Dead or Alive 4 (X360) Review for Xbox 360

High:

One of the best looking games out on the X360 to date, and the best Dead or Alive yet.

Low:

To be nit-picky it would have been nice to see more improvements to gameplay.

Team Ninja’s latest fighter sneaks in at the last minute. Originally scheduled for the Xbox 360 launch, Dead or Alive 4 has been one of the most eagerly anticipated Xbox 360 titles. Known for constantly setting a new bar on graphics (not to mention the scantily-clad, voluptuous female fighters), Dead or Alive 4 arrives on the Xbox 360 in fine form. It may not redefine the franchise, but it provides enough changes, nuances and eye candy to make it instantly recommendable.

Dead or Alive 4 includes a number of gameplay modes. The game’s main single-player mode is Story, which consists of 8 matches. The movies are pretty insightful and give you a bit more insight into the DOA world. Other modes include Time Attack, Survival, Team Battle, Versus, Sparring (in-depth training mode), and DOA Online. Some additional modes include Watch (where you can watch two AI fighters go at it), Watch Mode (where you can take shots and later view them in Album mode), Movie Theater (which allows you to view the ending movies), Battle Viewer (where you can watch saved matches), and Ranking (where you can see how you rank relative to other players). The game boasts 45 achievements for things like beating the game, playing for x amount of hours, beating x amount of players consecutively, and so forth.

The Dead or Alive series has been consistently criticized by hardcore gamers for its relatively simple gameplay. Relative, that is, to Virtua Fighter or Soul Calibur. Team Ninja has addressed this with Dead or Alive 4. Though the game is still plenty friendly to button mashers, you’ll find that the counter system has been changed to be less forgiving, forcing you to rethink strategies. You have a lot less time to execute a counter than you did in Dead or Alive 3 and they’re generally weaker than they were previously. Given the emphasis on counters in previous games, this change introduces additional nuances to the fighting engine, making for a multifaceted, more intricate gameplay experience.

The game boasts a large number of characters, just like fans expect. You’ll find 22 though only 16 are available from the start. These include favorites like Kasumi, Bass, Tina, Zack, and Bayman. Unlockable characters include Helena and Leon. You’ll also find three new characters: Lisa, Kokoro and Eliot. The game includes a bonus to Halo fans in the form of the unlockable SPARTAN-458 character. The character, not Halo’s Master Chief, is actually a female Spartan. She is a slower but definitely one of the stronger characters in the game. She even includes a combo that will make Halo fans glee, a four-punch attack that ends with a sticky grenade being forced into the enemy’s rib cage.

Some characters are still incredibly quick with lighting fast combos and moves keeping you on your feet, while others require a bit more time and rely more on throws and grabs. The more powerful characters are difficult to master, but once you do, you’ll be in a state of gaming bliss.

As I mentioned above, Dead or Alive 4 includes full online multiplayer. You’ll find Quick Match, Optimatch, Custom Match and World Rankings online. You can participate in tournaments, team battles, survival, loser stays (and winner stays), among others. As you fight, you’ll earn grades (to help set you up with a proper opponent) and Zack dollars, which you can use to outfit your characters, purchase and decorate your lobbies, and so forth. Technically, the fighting is smooth and responsive, with only one match providing any clue of lag. The game gives you an impressive amount of options when making a game, including how many players can join the lobby and allows you to reserve a number of spots for friends.

The game’s visuals are striking, and certainly worth the next-generation connotation. The characters in the Dead or Alive series have always been amazing. Dead or Alive 4 is no exception, with wonderfully modeled characters, with fluidly moving hair and clothes, and of course, the series’ defining breast physics. While the characters are amazing, they aren’t as huge of a leap as we would have wanted. You’ll notice some more detail, a little more muscle tone, but the somewhat plastic looking characters pale in comparison to the amazing, and breathtaking backdrops. That said they are superbly animated with nary a sign of collision detection issues.

The backdrops, as I mentioned before, are simply amazing. They are highly destructible, interactive, multi-tiered and simply beautiful. You’ll spot intricately modeled mountains, temples, and cities, with little details like leaves being blown around. You’ll find a great looking river flowing below you. Aside from looking great, they are also littered with interactive elements whether it’s the cars in Vegas, the pterodactyl in the Experimental Playground, or the cheetah in Savannah Safari. All of these will be running around and can hurt your character if you aren’t careful. How’s that for an environmental hazard? Best of all, the Xbox 360 allows this game to run at a full 60 frames per second with absolutely no slowdown. Additionally, the game has incredibly quick load times – we timed them to about four seconds. Oh yea, it looks good in 480i, too.

The audio in Dead or Alive 4 is equally impressive. The game has superb separation of sound, if you’re playing on a nice set of 5.1 speakers. The background music consists of some nice rock tunes with plenty of guitars. This sets the stage for strong and crisp sound effects. The ambient sounds in the different levels are superb, as well. If the included music isn’t your thing, you can always customize the soundtrack.

Dead or Alive 4, ultimately, does not radically change the franchise. It does, however, provide enough changes to make the fighting even quicker, even more complex, and subtler than it was before. A stupendous online mode and a boastful display of graphical prowess complete the package. Dead or Alive 4 is the most complete and most enjoyable fighting game in the series.