REVIEW: Dead or Alive 4

The latest installment in the Dead or Alive franchise attempts to uphold the “hardcore” label of its developer, Team Ninja. But after playing through this game, I have to say that I’m disappointed: hardcore game design should mean something better.

The concept for the game was good. Take one of the coolest, most badass (and most revealing) fighters and update it for the new generation. Team Ninja did this by adding full online features, more complex fighting mechanics, new fighters and levels (including a Spartan!), and of course a fresh paint job.

But somewhere along the way, the developers let their notion of “hardcore” ruin the game, bringing what could have been a fantastic game down into the realm of average. The big offender here is the rage-inducing difficulty. Rather than craft a game that challenges the player, Team Ninja made a game that knees you in the nuts, repeatedly, and then slams your dick in a door.

I consider myself a hardcore gamer, and I love a challenging game—the original Fire Emblem for GameBoy is one of my favorite handheld titles ever, despite its difficulty. But there is a difference between a well-designed challenge, and a totally-cheap chore of frustration. Dead or Alive 4 is the lattter.

Enemy characters can block anything you do, they can (and do) perform counters whenever they feel like it, and they can chain throws together to deplete your entire life gauge without you having a chance to retaliate. In Story mode, your attacks seem to do less damage than usual, while your opponents are unnaturally fast and st rong. And the final boss is the worst piece of f#%$@ cheapness I’ve ever seen in a game, with the ability to teleport at will, leap across the level in a single bound, and slam you endlessly into the damage-dealing walls and floors. Unfortunately, these are the modes you have to beat to unlock new characters and costumes. But once you’ve unlocked everything, you can leave the travesties behind and move onto better parts of the game.

The online modes are a mix of good and bad. Having the ability to battle your friends or the general public online adds greatly to the replay value, and means that more devoted players have a way to hone their skills. But the game’s depth, rapid pace, and abundance of air juggling and combos mean that casual players will quickly get pummeled. Which feels more frustrating when you have to wait your turn to even play a match, because the online mode simmulates an arcade by putting a number of players together in a room, the winner taking on the waiting players one by one. A faster matchmaking system, and one that takes player skill into account, would have been appreciated.

The game also features an extensive lobby and avatar system, with reward points and unlockable costumes for the avatar. But the entire setup seemed pointless, and only made the process of going online more confusing and time-consuming. The cutesy look of the lobbies & avatars also seemed inconsistent with the hardcore image of the game.

The best way to play the game, by far, is against a friend. Whether on the couch or over the net, this is where the game can finally be balanced, and you can finally appreciate all of the good things that the game has to offer. Which is quite a bit, despite the afore-mentioned problems.

The game features 22 playable characters, and while a couple of them are boring or look cloned (Ein & Hayate aren’t twins?), the majority of players are unique, interesting, and fun to play. New characters Elliot and La Mariposa were two of my favorites, alongside series veterans like Ryu and Hayate. And one of the game’s best selling points comes only after you’ve beaten it: a playable Spartan soldier. If the Halo fans aren’t already drooling, they should be: the female Spartan kicks major ass, and is my favorite character by far.

The levels of the game are also one of its strong-points, despite a few complaints. All the levels are interactive, featuring multiple-tiers or floors, breakable objects, and danger spots like electrical fences. The graphical detail of the levels is impressive, with sweeping backdrops, cheering fans, and many vibrant locales like a nighttime casino and a sunny street market. Unfortunately, these settings often have nothing to do with one another, or with any of the characters or plot. Levels like the dinosaur-filled jungle and the wild African savannah seem so out of place and random that they sometimes distract from the fighting.

Which is only part of an overarching problem in the game: its lack of cohesion and immersion. The game’s attempt at a plot is lame and confusing, and when combined with the randomness and frustrating moments you won’t play for very long stretches. The lack of any character progression or motivation prevents you from investing in the characters, and the cluttered and clumsy menus don’t help.

Another problem area for DoA 4 is its sound design. All of the characters speak in Japanese only, so if you want to understand what’s going on you will need to use subtitles. Although, you might want to turn them back off, as the poor translations result in clumsy and cliched dialogue. The untillegible rantings of your characters can get annoying. I see only two possible reasons for this omission: the developers were too lazy or they thought that leaving the audio in Japanese made it more “hardcore.” I’m not sure which reason is worse, laziness or stupidity. The music in the game is alright, but its too uninspired and generic to make up for the voice work. The sound effects are the best part of the audio, with ambient level noise and crisp combat sounds.

The graphics, of course, are fantastic. Those who know the game’s reputation may be surprised that I did not mention these yet, or that I neglected to mention the abundance of CG breasts. Yes, the game is chock-full of busty women, most of whom dress like they are auditioning for a Victoria’s Secret commercial, not competing in a fighting tournament. But its not just the ladies that look great, the attention to detail in all of the character models and levels is impressive. The Spartan’s shiny armor looks as good as Master Chief’s in Halo 3, and the gorgeous environments look ahead of their time for a 2005 game.

It’s a shame that all of these great components are balanced by problems, because the issues seem so easy to fix. With better balance, a ranked matchmaking system and English voice-overs, I probably would have given the game as high as a 90. If you can tough it out through the single player, and don’t mind the Japanese, there’s a fun game in here. Just make sure you know what you’re getting into.

Spartan Redemption

Last time I posted, I was getting pretty frustrated with Dead or Alive 4. And I ended the post by saying that the game had better do something to redeem itself, or I'd be selling it back.

Trust Halo to save the day: I think I'm keeping the game now.

I finally finished the Story mode with all of the standard characters (which got supremely frustrating at times) but the reward is pretty awesome: a playable Spartan soldier. It looks just like Master Chief, but they say its a female soldier named "Nicole." It looks pretty badass, with its shiny Mjolnir armor, and it plays just as well.The Spartan is huge, towering over the other characters, and its punishing punches and kicks befit the size. It's also fairly fast, and has a combination of attacks that worked pretty well on that uber-cheap final boss (which was a huge relief for me). Check out the pic of her in her red armor beating the snot out of some chick.

But one cool character wouldn't be enough to redeem the game, if the rest of the game was as frustrating as the story mode. But I also tried out the offline multiplayer with my brother, and found the game can be a ton of fun when its balanced. We played vs. mode for quite a while, trying out the various characters against one another. One of our favorites was the new girl for DoA 4, La Mariposa. She's a masked wrestler, a very sexy masked wrestler.

Then we tried out doubles vs mode, which was even better. Pick your favorite two guys, and switch one out when its hurt so it can slowly heal while the other guy fights. It adds a fun balancing and planning aspect to the matches.

I also started playing Survivor mode, mostly doubles, which seems far less cheap than the Story mode. Using the doubles mode you can rest up one character while the other gets a couple of kills, then switch back. It's a nice strategy, and I managed to do pretty well in it.

So the game is saved from the chopping block, thanks to Spartans, Survivor Mode, and balanced & entertaining multiplayer. A full review will be coming shortly.

- Scott

Hardcore = Bad?

I started playing Dead or Alive 4 yesterday, and I've been pretty disappointed so far. For a game that is so well known and got positive reviews, I am shocked at how frustratingly difficult and poorly designed it is.

Most of you probably know Team Ninja's reputation as a "hardcore" game developer. Their leader, Itagaki, is famous for his arrogance and his skill at designing games. He and his team make it quite clear that they think their products are the best, and that their games are not meant for kids or "casual" gamers. But since when did being a "hardcore" game mean that the game had to suck?

The first thing I noticed, and the first thing I tried to change, is that their is no English dialogue in the game. At all. The characters all speak in Japanese, and their is no other language choice or option to turn off the voices. I have nothing against Japan, but when you're playing a game all day and all you hear is some gibberish that you don't understand, it gets annoying. Is this part of their hardcore plan, that they refuse to translate the game from its original language?

Because if so, its a stupid plan. The translations on the subtitles are awful, which only makes it worse, as everything is either confusing or painfully cliched.Then there is the gameplay itself. The fighting started out pretty smooth, and coupled with the excellent graphics I was enjoying myself. Until I got about halfway through the story mode (which is a series of 8 opponents), and I reached the incredibly cheap and frustrating enemy AI. The game purposely takes it easy on you for the first few matches, but after that, its all over.

The AI enemies can counter anything you do, making it impossible to pull of long combos. They can also interupt any of your attacks with throws, which they can then chain together. They can also spin around you while attacking, something I don't think human players can do. They also do far more damage in Story Mode than they otherwise would, while you do less damage than you should. Which all makes for a completely unfair experience, that is ridiculously frustrating. I almost threw my controller through our 4-foot HD TV. And I love that TV.

I managed to get to the last fight, the final boss, through a combination of some skill, a lot of luck, and the unbeatable AI getting bored of beating me. I wish I hadn't reached the boss though: the frustration got worse, way worse. The boss can teleport at will, while running, attacking or defending, making it nearly impossible to even hit it. It ALWAYS teleports away when it is near a wall, so you can never hit it into something to do extra damage. It can also leap across the arena in a single bound to tackle you into a wall, killing you. A single throw takes away half of your HP, or more if you hit a wall. Suffice it to say, I have NEVER fought a boss as difficult, cheap, or frustrating as Alpha-152.

So... the game is looking pretty bad so far. I also looked up some of the achievements, and saw that this is one of the hardest games on all of 360 to get achievements for, which is just fantastic. Something in this game better redeem the Story Mode, or this will be the 1st Xbox 360 game I trade away.

- Scott

Activision Threatens the PS3

I just read a news brief over at GameInformer.com, that said that Activision "might have to stop supporting Sony." Nothing has been decided as of now, and they won't pull support for games coming out this year, but its not good news for the Playstation crew.

Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick was the source of the comments. With the words coming from the highest echelons of the company, you know these rumors are serious. He said that the PS3 is very costly to develop for, and that they just aren't getting a big enough return on their investments. The 360 and Wii, he said, make for much higher profits, and it sounds like they are easier to develop for.

This is certainly not the start of problems for Sony, and it won't be the end either. The PS3 has consistently sold worse than XBox 360 and Wii since its launch, so the installed base of PS3 users is far smaller than for the other systems. Which in turn means that fewer copies of software are sold for the system, the problem for Kotick and Activision.

If Activision does pull out, Sony will be losing some big franchises and some top developers. The biggest losses will no doubt be the Call of Duty franchise and the Guitar Hero franchise, both of which sell millions of copies every year. But PS3 will also lose the Tony Hawk series, the James Bond games from Treyarch, and the talents of Raven Software (Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Wolfenstein, Singularity) and Radical Entertainment (Prototype) among others.

As a 360 owner, I have to say I have mixed feelings about this news. When I hear bad news about PS3, it always makes me feel somewhat validated, that I made the right choice when buying my console. But I also feel bad for all those PS3 owners that wouldn't be getting the quality games they love. As a fan of gaming in general, I think it'd be bad to lose out on these versions.

But I'm skeptical that this split will every actually happen. Activision may not get as high a return on PS3 versions, but they do still get a return on their big franchises, like Call of Duty. At the most, I think they might not do Sony releases for the smaller, lesser-known titles.

And there's the possibility that PS3 will start selling better, so they won't need to worry about failing Activision. With God of War 3 coming out this year, I expect sales will see another spike. I doubt they will ever catch up to 360, but Kratos will help.

Either way, PS3 needs to pick up the pace. The "10-year cycle" only works if developers keep supporting the systems.

- Scott

Racing Games Have Evolved

I'm not a huge fan when it comes to racing games. I own a couple racers for all of my systems, but the type of racing games I have aren't typical. I'm the guy who plays F-Zero, Mario Kart, Podracing, that kind of thing. The old arcade racing games didn't keep my interest.

The last racing game that I owned that featured plain old cars was Cruisin USA for 64, and I have to say I found it boring. So I passed up most of the racing games during the GameCube generation, and hadn't played any yet on the new-gen systems.

But I just finished the career mode on Need for Speed Carbon, and having finally played an updated racer, I feel like a changed man. I won't say that NFS Carbon is perfect, it has its share of problems. But I was expecting a halfway decent game that would hold my attention for maybe 2-3 hours. I bought it for the multiplayer. But after spending about 40-50 hours with the game, most of that in single player, I have to admit that Carbon is a great game.

I'll post a review soon with the full run-down, but these are the new features that impressed me most. First of all, the career. The game actually featured a "Fast and Furious" style story, and though it won't win any awards for best video game story, it was enough that I always wanted to keep playing, to uncover the next bit of story.

The gameplay centered around winning races in specific areas of the city, so that I could "steal control" of those areas away from the local racing gangs. It was a nice approach, in that I knew how much I still had to do, I had a logical reason for having all of these races, and I had the conquering mentality to keep me motivated. It'd be late at night, but I'd always want to beat just 1 more race, to take over 1 more territory. And to give some freedom to the game, I was allowed to conquer most of the races in whatever order I wanted (within an area at least). If I didn't feel like drifting that night, I could just do all of the circuit races, and drift later.

That's another great aspect of the game: the many types of racing it offers. There are the standard circuit races, sprints, and checkpoints, like any racing game. But I had never tried drifting before, so that was a blast (after I figured out the rules & stopped embarrassing myself). It also featured a Speedtrap mode, where your score was based on your speed at certain checkpoints. And it featured the Canyon Duels, which were the most frustrating or the most entertaining, depending on the race (more on those later).
The Free Roam mode also surprised me. I hadn't expected the game to be an open-world sandbox, and while you couldn't get out of the car, you could drive all over the entire city, cause trouble, and start huge crazy cop chases. It felt a little like GTA-lite, and I mean that as a compliment. Too bad the achievements for the cop chases are so hard to get.

And finally, I was wowed by the massive range of options for customizing my cars. I know I'm behind the curve on this one, and I knew that all racing games nowdays featured customization, but I never dreamed of how much. I've unlocked about a dozen styles of paint, which come in thousands of colors and shades, for hundreds of aftermarket modifcations, and a limitless combination of vinyls and designs. The performance tuning is probably more realistic in simulation racers, like Gran Turismo, but the visual-tweaking in this game kept me giddily happy, and made me very attached to my little tuners and exotics.

So racers have definitely matured since I last gave them a shot. Even though I'm playing a 3-year old game, I am thoroughly impressed by it. I guess I found a new genre to get sucked into. Now if only the new games would still feature offline multiplayer...

- Scott