Tecmo's online magnum opus.
User Rating: 9.1 | Dead or Alive Ultimate XBOX
DOA Ultimate While team ninja’s efforts have been focused on mainly making yet another version of Ninja Gaiden and perfecting the next generation of breast physics. Dead or Alive ultimate will remind you why you put so much stock in Tecmo’s brand of fast past fighting. While not so much as a completely new game, since this is pretty much DOA 2, the new online features and unlockables should keep your hands stuck to the controller for quite some time and just in case your wondering, your hands will be stuck because the sweat that will accumulate on them, not because of the sticky stuff you get on them when you unlock some of the bikini costumes. I would normally start with my review with the story, but the story in this game is so incoherent and dilapidated, that even the most hardcore of RPG enthusiasts and final fantasy 7 fan boys wouldn’t want to figure it out. So I’ll just get to the meat of the game, the fighting. The action in this addition is mostly the same as three minus some of the visual flair. You got your standard punches and kicks, and damage is mostly relied upon stringing together combo’s by using juggling attacks. Counters come in the form of timing a counter animation with the same direction of an attack. The combat is fairly fast pace and each character has a fairly meaty combo list, also with some unique taunts and counters found with some characters. The game features a healthy dose of modes including time attack, tag mode, story mode, survival, and a few others. The main draw of the game comes from the online play. Online play comes swinging smoothly even if it has a few minor hiccups. You can play with up to sixteen players in a room and use any of the game modes found in the single player portion of the game. I would of liked to see some two on two match ups with the tag mode online, but unfortunately this is limited to one on one match where both players control their tag team. Players are given a rating given if they win or lose a match. These ratings range from F minus to SS, points are accumulated with wins and when they hit a certain point the rating will go up. Consequently beating someone with a higher rating will give you more points and vice versa. This system is effective in allowing you to track your own stats and other players stats, so you can see what your up against since you can fight anyone regardless of rank. My only problem is some inconsistent frame rate issues and lag that comes with online play, it’s by no means a deal breaker. Graphics are great as always, but they are noticeably weaker than DOA 3’s graphics. Animations are nice and smooth and the characters and environments sport a great amount of detail. The only thing missing is the soft lighting effects and depth found with DOA3’s environments. Solid but not quite perfect, minor frame rate issues and clipping errors keep this game for ascertaining graphic nirvana. The sound is nothing special and character voices are kept with their original Japanese dub with the English subtitles for us Japanese illiterate. The music is your standard techno that you probably forget within the fist five minutes of beating down some chumps online. With literally a couple hundred of costumes to unlock, you’ll probably get more than your moneys worth with this title, I know I did. The graphics and game play is solid, the online is awesome, and there is enough sexy women walking around to make a monk feel a little tingly. If you like your fighters and you like them fast, then you can look no further for Ultimate to complete your needs.
