Dead Or Alive: Ultimate Review

Cast your mind back to the mid-1990s when the previous console wars were taking place with Nintendoâ??s N64, Segaâ??s Saturn, and the young upstart the Sony PlayStation all vying for supremacy. It was a time where 3D environments were making their tentative steps in the console market and it was also when Tecmo launched a new beat-em-up franchise â?“ Dead or Alive.

The first DoA title did have some trouble trying to get noticed in a Virtua Fighter/Tekken dominated market, although the detail of bouncing mammaries helped the title eventually stand on itâ??s own two feet. As well as being released on the home console market, DoA also featured heavily in the Arcade sector (for those of you under the age of 16 arcades were the only places to really experience â??ground breakingâ?? visuals unless you had a spare £300 and invested in a Neo-Geo console.)

That was 1996, and since then weâ??ve witnessed the franchise jump from format to format, from Segaâ??s Saturn to Microsoftâ??s Xbox via Dreamcast, PlayStation2, and the small matter of an exclusivity contract with Gatesâ?? Corporation. Well now the DoA franchise has been given a retro rehash with the imminent release of Dead or Alive Ultimate, of course exclusive to Xbox, which encompasses both the original DoA and DoA2 â?“ the first time that the earlier titles in the franchise are available to play on Microsoftâ??s machine.

Although the Xbox version of DoA2 has undergone significant visual enhancements, the big BIG attraction has to be the fact that both titles in the release are Xbox Live! enabled â?“ more on that a little later on. The game has already been out Stateside for the last few months, but at last European gamers will have the chance to battle it out both offline and online â?“ but has it been worth the wait? Do the visual upgrades and Live! options warrant gamers shell out some hard earned cash on a release containing titles that are nine and three years old respectively?

One of the quirkiest sides to the DoA franchise was itâ??s somewhat negligible storylines, which are essentially random lines thrown in for good measure; thereâ??s no coherence between bouts and we donâ??t know the motivations for any of the characters. How does Jake bounce around from location to location? What is he trying to accomplish? And why the hell is he still wearing that strange silver suit that makes him look like the missing Teletubby? Thankfully Team Ninja have stuck to their guns and the storylines in both DoA1 and 2 Ultimate editions are still as incoherent as ever, something that we embrace with open arms as it is very much in the tradition of the whole franchise â?“ after all, a DoA game with an actual story wouldnâ??t be DoA.

Another thing to take note about in the world of Dead or Alive, the series is a fashion victimâ??s paradise and a fashionphobeâ??s worst nightmare. There are probably a shopping mall full of clothes and costumes in the games, some of which are used to titillating effect, whilst some are straight out the nearest fancy dress store. Some of the characters have more than a dozen costume changes available to them, although they only become unlockable after completing certain aspects of the game â?“ whether this is enough of a draw for you to go back time and time again to the Story Mode is anyoneâ??s guess, but itâ??s a feature of the franchise none the less.

Letâ??s go back to the beginningâ?¦

DoA1 Ultimate is essentially the original Saturn version of yesteryear with all of the features that laid the foundations for the other releases in the franchise, the girls, their gravity defying breasts, the seemingly infinite number of costumes, and the smooth flow of combos, all in fact bar one â?“ the multi-tiered environments. Surprisingly enough it wasnâ??t until the release of DoA2 that the huge drops and falls would make their debt in the franchise and after playing DoA1, we have to say that their inclusion was one of the smartest features that Team Ninja (formally the Dead or Alive Team) could have done to develop the series.

One of the key differences between playing DoA1 and DoA2 is the control system, specifically the use of the d-pad and not the left analogue stick in DoA1 â?“ retro gaming at its very best. DoA1 Ultimate includes the following Modes, â??Arcadeâ?, â??Time Attackâ?, â??Survivalâ?, â??Kumiteâ?, and â??Training.â?

Sadly Old Father Time hasnâ??t been too kind to DoA1, and this isnâ??t because of the retro graphics (weâ??re BIG fans of retro gaming), but instead it just doesnâ??t flow as well as its successors. One of the attractions to purchasing DoA Ultimate has to be the fact that you get two game for the price one, â??bargainâ??, unfortunately the original does pale in comparison to DoA2; it just feels dated and to be honest, not that much fun anymore. For fans of the series who spent their early teen years playing the game in the arcades, great, but newbies to the original â?“ stick with the second disk in the box.

DoA2: Attack of the Clones

The subsequent production of the DoA follow-up can at best be described as â??stutteredâ?? with the game released on both the Dreamcast and PlayStation2. This time around Team Ninja have updated the character models and environments to bring them closer inline to the 2002 release of Dead or Alive 3. The team have also updated the locations and environments so that now they really do come to life; some of the locations such as the Serengeti styled plains are populated, albeit statically, with the appropriate wildlife including wall-substituting elephants and roaring lionsâ?¦and of course the multi-levelling returns with a vengeance.

As weâ??ve already said, the Story Mode in the DoA titles are somewhat negligible so donâ??t expect a Tolkien-esque narrative in either game; at the end of the day itâ??s a beat-em-up and itâ??s real strength are the number of modes that the games entail. Besides the Story Mode, the game also includes a Survival Mode (the clue is in the title), Team Battles, Time Attacks and Training modes so youâ??ll find plenty of variations on the â??kicking-your-opponent-into-submissionâ?? gameplay although at the same time thereâ??s nothing there that we havenâ??t been playing for the last decade.

When DoA2 was first released on the PlayStation2, one of the criticisms was the inclusion of badly voiced English language dialogue, and for those of you who were more than disgruntled at that, a word in your ear â?“ the Xbox version is subtitled in English so you can hear the original Japanese voiceovers (which has two advantages 1) itâ??s in Japanese which is cool, and 2) you canâ??t tell if theyâ??re overacting or not.

Compared to DoA1 Ultimate, this is sublime and not only resurrects the original DoA2 but arguably surpasses it. The control system is much more fluid in this version compared to the clunkiness of disk 1, with full analogue sensitivity as well as the controversial built in combos on the triggers. The game really takes advantage of the design of the Xbox controller, with both black and clear buttons integral to the gameplay.

Like the other titles in the DoA series, DoA2 is not quite as straight forward as just plain old button bashing. Instead, it has been compared to being the beat-em-up equivalent of the schoolyard game â??Paper, Scissors, Stoneâ?? due to counterattacks and reversals that defensive players can perform if timed frame perfect. Thatâ??s what makes this series stand out from the other fighting titles out there; in terms of being a more solid and well-rounded game there may not be better (apologies to Tekken // Street Fighter // Mortal Kombat fans.) Ok, so it may not have the storylines of Tekken, the heritage of Street Fighter, or the sheer Hollywood Schlock presence of Mortal Kombat, but what it does have is an attention grabbing, tension building, â??Try Againâ?? factor with numerous moves and combos that will keep you occupied for ages â?“ and that was when itâ??s played OFFLINE!

Dead or Live!

The addition of Xbox Live! functionality to both DoA1 and DoA2 is by far the key reason for buying this set. The robust and simple system that the developers have integrated into the interface is probably second only to Project Gotham Racing 2 â?“ still the closest to Live! perfection produced so far. To be honest itâ??s only when you play other Live! games that you realise how brilliantly implemented the system is in both DoA Ultimate and PGR2 (are you listening EA, itâ??s all about verbal communication and not Instant Messaging â?“ thatâ??s what ICQ is for.)

The game allows for up to eight players to come together and take part in a number of game types including â??winner-stays-onâ?, so just remember not to invite your friend for whom DoA is their raison dâ??etre because you will just get the beating of your very existence and youâ??ll experience yet any other round of Groundhog Days. Other Game Types include â??Survivalâ?, â??Loser Staysâ?, â??Kumiteâ?, â??Tournamentâ?, and â??Team Battle,â? all of which are pretty self-explanatory.

Besides the smooth lobby system, DoA has an Ace up itâ??s sleeve, which is that whilst two fighters are battling it out, the remaining six gamers become the boutâ??s audience with the limited ability to manipulate the cameraâ??s position by using the two analogue thumbsticks and offer their verbal support to the fighters. Ok, so itâ??s not exactly the biggest breakthrough in history of videogames, but think about it â?“ if you are spending a lot of your time in a queue waiting for your turn to beat the defendant, what would you prefer: watch the bout with ability to chat to the other lobbyists (if there are any), or just sit in the lobby with no idea as to the result of the fight?

What this all adds up to is the expansion and reinvigoration of what has become a stagnant genre; through this release, the fighting genre now transcends the limited one-on-one gameplay of previous titles and opens it up to a wider audience. The functionality that has been integrated into the Live! system in DoA has to be one of the genreâ??s milestones of the previous decade, ever since Virtua Fighter took it into the 3D world in 1994!