What's a console without a good fighting game? Apparently in Japan, a console not too many people want. Here in the US, we love a good fighting game too, especially one with some of the sexiest fighters around. The highly anticipated and most sought after xbox360 title "Dead or Alive 4" created by Team Ninja finally shipped in late December, just a little late to put under the Christmas tree.
When I brought the game home I only had 15 minutes to check out the game before I had to go off and do real life duties. So, without reading anything about how to play the game or check out any of the button combos to do cool moves, I chose the Ninja character and went directly into story mode. My method for fighting at this point in time, random button mashing. I immediately got my ass handed to me over and over again. The AI character was blocking everything, counter attacking, and then doing these horrid 20 hit combos I couldn't block. My kids were laughing at me and mocking me. I was quickly humiliated and realized the great button mashing strategy of past fighting games was not going to work on this game.
The game has several playing modes: Story, Time Attack, Survival, Versus, Online, and Sparring.
Story Mode: You'll choose one of 15 characters and go through 8 stages of battles. Each stage gets more difficult, requiring you to do more blocking and counter attacks in order to survive. Stage 8 is of course the most difficult, especially if it is against Alpha-128 (the green bitch, more on her later). Completing some of the story modes with certain characters unlocks other characters. The Spartan character is unlocked by completing the story mode with Helena, who is also unlocked by completing story mode with the other 15 characters. You can also unlock costumes for certain characters by completing the story mode several times. Some characters have 8 costumes while others have 4. Check out Gamespot's TIPS for more information on unlockables.
Time Attack: Choose your character and do battle with 8 different characters, one at a time, and beat them as fast as you can. Your best time is updated on LIVE so you know where you stand with the rest of the world. Completing Time Attack with all characters unlocks the final character in the game, Tengu. Some of the other unlockable characters get their extra costumes by completing Time Attack. There is also a Tag Team Time Attack which is very cool. You pick 2 characters to do battle through 5 stages as fast as possible. You can switch out characters as long as you are not being attacked. You can also do some bad ass tag team attacks where both of your characters are beating the crap out of your single opponent when you tag your partner in.
Survival: Pick a character and fight as long as you can. Defeating an opponent brings in a new opponent and replenishes some of your health. Some of the achievements on this stage are insane, like 100 Wins. That's 100 Wins in a row, only 2 people in the world have done that so far. There is also a Tag Team Survival mode.
Versus: You vs. the computer or a friend (not online friend). Fight to practice vs. the computer, or fight for bragging rights against your friend. Or have your kid beat the crap out of you and laugh while they tell the story of how they countered you, threw you in the air, slammed you to the ground, and then did a 10 hit combo to KO you. Good times…
Sparring: This is the practice mode. You can learn your characters commands by looking them up via the command list in the game, or you can go into exercise mode which will present you with a command you must execute to proceed to the next command. You can also have the computer opponent do certain moves repeatedly so you can practice blocking or countering the move. This is a great teaching tool since past fighter games I've played only had the character stand there while you pummeled them. Please note you should never publicly admit that the AI in Sparring mode beat your ass.
Online: Play on LIVE vs. other people in the world or your friends. Your Win/Loss record determines your skill level which helps you pick out even matches. The lowest rank is F while the highest is SS. Everyone starts out as a C. Losing a battle to a higher ranked person doesn't hurt your ranking as much as losing to a lower ranked person. You can always view a person's rank in the lobby and if you think they are too skilled for you, you can go find another game. There are different types of games for online play. There is Winner Stays, which is just like being at an arcade, you keep winning, and you keep fighting. There is also Loser Stays, self explanatory, loser stays. There is a Tournament mode where teams are chosen and you fight until you are defeated. Once defeated, your next teammate enters the ring. The team with the last fighter standing wins. Tag Team is also available and probably the most fun. You and your partner vs. 2 other players, your partner tags himself in when he sees you're in trouble or he feels he has the better match up. Teamwork is required on this one. Another mode is Kumite. In this game type, the host stays and fights no matter if he wins or losses. Great for if you just want to fight a bunch of people and not have to wait in line all the time.
It's a good idea to spend some time in single player mode to get the feel of the game and how each character fights. You might find the AI quite difficult to defeat at first, so you'll venture into the settings menu and try to set the AI to Easy. Well, you'll be disappointed as there is only Normal, Hard, and Very Hard. You'd have to like licking electrical outlets to ever set this game to Very Hard. After a few fights you will come to the conclusion that the AI is a cheap shot cheating son of a bitch. And when you think it couldn't get any worse, you'll fight Alpha-128 for the first time. She'll either pummel you with non stop combos and an attack move that takes over half your health and end the round in less than 10 seconds, or you'll beat her to an inch of her life only to have here do a 20 hit combo on you, then grab you and put one of her deadly finishing moves on you to end the round. I honestly don't know why Team Ninja wouldn't make an easy mode for the casual player. The normal mode just gets insane in later rounds and can be extremely frustrating when you've got a character beaten only to have them counter and start a combo spree that you can't block or get out of.
Now that you've given up on the game and are pissed to high heaven, time to go online and give that a try. This is where the game fun factor comes in. Playing against other people is much better than playing against that cheating ass AI. Team Ninja did away with the boring meeting lobbies found in other LIVE games and made an interactive lobby. You're given an avatar that you can move around in the lobby. You're free to talk or type chat with people, and there is even a big screen TV to watch the current fight on without actually joining the game. You can upgrade your avatar in Zach's shop with Zach points which are earned by winning multiplayer matches. Since there are quite a few 2old2play people that play DOA4, there is no shortage of people you can have fun with. The skill level among everyone is fairly even. Venturing off into no mans land and having random matches with other LIVE members hasn't been all that bad either. You run into a couple of jerks sometimes, but you can leave the lobby without it hurting your ranking. The only time your rank is hurt is if you leave in the middle of the match, but with matches lasting only seconds, it's not an issue to deal with the person for that long and leave, then give him some bad rep and mark him as do not play with. We've recently discovered tag team matches, and that is a blast playing with 2ol2play members.
A big key to winning is learning how to counter. Even if you can do this a couple of times in a match, it will change the outcome. It's a bit of a guessing game, but when you play someone for a while, you'll notice a trend in their combos and can pull off a counter. Also, button mashing works to a point online, but you have to learn how to counter.
Ok, I guess I'll talk about graphics. Graphics are incredible, everything looks awesome. You are rewarded with a movie after completing story mode with a character and those movies are well done and in some cases funny. The maps are all good looking and you aren't really restricted to an arena, unless you are in an arena. For example, there is a market place map where you can be knocked over a fence into a dining area, or over the wall and onto the beach. It's always fun to beat your opponent up against the apple cart and watch the apples roll down the sidewalk. There is a blossom tree map where you can be knocked over a fence into another area or over the bridge and fight in the water. One of my favorite maps is the Las Vegas like street fight. Here you have to dodge oncoming traffic, or throw your opponent into oncoming traffic. It is rumored if you are the Spartan character on this map a warthog full of drunken soldiers will come screaming down the road. I haven't seen this yet. You'll also notice the well done reflections off of water, especially on this map where the street is wet and has some puddles. The Halo map gives you a taste of what Halo 3 might look like, and let me say it is awesome.
Sound is average, nothing incredible and nothing incredible is needed.
Overall, if you like fighting games, even just a little bit, this is a must have title for the xbox360. The single player can be a bit hard for the casual player, but the online aspect of the game more than makes up for the difficult AI in single player. You'll find plenty of help in the DAO4 forums of the site and from fellow 2old2play players on the site.
For more information about the game check out: Xbox.com DAO4 site
The game has several playing modes: Story, Time Attack, Survival, Versus, Online, and Sparring.
Story Mode: You'll choose one of 15 characters and go through 8 stages of battles. Each stage gets more difficult, requiring you to do more blocking and counter attacks in order to survive. Stage 8 is of course the most difficult, especially if it is against Alpha-128 (the green bitch, more on her later). Completing some of the story modes with certain characters unlocks other characters. The Spartan character is unlocked by completing the story mode with Helena, who is also unlocked by completing story mode with the other 15 characters. You can also unlock costumes for certain characters by completing the story mode several times. Some characters have 8 costumes while others have 4. Check out Gamespot's TIPS for more information on unlockables.
Time Attack: Choose your character and do battle with 8 different characters, one at a time, and beat them as fast as you can. Your best time is updated on LIVE so you know where you stand with the rest of the world. Completing Time Attack with all characters unlocks the final character in the game, Tengu. Some of the other unlockable characters get their extra costumes by completing Time Attack. There is also a Tag Team Time Attack which is very cool. You pick 2 characters to do battle through 5 stages as fast as possible. You can switch out characters as long as you are not being attacked. You can also do some bad ass tag team attacks where both of your characters are beating the crap out of your single opponent when you tag your partner in.
Survival: Pick a character and fight as long as you can. Defeating an opponent brings in a new opponent and replenishes some of your health. Some of the achievements on this stage are insane, like 100 Wins. That's 100 Wins in a row, only 2 people in the world have done that so far. There is also a Tag Team Survival mode.
Versus: You vs. the computer or a friend (not online friend). Fight to practice vs. the computer, or fight for bragging rights against your friend. Or have your kid beat the crap out of you and laugh while they tell the story of how they countered you, threw you in the air, slammed you to the ground, and then did a 10 hit combo to KO you. Good times…
Sparring: This is the practice mode. You can learn your characters commands by looking them up via the command list in the game, or you can go into exercise mode which will present you with a command you must execute to proceed to the next command. You can also have the computer opponent do certain moves repeatedly so you can practice blocking or countering the move. This is a great teaching tool since past fighter games I've played only had the character stand there while you pummeled them. Please note you should never publicly admit that the AI in Sparring mode beat your ass.
Online: Play on LIVE vs. other people in the world or your friends. Your Win/Loss record determines your skill level which helps you pick out even matches. The lowest rank is F while the highest is SS. Everyone starts out as a C. Losing a battle to a higher ranked person doesn't hurt your ranking as much as losing to a lower ranked person. You can always view a person's rank in the lobby and if you think they are too skilled for you, you can go find another game. There are different types of games for online play. There is Winner Stays, which is just like being at an arcade, you keep winning, and you keep fighting. There is also Loser Stays, self explanatory, loser stays. There is a Tournament mode where teams are chosen and you fight until you are defeated. Once defeated, your next teammate enters the ring. The team with the last fighter standing wins. Tag Team is also available and probably the most fun. You and your partner vs. 2 other players, your partner tags himself in when he sees you're in trouble or he feels he has the better match up. Teamwork is required on this one. Another mode is Kumite. In this game type, the host stays and fights no matter if he wins or losses. Great for if you just want to fight a bunch of people and not have to wait in line all the time.
It's a good idea to spend some time in single player mode to get the feel of the game and how each character fights. You might find the AI quite difficult to defeat at first, so you'll venture into the settings menu and try to set the AI to Easy. Well, you'll be disappointed as there is only Normal, Hard, and Very Hard. You'd have to like licking electrical outlets to ever set this game to Very Hard. After a few fights you will come to the conclusion that the AI is a cheap shot cheating son of a bitch. And when you think it couldn't get any worse, you'll fight Alpha-128 for the first time. She'll either pummel you with non stop combos and an attack move that takes over half your health and end the round in less than 10 seconds, or you'll beat her to an inch of her life only to have here do a 20 hit combo on you, then grab you and put one of her deadly finishing moves on you to end the round. I honestly don't know why Team Ninja wouldn't make an easy mode for the casual player. The normal mode just gets insane in later rounds and can be extremely frustrating when you've got a character beaten only to have them counter and start a combo spree that you can't block or get out of.
Now that you've given up on the game and are pissed to high heaven, time to go online and give that a try. This is where the game fun factor comes in. Playing against other people is much better than playing against that cheating ass AI. Team Ninja did away with the boring meeting lobbies found in other LIVE games and made an interactive lobby. You're given an avatar that you can move around in the lobby. You're free to talk or type chat with people, and there is even a big screen TV to watch the current fight on without actually joining the game. You can upgrade your avatar in Zach's shop with Zach points which are earned by winning multiplayer matches. Since there are quite a few 2old2play people that play DOA4, there is no shortage of people you can have fun with. The skill level among everyone is fairly even. Venturing off into no mans land and having random matches with other LIVE members hasn't been all that bad either. You run into a couple of jerks sometimes, but you can leave the lobby without it hurting your ranking. The only time your rank is hurt is if you leave in the middle of the match, but with matches lasting only seconds, it's not an issue to deal with the person for that long and leave, then give him some bad rep and mark him as do not play with. We've recently discovered tag team matches, and that is a blast playing with 2ol2play members.
A big key to winning is learning how to counter. Even if you can do this a couple of times in a match, it will change the outcome. It's a bit of a guessing game, but when you play someone for a while, you'll notice a trend in their combos and can pull off a counter. Also, button mashing works to a point online, but you have to learn how to counter.
Ok, I guess I'll talk about graphics. Graphics are incredible, everything looks awesome. You are rewarded with a movie after completing story mode with a character and those movies are well done and in some cases funny. The maps are all good looking and you aren't really restricted to an arena, unless you are in an arena. For example, there is a market place map where you can be knocked over a fence into a dining area, or over the wall and onto the beach. It's always fun to beat your opponent up against the apple cart and watch the apples roll down the sidewalk. There is a blossom tree map where you can be knocked over a fence into another area or over the bridge and fight in the water. One of my favorite maps is the Las Vegas like street fight. Here you have to dodge oncoming traffic, or throw your opponent into oncoming traffic. It is rumored if you are the Spartan character on this map a warthog full of drunken soldiers will come screaming down the road. I haven't seen this yet. You'll also notice the well done reflections off of water, especially on this map where the street is wet and has some puddles. The Halo map gives you a taste of what Halo 3 might look like, and let me say it is awesome.
Sound is average, nothing incredible and nothing incredible is needed.
Overall, if you like fighting games, even just a little bit, this is a must have title for the xbox360. The single player can be a bit hard for the casual player, but the online aspect of the game more than makes up for the difficult AI in single player. You'll find plenty of help in the DAO4 forums of the site and from fellow 2old2play players on the site.
For more information about the game check out: Xbox.com DAO4 site
