Dead or Alive 4 on Xbox 360 (2006)

A customer from Stoker-on-Trent, The Midlands , 30/06/2006

Why do people always moan at games that offer and challenge? If they were too easy they'd moan still.

I won't kid you, you WILL NOT get all 1000 gamer points in one sitting or master this game after a few hours. You need to practice and learn all the moves/combos for each charatcer - some are near impossible if i'm being honest. The hardest thing to get to grips with is the countering system, putting you at a great disadvantage if you can't counter - as they often produce a LOT of damage and are sort oif (as you will find if you play) critical to winning. In the previous version of Dead or Alive, the ability to counter an attack was too easy. You could win an entire battle simply by trying to counter every move. This encouraged 'button mashing'. This game does not encourage that and forces you to think where the next move is coming from. to emphasise, you WON'T get anywhere in this game by button mashing.

Saying that, i really do like the idea of online ranking, as the game is harder again online. DOA4 keeps track of your wins losses etc and gives you a rank from A to F with A being the best (there are also SS and S rank - for the best players - keep clear of people with this rank as they are seriously hardcore players. This avoids the problem of facing players who are massivly better than you and allows for more even matches.

Overall, it's a really fun and challenging game that WILL take you a while to get good at, but is rewarding when you start to get the hang of it and win.

The graphics are outstanding, as would be expected and the gameplay is very fluid and slick. Unlike some 360 lately unlocking them 100% is easy, but in this case its far from. There's loads of replayability in the single player mode (survival, story,costumes, sparring,time atatck etc etc) and a lot online (mainly due to the intutitive lobbying system in place) as it's 10 times harder there.

  9 out of 9 people found this review helpful

Read all reviews

Jamie Salmon from Nottingham , 26/07/2006

One thing’s a common in every beat-em-up - the single player game is almost always weak, unimaginative and unrewarding. Programming realistic A.I. is a challenge that has yet to be met fully and on the hardest difficulty settings it can react unnervingly fast to your actions. Utterly inhuman like and totally unfair it can still present a challenge to the hardcore and downright persistent out there. To beat the machine is a matter of working out patterns, rhythms and routines. To beat a human on the other hand can be a complex, psychological battle and all the more rewarding. Which brings me to Dead or Alive 4.

As a sequel it ticks all the right boxes - better graphics, more moves, more characters, a plethora of new features and various tweaks to the combat system (like tightening the counter attack timing and speeding up gameplay). Once you’ve plowed through the frustrating single player story mode with every character (essential to unlock all the fighters) you should head straight online as this is where the game truly reveals its colours with a wide range of match options and game types. Lengthy sessions of ‘Winner stays on’ could certainly be humbling but your skill level is matched with other players of a similar level meaning fights should always be equal and more importantly, challenging and satisfying. You can of course convince your friends to take you on at home but their button bashing should fall foul of your mastery of the ‘Free’ button.

Differentiating DOA from other 3D fighters (that and its penchant for scantily clad, top heavy, female characters) the ‘Free’ button sits alongside Punch and Kick and works as a standard block move. With the right timing however it turns into an opponent destroying counter attack. The gamble is that if your timing is off you’re left open to attack and against a skilled player that small window is all they need to destroy you. Get it right though and every punch they throw can be turned against them making every fight a tense game of poker faced bluffing.

As well as the ‘Free’ button and ample portioned graphics the DOA series is known for its expansive arenas and interactive environments. Most of the fights take place in large, multi-tiered areas - opera houses, Chinese gardens, mountain top shrines and even a Las Vegas high street. Throughout the fights you’ll find yourself being smashed through windows, thrown down stairs and kicked into the paths of moving cars. You can of course do all this to the opponent - slamming someone into an electric fence is particularly satisfying (especially when they curse you). Perhaps colourful vocabulary is what really separates the A and the I.

  3 out of 3 people found this review helpful

Read all reviews

A customer from The North , 04/04/2008

half decent fighting game...the ladies are very bouncy! wouldn't want any young kids to get the wrong idea about what real women look like.

  3 out of 3 people found this review helpful

Read all reviews

daveyblue from Hartlepool [Highly rated reviewer] , 19/05/2008

This is not for a casual gamer, way too hard from the begining with no chance of any fun or actually enjoying the fights.

  3 out of 3 people found this review helpful

Read all reviews

superjim from Newcastle, UK [Highly rated reviewer] , 22/07/2008

I have loved the DOA series since playing the first game on the old PlayStation and altough the graphics have improved with time the games are all basically the same. So you wont find anything new here but the great gameplay means it is as entertaining as ever.

Also to make the game harder the 'easy' option has been removed. However it isn't that hard on the 'normal' option where a few PPKK or PPPP combos will see you thru

  1 out of 1 person found this review helpful

Read all highest rated reviews

A customer from The North , 04/04/2008

half decent fighting game...the ladies are very bouncy! wouldn't want any young kids to get the wrong idea about what real women look like.

  3 out of 3 people found this review helpful

Read all highest rated reviews