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Dead or Alive 3 |
by Sebastian
11/28/2001 |
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The guys who created the kick ass fighting game Dead or Alive, and Dead or alive 2, are back at it again with DOA3. Coming into Dead or Alive 3 with super high expectations, I was sorta dissappointed with the end result of Tecmo's latest fighter. This is not to say that DOA3 is not a great fighting game, but it didn't live up to the ambitious task of the greatest fighter of all time. The graphics are rock solid, but the gameplay falters in some areas.
The creators of DOA3 worked their asses off to make this figher as beautiful as possible using the Xbox's increcible hardware, and the graphics engine shows off their back breaking work. The game is beautiful. Running at 60 frames per second, you'll never see this game hiccup, or slow down in any instant of mad fighting. But the 60 fps isn't anything compared to the crazy amounts of polygons on the characters and stages.
I've never seen a fighter sport so many polys on a single character before. Your fighter is also very well detailed, especially the hair, and the clothing on their backs that flows while you move. The clothing on the characters is also textured very nicely. I've never seen jeans in a fighting game that looked like real jeans, but watching hitomi throw a few kicks into your face, and you see how realistic her blue jeans look. Even the fading of the jeans looks very, very realistic. Oh, there is another slight feature that many people will miss if you don't look closely--the characters' faces actually respond to the pain they have been inflicted. Chracters actually shut their eyes when they are knocked down! Amazing!
The stages in which the characters battle it out are also amazingly realistic. Every level oozes with prettiness. The beach level has to be the most amazing level created in a fighting game. The horizon stretches forever, and the realistic water effects almost force you to put down the controller, and just stare at the scenary. The palm trees sway realistically in the wind, and their shadows are cast on the bumpy beach. There are enormous stages, like the "lost world" stage, where you can knock your opponent over cliff after cliff. Other stages, like the snow stage, and forest stage, show off the amazing computational power of the Xbox by tracking objects, such as moving snow, and falling leaves, without so much as a stutter in the framerate. Overall, this is the cleanest, most beautiful fighting game you can get in the market.
The gameplay aspect of DOA3 is a very different story from the perfect graphics. Let me start out by saying though that the survial, and tag team battle modes are great for spending some quality time with DOA3. That's where the gameplay shines in. Although survial mode wasn't invented by DOA3, the cool feature of being able to rack up bigger points by hitting your opponents against electrified walls give a greater depth than your average survival mode in any other fighting game. Another neat aspect of DOA3 is that your foes actually "learn" from your past moves in survival mode, thereby making the game much more difficult as you progress. Tag team mode is great for getting to know all of the characters in DOA3 by trying to pair up the best tag team to fight it out against the computer, or your friend. You can also have a friend tag battle with you, allowing the both of you to go against the AI and see who's best. The given "versus mode" is included in DOA3, as well as the "time attack" mode, where you try to beat the game in the fastest time with your character.
The real stinker of DOA3 is the awful story mode. It's a safe bet to say that the story mode hurts DOA3 so much that it's impossible to ever put this game for "best fighter" contention. It's not so much that the character development sucks in DOA3, because most every fighting game's story sucks, but the lack of depth really stunts the game. After popping in DOA3, and going into the settings menu, adjusting the difficulty level of the game to the hardest mode, I thought I was going to be in tough battles to actually flip the game with my chosen character. It turns out that wasn't the case! I went through the opponents I was faced with like a butterknife on, well, butter!
The opponents don't provide much of a challenge, even though they do have advanced AI, it just doesn't seem like it in "story mode". To make it worse, you only get one battle with the foe, so beating them once will automatically send you to the next character. That seeemed really lame because it didn't allow for the AI to "train" itself to your moves in the last round. If they would have just extended the battles to two rounds, instead of one, the game would have been much more difficult because they would have given the AI a fighting chance. (pun very much intended). To make matters worse, once you smash all your foes into submission, you face the boss of the game. Yes, the boss had me trembling every time I met him with a different character, but not because he had good tactics.
I guess the developers of DOA3 decided to make the game a bit "harder" by giving you a boss who fights so cheap you feel like punching your tv to bits! The final boss doesn't even require skill to defeat him. To defeat him, you need a huge helping of luck, because he uses such dirty tactics that if you don't have luck in your side, you'll never win. The final boss, Omega, uses long range tactics to keep you far from him, thus limiting you from inflicting damage on him while he beats your ass into a bloody, pissed off, pulp! He uses a flame thrower type of sweeping move that knock you off instantly if you get caught. He also uses a shockwave to again, knock you off your feet. His last long range move involves him hurtling balls of plasma at you, also knocking you off your feat. Do you get the picture on where I'm going here? The boss is repetitive, and very uninspired. To make matters worse, they thought that making the boss' camera angled to one side would be a cool idea. Well, it wasn't cool, it just made the boss much more annoying, and easier for him to keep beating you up with his cheap shots from 30 miles away! Beating the boss requires you to stay close, regardless of anything, and keep hitting him with every "lucky shot" you can find. Learning your favorite character's moves and comboes make it all seem worthless when fighting the boss. As you can probably tell, I was extremely disappointed with the story mode.
There are some cool extras in the game. The "sparring mode" feature allows you to train with your character, memorizing all the neat moves. There is also the cool "watch mode", which allows you to pick two characters, a stage, and watch the AI battle it out while you sit there and oggle at their "bounciness". Although this extra has no practical application, I find myself just leaving the watch mode on, and going about my business here at Xbox365.com, just looking at the pretty moves and stage. It actually becomes quite addiciting for some weird reason. There is also the "theater" mode, which allows you to view all your endings from every character you have beaten the game with.
So, after you just saw me bashing the story mode of DOA3, you might ask why I gave this game such a high rating? Well, that's easy: the supplementary modes save the hell out of this game! Once you get passed the awful taste of the story mode you begin to find that indeed there is a deep fighter in DOA3. You just won't "fight" it in the story mode. Survival mode is very addicting, and time attack is also very fun. Of course, versus mode is easily the best, because a human opponent will always be better than the hardest AI. If you're a guy who loves fighting games, or even just a casual fighting gamer, I do suggest you pick this game up. All you have to do is just get over the initial shock of the story mode, and enjoy the other modes, because they are very good.
Until next time, this is tanmeatloaf. E-mail me at Sebastian@xbox365.com I use your e-mail for therapy.
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» Review : Dead or Alive III on Monday, April 14 2003
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