Dead or Alive 4
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| Dead or Alive 4 | |
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| Developer(s) | Team Ninja |
| Publisher(s) | Tecmo |
| Designer(s) | Tomonobu Itagaki |
| Release date(s) | NA December 29, 2005 JPN December 29, 2005 GER January 24, 2006 UK FR January 27, 2006 AUS April 13, 2006 |
| Genre(s) | Versus fighting |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | CERO: D ESRB: M PEGI: 16+ OFLC: M |
| Platform(s) | Xbox 360 |
| Media | DVD-ROM |
Dead or Alive 4 (DOA4) is a fighting game developed by Tecmo and released on December 29, 2005 for the Xbox 360 video game console. As the latest entry in the Dead or Alive video game series produced by Tecmo's Team Ninja studio, its plot follows the events of the 2001 title Dead or Alive 3. The game features twenty-two playable characters and many multi-tiered and interactive fighting arenas.
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[edit] Overview
Dead or Alive 4 focuses on the story of Helena, the young woman taking over the mantle of DOATEC as its second chairman.
Since its release, Dead or Alive 4 has been given rave reviews by numerous gaming magazines and websites, with some touting it as the greatest installment in the series, thanks to a revamped fighting system, gorgeous graphics, and smooth and entertaining online play. Series creator Tomonobu Itagaki even hired professional DOA players to help smooth out the kinks in the fighting system.
The game also uses two Aerosmith tracks, Eat the Rich, and Amazing, which are played during an introductory sequence and Helena's ending movie respectively.
The game is much harder than previous Dead or Alive games. The easy difficulty level has been removed altogether meaning players cannot change the game if they find it too hard. The computer controlled opponent's can predict counters easily, frequently inflict combos of around 7-10 hits from their starting attack, roll when knocked down every time making pounce attacks and ground throws incredibly rare and successfully input throw chains with virtually no gaps for players to escape even on the first stage (the difficulty of opponent's still raises through each stage). The opponents also escape throws often and purposely stop attacking to throw counter attempts. The CPU will also throw a guarding player almost instantly making guarding against the computer not very effective.
[edit] Pre-release
In an interview with Famitsu Xbox, Itagaki remarked that he spent 99% of his time developing DOA4, demonstrating his commitment to living up to the fans' relatively high expectations of the series. On May 12, 2005, the first screens from the game were leaked on the internet via the elotrolado.net message boards. Sources also confirmed at the time that the game would be developed exclusively for the Xbox 360 rather than the original Xbox console.
Since the first screenshots, in-game demos and numerous cinematics were later presented by Microsoft at press conferences (E3 2005 Trailer) with the game originally slated to be a launch title for the Xbox 360. However, delays in the development saw it eventually released more than a month after the debut of the console.
Famitsu Xbox editor-in-chief Munetatsu Matsui has pointed to DOA4's absence as a launch title as the main factor behind the slow sales of the Xbox 360 in Japan. However, he added that over 60% of his readers had planned to buy the game upon release.
[edit] New characters
DOA4 contains three new playable characters. Kokoro, a young Geisha in training, Elliot, a 16 year-old boy from England and protégé to Gen Fu, and La Mariposa, a female Lucha Libre wrestler and rival to Tina.
In addition, DOA4 features a playable unlockable character from the Halo series. The November 2005 issue of Game Informer revealed that this character is a female Spartan supersoldier, going by the name "Spartan-458". It would later be revealed that her real name would be "Nicole". In conjunction, a Halo-themed stage named Nassau Station is incorporated in the game. [1].
The final boss of the game in story mode for most characters and in time attack mode for all characters, ALPHA-152, is a very noticeable example of the "SNK Boss Syndrome", as she can damage close to and over 70% of the player's life in one attack chain, has easily executed combos that go far beyond the ability of any regular character, and can teleport to anywhere on the stage instantly. It has been noted, however, that previous DOA bosses were easier to compare to the SNK bosses of yore, in that they were extremely difficult to beat. This is the first time a Dead or Alive boss has been in the Time Attack mode. As beating ALPHA-152 is very difficult, this can make achieving a good time very random, especially as you must win 2 rounds against her. For some characters, though, the final confrontation is different; for instance, Bayman and Helena fight against Christie, Tina confronts her father Bass, Hitomi fights Hayate's alter ego, Ein, Lei Fang battles Jann Lee, and Elliot fights his old master, Gen Fu.
[edit] Bugs and errors
- There have been some reports of a bug in which the game accidentally erases saved data. The bug seems to be caused by old saves being replaced by blank or new saves when a different Xbox 360 account is used. An online update was scheduled tentatively between the months of February and March 2006 and the issue was fixed.
- On the player select screen the displayed results read '1st', '2st', '3st' (as opposed to 1st, 2nd and 3rd). This problem remains despite the translation of the game for North American and European territories.
[edit] World Champion
World Cyber Games 2006: Ryan Ward (Edmonton, Canada)
