there was DOA:Extreme Beach Volleyball (XVB) – while not exactly hentai, it was certainly ecchi. Then Ninja Gaiden, a reworking of a much older title featured Ryu Hayabusa in an action game of impossible difficulty. Why am I mentioning all of these games that are not DOA4? I do this to give the reader some sense of the depth of background and history this esteemed title carries with it. It has breeding.
DOA4 is a game in the fighting genre. Known for it’s fairly simple control-scheme, it has a system of countering that makes it somewhat unique in the fighting genre. It also hasn’t really changed much since the original game except for some added characters and fighting styles. The changes that have been made to the moves have been refinements and game-balancing tweaks. Of course, the graphics have only gotten prettier and it is no exaggeration when I say that DOA4 is the best-looking game available on the Xbox 360. I would probably give Rare’s Kameo a fairly distant second.
In this version of Dead or Alive, you get to choose from 16 characters when you open the box. Playing the game in Story Mode with each of these characters plays out the convoluted, seemingly-incomprehensible storyline through cut-scenes and each character’s ending movie. The dialogue is often funny, and there are a few surprises in the cut-scenes that are quite awesome, but honestly, they’re just icing on the cake. After you watch them a couple of times, you’ll be pressing the start button to speed through them the next time through.
The ending movies for each character are visually impressive and you will want to watch them again. Tecmo should have forgone their live-action movie and made an entirely CG animated movie, IMO. Certainly based on the ending movies, they could have done something entertaining and unique instead of just… lame. Tecmo has certainly taken the production-levels of the end-scenes up several notches from previous editions and the story does actually coalesce into something resembling a narrative when you’ve completed them all. It’s quite well-done and entertaining.
(side-note: prod has suggested that a game based on the Bayman character could be quite good and I agree with him. He’s a neat character with a lot of grit and would work very well in a Metal Gear meets Splinter Cell kind of action game)
Why would anyone want to do this more than once? To unlock costumes, dumb dumb! The other hallmark of the Dead or Alive franchise is the ability to dress up your fighters in the tradition of japanese doll sims. Ridiculous? You bet! Sexy? Often! Some of the outfits are outrageous. Some are just cool. Others are ridiculous. I’ve seen up to 7 costumes for some of the characters but their may be more. DOA1 had 14 costumes for some of the girls and we have yet to see that number in any subsequent titles. I live in hope that Tecmo will release a “booster pack” for this game as they did for DOA3.
In single player, in addition to Story Mode, there are Survival modes (fight-till-you-die against an unending stream of opponents), Time Attack (finish 8 opponents in best of 3 matches under a certain time) and sparring modes to practice your moves. The difficulty in the single-player game has gone way up since DOA3 and Ultimate. Story Mode’s end boss is frustratingly difficult, though not so stupid as Omega from DOA3 with the annoying camera perspective and hellish effect. Time Attack becomes exceedingly difficult by the third or fourth opponent and has thus far dashed my hopes of completing Time Attack with each character to unlock the final special character in the game. It’s something to work for.
Refinements to the game-play have made it harder to counter and complete throws against strong opponents. Criticisms of earlier games were that it was too easy to counter an opponent and Tecmo has tried to balance the game in favor of the attacker. That said, the computer players still have little difficulty countering a flurry of combos in some cases that seem a little unfair. The computer opponents also have no issue deploying devastating hold attacks which a human player has to complete with multiple d-pad circles and button presses. Spend some time in the sparring arena and practice up. You can at least take your knowledge to the online arena to show off your moves even if you can’t execute an Izuna Otoshi against the AI.
The real re-playability of DOA4 is the online component and Tecmo have once-again delivered a unique and enjoyable experience. Fully Xbox Live integrated, DOA4 adds to that with an online lobby construct where players join games and can chat amongst themselves and even watch the game in-progress on the lobby’s television screen. Players can customize their avatars with accessories from “Zack’s Shop” using “Zack Bucks” earned through online play. The action is fun and quite exciting to watch as players cheer on the opponents. Players are further rewarded with Xbox Live gamerep points for winning streaks and defeating strong players.
We’ve only had a few issues in our group. Prod’s connection seems to drop him out of the game at least once per session and his connection to the Boondoggler is herky-kerky, even though he’s geographically not that far-removed. Overall, the connection is smooth and lag is all but unnoticeable.
Check out http://www.doacentral.com/ for some online competition.
*****/*****
update: more links…
doa unlockables on gamespot
and, FAQ/Guide by ArcHarry (linked from gamespot as well)
boolean is listening to: Dry The Rain from the album “The Three E.P.’s” by The Beta Band
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