Dead or Alive 4
January 6,2006 - In recent years, the Dead or Alive franchise has been the rags-to-riches story in the fighting genre. What started out as a fan-oriented game that held little standing in competitive circles started building up legitimacy in 2004 with the appearance of Dead or Alive 3 at Tekken In Texas 6, and the subsequent release of Dead or Alive Ultimate, which many consider the true turning point of the series toward a more serious competitive existence. Ultimate even drew some consideration for Evolution 2005 this past summer, which never would have happened with any of the series' previous installments.

With DOA becoming a rising star in the Xbox camp, it came as no surprise at all when Dead or Alive 4 was listed among the first games to release for the system. What did come as shocking was a litany of delays that pushed the game off of the launch, and nearly into 2006. Team Ninja has had no trouble getting DOA games out in time for system launches before (see: PS2, Xbox), so this particular situation was rather foreign. Now, it's finally out, and to simply say it was worth the wait would not do the game justice.

Rather, Dead or Alive 4 is a huge point of improvement for the series, much like Tekken 3 and 4, SoulCalibur, and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike were for their respective franchises. The game carries a distinctly changed feel from the previous games, without losing any of the refinement it has developed in the past. To be precise, it's possible to have played the entire series up to this point, pick up DOA4, and say to yourself, “So, this is DOA. Nice to finally know.” It's the kind of game that can grant its series a new, but all-inclusive identity.

Let's start with the core gameplay mechanics. The game still holds its three-button control layout similar to the one found in Virtua Fighter, but there are defaulted macros as well. Also, the physics have been tightened up, making punches and kicks feel every bit as heavy and brutal as they should be. Gone are the days where it feels like you're punching and kicking away at a pillow (no matter how close to the truth some would argue that to be in DOA). The only problem with the control actually has to do with a feature, as there is no option to disable rumble anywhere in the game's settings. This can easily disturb fighting gamers who get distracted by uninitiated movement, and hopefully it will be fixed in a later update.

While the series has never had to worry about defined attack properties, DOA4 has a more complex system this time around. For starters, the wall system has greatly evolved, taking power and even trajectory of the initial wall hit into account. For example, if you take someone hard into the wall, they'll bounce back just as hard, making it possible to perform wall combos from a greater distance than before. However, if you hit your opponent into the wall at an angle, they'll bounce off at that angle, potentially knocking them further away (though they will still take damage on the wall hit).

The method of attacking a downed opponent, otherwise known as “okizeme”, has also been brought into the 21st century with DOA4, as the game has adopted a more Tekken/SoulCalibur-esque system that allows you to use your regular moveset for okizeme. This is as opposed to the VF/previous DOA system where knocking an opponent down gave you access to a handful of extra moves that served as the only ones you could use to continue your attack until the opponent got up. What this means for DOA is that characters such as Ein, Ryu, and Ayane will be highly effective this way, making them even more vicious to fight than they were. Remember, tech recovery is your friend. Especially now. Players who would lie prone and look for an opening to land the time-honored recovery kick now have one hell of a bad habit to break.

On to balancing and depth. This is the first DOA game where the movelists actually feel complete. There's still some progress that needs to be made in the more intricate aspects of the movelists (for example, some characters still don't have set attacks for rising situations!), but on the whole, it doesn't feel anywhere near as lacking in this regard as past DOA games did. This comes primarily to the benefit of characters like Brad Wong, who were so anemic in DOA3 that it repelled a lot of players who would otherwise be interested in learning someone new. The game is significantly better for it. Beyond that, the game was tweaked, rebalanced, and refined to within an inch of its life, which caused a few of the delays mentioned at the start of this review, and although it's no Virtua Fighter, DOA is still balanced and sound enough to be competitive. Even better, online updates will be available via Xbox Live, so expect any problems that do creep up to be addressed as time goes by.

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