Dead or Alive 4

Dead or Alive Movie Review

2007-06-21T14:36:00.000-07:00

"Dead or Alive" is based off of the popular video game series. Anyone who's ever seen the games should know exactly what to expect – hot women in skimpy outfits who kick some serious butt in the DOA martial arts tournament. Like the games, the movie offers plenty of eye candy and PG-13 bouncing bosoms (however the real costumes seemed to be too tight and restrictive, so there wasn't as much bounce). But I digress – the premise and plot are pretty simple… a bunch of fighters from around the world – each one being the master of their specific martial arts form – are invited to come to DOA island where they will fight in a ladder competition until one of them wins and is proclaimed the best fighter in the world. The story focuses around the 5 hottest contestants: Christie Allen, a sexy jewel thief; Tina Armstrong, a butt-kicking pro-wrestler; Kasumi, a Ninja princess; Ayane, a ninja sworn to hunt down Kasumi; and Helena Douglas, a daughter of the man who created DOA. Between all the fighting and competition they realize that something sinister is afoot and it's up to them to stop an evil plot.
Brett and I waited several months for this movie, drooling over the rapidly approaching release date. When it finally came, we couldn't wait to go and we weren't disappointed. "Dead or Alive" is just as we expected and hoped it would be… a movie so terrible that it's actually a lot of fun! This is a pure guy movie with lots of beautiful women, skimpy clothing, martial arts battles, etc. The acting is horrible and the plot a bit flimsy, but it's still very entertaining and we had a great time. It was pure, mindless entertainment and we really enjoyed ourselves. If fact, our rag-tag group of moviegoers we'd taken to the theater with us were all alone in there, so we couldn't help but goof around and crack jokes the entire time, which made the event all the more entertaining. Overall, if you'd like to see some beautiful eye candy and martial arts, and want to enjoy some mindless action entertainment, then DOA is for you!

Dead or Alive 4 tournament

2006-08-03T14:15:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago at the Championship Gaming Invitational held in San Francisco the competition was fierce, and lived up to the hype that a nationally televised gaming competition will create. During the course of this event Dead or Alive 4 came out and surprised a lot of people with its fast paced action, easy to follow game play, amazing visuals, and the supurb show of skill put on by a certain female player by the name of Marjorie “Kasumi Chan” Bartell. It seemed the buzz on everyone’s lips at the end of the day was DOA and Kasumi Chan.

This tournament really delivered on every level. The skill levels represented were competitively mixed, and all the matches brought a level of intensity and nail biting suspense one would expect from a competition of this calabur. In terms of crowd reaction, Dead or Alive rocked the house...literally. Players could barely hear themselves think with the way the crowd was going off, especially when it came to cheering on the underdog, it was total chaos.

Tournament matches consisted of up to nine rounds with one match point per round. The first player to take five rounds gets the win. The Life gauge was set on largest, and players were unable to switch characters during the course of a single match. Manny “Master” Rodriguez, being favored by most to win it all, had arguably the hardest road to the finals, but failed to disappoint, winning his first match against Jeff “CyberEvil” Rybicki fairly handily by the score of 5-1. The next match in the first round consisted of Daniel “King” Roberson versus me, James “Nefarious Sage” Clifford. The score ending up 5-1 in favor of King.

On the other side of the bracket, competition was just as fierce, and a new fan favorite was emerging in the form of a highly skilled female player named Marjorie “Kasumi Chan” Bartell. Kasumi won an intense first round match against her PMS clan-mate Katherine “Mystik” Gunn 5-3 in order to advance to the Semi’s. And to cap off the first round of play, Adande “Swoozie” Thorne took on Felicia “Mage” Williams. Another very entertaining match in which the showboating Swoozie came out on top 5-1.

CGS DOA Round One

Final Score	1H	2H	OT	F
Mosi Adandi Thorne	1	-	-	1
Felicia Williams	-	-	-	-

Final Score	1H	2H	OT	F
Marjorie Bartell	5	-	-	5
Katherine Gunn	3	-	-	3

Final Score	1H	2H	OT	F
Emannuel Rodriguez	1	-	-	1
Jeff Rybicki	-	-	-	-

Final Score	1H	2H	OT	F
Daniel Roberson	5	-	-	5
James Clifford	1	-	-	1

First up in the semifinals of the tournament was the match up of Swoozie versus the fan favorite Kasumi Chan. Swoozie is well known in the DOA community as a top player, and uses the “drunken master” style character Brad Wong. Brad is a character that while being a bit on the slow side, possesses moves that are extremely evasive and confusing to opponents combined with fairly high damage. Can you guess which character Kasumi Chan uses? That’s right, Kasumi! An ultra fast paced female ninja with great high low mixups and some key evasive techniques, who relies on her speed to keep opponents guessing, and set them up for high damage throws and juggles. Now this match was as close as they get, with the two combatants trading rounds the whole way through, keeping the crowd on the edge of their seats and screaming their heads off. This fight was probably the most intense of the tournament from the crowd’s point of view, and it was clear that they were behind Kasumi Chan all the way. She was able to read Swoozie very well, and use her superior speed to take him down in a nail biter 5-4.

The final match of the semi’s was arguably the best of the tournament from a technical standpoint, Master versus King. The producers of the event had a field-day with this match up, since King and Master grew up together, train together, use the same character, and have an almost sibling-like rivalry. Master was quick to point out in each interview that he trained King, knew all his moves and would certainly take him out. Every statement delivered in a cocky yet charming manner that made you believe every word he said without question. When it came time to play, it seemed like Master would make good on his promises of domination, using mix ups more effectively than King, and catching him with several high counter throws to take an early lead.

Now, both King and Master use Ryu Hayabusa, the main character in the Ninja Gaiden series also from Tecmo, and one move in particular was causing excessive damage: the infamous Izuna Otoshi, or more simply, the Izuna drop. This move consists of Ryu launching his opponent high in the air, teleporting in a haze of smoke up above the rising fighter, then grabbing a hold of him in midair and executing a spinning pile driver for large amounts of damage. When these fights hit TV you won’t be able to miss it. Trust me. Yet even with these extremely damaging throws, King refused to go down easily, utilizing his own Izuna drops, and catching Master off guard with some key long distance lunging attacks in order to come back from a 2-4 deficit to tie it up 4-4. The tie breaker was extremely close, but Master’s guarantee held up, and the student was unable to beat the teacher this time around, Master took the match 5-4.

CGS DOA Round Two

Final Score	1H	2H	OT	F
Marjorie Bartell	5	-	-	5
Mosi Adandi Thorne	4	-	-	4

Final Score	1H	2H	OT	F
Emannuel Rodriguez	5	-	-	5
Daniel Roberson	4	-	-	4

Now to the finals, where the surprise competitor of the tournament, and last standing female representing PMS, Kasumi Chan, would take on the self-styled Master of DOA for $10,000 dollars. The tension and energy could be acutely felt by everyone in that arena, including the production crew, of whom most had little to no experience with gaming, yet they couldn’t help but be swept up in the action of the game, and the amazing performance of Kasumi Chan. As the introductions were preformed, the crowd’s reaction was deafening, and it was clear that every single person in attendance wanted to see Kasumi take home the prize. At first it seemed that their hopes would be realized, with Kasumi Chan taking the first match by a good margin, but after five matches, Kasumi Chan was down 4-1, and things weren’t looking too good. Master was able to get away with a few unsafe moves that Kasumi Chan failed to punish, and played almost flawlessly under immense pressure. He was able to land several of his signature Izuna drops on counter, and had Kasumi Chan on the defensive, which is not a good thing for a Kasumi player, for a large portion of the match. Kasumi was able to take one more match, leaving the final score 5-2 in favor of Master.

CGS DOA Finals

Final Score	1H	2H	OT	F
Emannuel Rodriguez	5	-	-	5
Marjorie Bartell	2	-	-	2

While Master showed that he’s the best out there, and got everyone’s attention with his actions with and without the controller in his hand, the night belonged to Kasumi Chan. Even though she didn’t take first, doing that well in a competition as large and groundbreaking as the CGS is an amazing accomplishment for anyone, yet alone a female gamer in this male dominated sport.

Her performance should serve as an example to every gamer out there, male and female alike, that anything is possible with hard work and dedication. I took a walk through the crowd with Kasumi later on that evening, and she was literally mobbed by fans who absolutely loved her and what she did up on that stage. Her performance was clearly the feel good story of the tournament, and will hopefully grab the attention of people who otherwise wouldn’t be at all interested in gaming, and make fans and gamers out of them. All and all the CGS event was a smashing success, and should make for some great TV. If this thing goes off like I think it will, the entire world could be referring to gamers as professional athletes. Maybe we’ll even see Kasumi Chan’s thumbs on a box of Wheaties some day. Hey, you never know.

Dead or Alive 4 Review

2006-04-05T12:25:00.000-07:00

Dead or Alive 4 is making a late appearance on the Xbox 360, but thankfully it has now arrived. It’s certainly been worth the wait for the great visuals, lightning fast game play and an original online mode. This is the best game in the Dead or Alive series.

When compared to Dead or Alive Ultimate the differences aren’t that easy to see, when you first play. The fighting is easy to get into, all the same moves appear to be there and your old strategies seem to be effective. The differences are subtle to start with but begin to become far more obvious the more you play. You will start to notice players have new moves and some of their old moves have been modified and tweaked as well as the core fighting system. You start to realise that Dead or Alive 4 is faster, smoother and more tactical, over all it feels much better than previous DOA games.

Dead or Alive series has always been attack orientated, defensive play is never a winning formula and hesitancy will be punished every time. Wildly hammering the buttons to get your fighter to kick and punch in any which way is not going to do you any favours either. The main key to the DOA game play is timing, counters and reversals need spot on timing and very quick reactions. When using combinations timing is also key, sometimes combos require very quick movements on the controller and other times the timing needs to be slowed down somewhat, but each time the commands need to flow.

Behind the game is a very complex version of scissors, paper, stone which all fighting games have underlying in the game play. Many fighting games don’t seem to focus on variation, so one move can be repeated over and over again to win the fight. Dead or Alive 4 does not have this problem. To win fights in Dead or Alive 4 you must think on the move and follow up with a command in a split second. Repeating moves will just get you a good hiding from the computer. If you don’t vary your tactics you will find yourself going backwards very fast. Once you get your timing, rhythm and a decent knowledge of moves to change tactics DOA4 is incredibly fluid. As you play you will begin to find moves which will knock your opponent into the air and will give you a great chance to punish them with a devastating string of follow up attacks.

The huge roster of characters is going to be one of the main attractions to DOA4. Some of the old favourites are back, some that have made only a couple of appearances before are back like Brad Wong, the drunken bloke, and then there are some new additions such as Kokoro who specialises in open palm attacks. There is a young boy called Eliot who uses the praying mantis style. With there being such a great selection of characters to choose from you should find at least two that will suit you better than the rest.

The arenas and environments are multileveled in usual Dead or Alive style. This has been taken one step further in DOA4. As well as kicking your opponents through windows, off balconies and down cliffs you can now send your opponent flying over railings and best of all, into on coming traffic. This seems to be one of the biggest and certainly most obvious changes; the environments/arenas seem far more interactive than they ever have been before. Apart from being more interactive the arenas and environments are far more varied and this time as it’s the Xbox 360 they look amazing. Arenas vary from street market, to safari park, to water pools, to a Jurassic park type arena. In the safari and Jurassic environments animals and dinosaurs can come from nowhere and knock you or your opponent off their feet. Loads of the levels have lots of breakable objects and many have large drops. All in all there’s loads of variety here and it makes the game so much more enjoyable to play.

Apart from the standard story mode which is the best place to unlock more characters and costumes the other modes are very standard. The really good one is the online section. The online mode offers a few variations on the standard game but all feature the excellent virtual arcade system which simulates the good old days. Basically you wait your turn and if you win you stay on, it’s a fantastic idea and very original. There is quite a bit of waiting in some scenarios as each lobby has a limit of 16 people which is quite a lot of people to wait for. The other way around is to create your own or find another match with a lesser limit. There are a couple of variations that can be set, the default is winner stays on, but there are other modes which enable the host to stay on and keep challenging new comers weather he wins or looses. Technically DOA4 holds together in the online mode, you will occasionally find the game may lock up after long periods of use online. The responsiveness of playing online is very comparable to playing offline it certainly won’t hinder your progress. However when you watch a game you can see considerable lag.

DOA4 looks very similar to all other Dead or Alive games, but the Xbox 360 version has been tweaked to look absolutely brilliant, especially in HD. The animation is ultra smooth and the characters move with exceptional speed. The characters look very nice, but they don’t look real in anyway. The facial textures are far too smooth and perfect resembling cartoon characters or dolls more than real people. The arenas and the environments are probably the best visuals in the game. The water in a couple of the levels is fantastic, although it doesn’t splash enough when characters kick and fall in. If the characters were not actually on screen in the arenas you or anyone else probably wouldn’t think it was a fighting game, it would probably look more like an RPG like Final Fantasy.

The audio is very similar to all the other Dead or Alive games. As usual all the characters with the exception of one or two talk in Japanese with English subtitles even though many or the characters are from different countries around the world. But that is how DOA has always been done and I quite like it as the game looks so Japanese. All the effects are pretty similar to those from the past but they still sound pretty painful. The introduction to the game features Aerosmith which will please some, the rest of the game is made up of the usual upbeat music you will recognise mixed up with some new tracks.

If you like fighting games Dead or Alive 4 should be purchases straight away. It is as good as any fighting game that has gone before it and I don’t mean just the DOA games, DOA4 is a serious competitor to the likes of Sega’s Virtua Fighter and Namcos Tekken and Soul Calibur series. The offline modes are great fun and there is always some sort of reward for making progress while the online mode offers a huge amount of longevity.

9.0 out of 10

Dead or Alive 4 Available

2006-02-15T13:42:00.000-08:00

DEAD OR ALIVE 4

Publisher: Tecmo

Tested on: Xbox 360

Price: $59.99

Rating: M (Mature)

Dead or Alive 4 features -- surprise! -- more scantily clad babes duking it out ... and often finding themselves in compromising positions.

Visually, DOA 4 features the most eye-popping cut scenes I've ever encountered, and fans of the series no doubt will embrace the hundreds of new moves.

Otherwise, though, the game feels a little rushed (ironic, considering the title was delayed after originally being scheduled to coincide with the console's November launch).

There are a few fun new characters -- basically a female version of Halo's Master Chief is one of them -- but the game doesn't seem vastly different from DOA 3.

While all the old modes (including Time Attack and Survival) are here, there are no new ones. There aren't many new places to fight. And the maximum number of outfits for each fighter is seven, and some have as few as four; this seems low considering the 360's graphical capability.

It doesn't take long to finish story mode on each of the characters, though you can play them repeatedly to unlock new, more revealing costumes. A skilled gamer could probably unlock all the different costumes in under two hours.

DOA 4 does shine online, especially if you have a good connection. It's quite fun to battle against your friends and, after losing your match, to heckle them as they fight on.

Oh yeah: Before hosting an online match, you need your own lobby, as well as an avatar to represent you in it. Not surprisingly, these avatars can be put in compromising positions.

The one thing I can say about DOA 4 -- it never abandons its titillating roots.

Dead or Alive 4 Xbox 360 Cheats and Tips - DOA 4 Cheats

2006-01-03T10:14:00.000-08:00

Unlock levels, alternate costumes, & characters including Spartan-458 from Halo

Unlock Halo Stage

Successfully complete Story mode with Helena to unlock a stage similar to the first stage of Halo 2, the Hangar Area.

Play as Ein

Successfully complete Story mode with Hitomi to unlock Ein in all modes except for Story mode.

Play as Gen Fu

Successfully complete Story mode with Eliot to unlock Gen Fu in all modes except for Story mode.

Play as Helena

Successfully complete Story mode with all sixteen characters to unlock Helena in all modes.

Play as Leon

Successfully complete Story mode with Zack to unlock Leon in all modes except for Story mode.

Play as Spartan-458

Successfully complete Story mode with Helena to unlock Spartan-458 from Halo in all modes except for Story mode.

Play as Tengu

Successfully complete Time Attack mode with all default and hidden characters to unlock Tengu.

Increased Bounciness

Enter "99" as your age in your profile to make the female characters' breasts bounce more than usual.

Bonus System Announcer Voices

In the options menu, you can choose different voices for the system announcer. To unlock additional voices, enter Sparring mode and bring up the sparring menu.

Select "Exercise" and you will be prompted to run through an extensive moves list. Successfully complete the moves list to unlock that character's voice as a system announcer.

Alternate Costumes

Successfully complete Story mode to unlock an alternate costume with the following characters. If available, the next alternate costume for that character will be unlocked when Story mode is completed with them again.

Ayane C3, C4, C5, C6
Bass C3, C4
Bayman C3
Brad Wong C3
Christie C3, C4
Elliot C3, C4
Hayabusa C3, C4
Hayate C3, C4
Helena C3, C4 C5
Hitomi C3, C4, C5, C6, C7, C8
Jann Lee C3, C4
Kasumi C3, C4, C5, C6, C7
Kokoro C3, C4, C5, C6, C7
La Mariposa C3, C4, C5
Leifang C3, C4, C5, C6, C7
Tina C3, C4, C5
Zack C3, C4

Successfully complete Time Attack mode on the default settings to unlock an alternate costume with the following characters. If available, the next alternate costume for that character will be unlocked when Time Attack mode is completed with them again.

Ein C3, C4
Genfu C3, C4
Leon C3, C4
Spartan-458 C3, C4, C5, C6, C7

More Dead Or Alive cheats and tips on the way.

Dead or Alive 4 - Just add a Halo Spartan named Nicole...

2005-12-19T15:10:00.000-08:00

Slugfest is a simple codename, and one we came up with to describe a simple enough idea: Incorporate a character from the Halo universe, in the next iteration of the storied Dead or Alive fighting series.

When Tecmo first approached us with the idea, we were a little taken aback. We've seen a ton of Halo fan projects, everything from Red Vs. Blue to a French side-scrolling shooter, but Bungie had never actually undertaken any kind of game-related expansion of the story, characters or universe. But this was Tomunobu Itagaki and Team Ninja, so we listened to their proposal very carefully and with a very open mind.

Initially, Team Ninja wanted, and asked very politely, for Master Chief. Well, we balked at that. Master Chief is busy, fictionally speaking. We left him at the end of Halo 2, involved in a very large scale galactic conflict with world-ending repercussions. Fictionally speaking, he just wasn't available for fisticuffs.

But we loved the idea of seeing a Spartan fight, unarmed. You have to figure they'd be pretty serious pugilistic contenders right? Half ton of bio-mechanically enhanced armor-clad uber-trained soldiering nightmare? Has to have at least a decent right hook.

So we created Spartan 458 – Nicole. And she's quite a lady. If you define "lady" as ferociously violent killing machine.

Nicole was born in the year 2531 in the city of New Legaspi on Mars. At six years of age she was abducted by agents of the Office of Naval Intelligence and conscripted into the Spartan II program. The Spartan II program was the UNSC's highly successful military project to augment and hone perfect soldiers.

SPARTAN-458's unit was preparing for a classified mission on Nassau Station when the ONI stealth ship Apocalypso tumbled into real-space – being carried along in the wake of a freak slipspace anomaly. The anomaly intersected Nassau Station; creating a semi-stable "bubble" in the space/time continuum on its way back to the 21st Century.

For the time being Nicole-458 is trapped in the 21st century; guarding Nassau Station's secrets with all but lethal force (she realizes killing someone in the past could have dire consequences), waiting for the "bubble" to collapse and hopefully returning her to the year 2552.

How can we say all that with a straight face? Shut up is how. How does this explain why she's fighting a schoolgirl in a prehistoric oasis? Silence fool! How does this explain a very cool secret on a Casino-inspired level? Shut your noisehole is how.

Profile: Petty Officer 2nd Class - "Nicole" SPARTAN-458

Nationality: Martian
Gender: Female
Birthday/Age: December 19/21
Blood Type: O
Height/Weight: 6' 8" /370 lbs (in Mjolnir Mark VI armor: 7' 2" /980 lbs)
Body Size: B49" W30" H41"
Fighting Style: CQB (Close Quarters Battle)
Occupation: Commando
Likes: Halo-halo (Filipino dessert)
Hobbies: Watching Anime, Competition Shooting

Here's a list of things Nicole, Spartan 458 is NOT.

She's not a character who's ever been described in other Halo fiction.
She's not a character from our next project.
She's not one of the Spartans from Fall of Reach.
She's not a character from the Halo movie.
She's not returning my calls. I blame time bubbles.

In short, she's a fictional means to an end that we gave careful thought, but with a jaunty tip of our hat and a wry wink in the general direction of levity. The way she was implemented into the game, however, was deadly serious.

We can tell you that working with Team Ninja was a dream come true. If you suspect they are detail-obsessed perfectionists, then your suspicions are correct. And they are incredibly responsive. Thanks to our own time bubble – the trans-pacific lag, - we did most of it by email and FTP server. First we responded to the request with a hearty "Woot!" Which in Japanese, is "Woot-o desu!"

Then the process of supplying Team Ninja with the highest resolution assets we could muster began. We had a huge library of textures, 3D models and other assets. Basically we collected every reference item we could think of from Halo 2 and shipped it to Team Ninja.

Fortunately for the process, we'd actually done something similar before – not for a game – but rather for the action figures and giant standees. Although those invoke a similar sense of scale, even the near-life size MC statues don't have quite as much detail as the Team Ninja models. Scratched metal, scuffs, dirt and abrasions all make the DOA Spartan far more graphically rich than any previous iteration.

They use fundamentally different systems from us, so some our 3D models had to be converted once they got to Tokyo, and naturally, the animation for fighting simply didn't exist. We had to describe how we felt a Spartan would fight – the weight of the armor, the kind of close-quarters, brutal martial arts that a future military might use.

In that last regard, Team Ninja was on exactly the same page. When we got back approval materials (early, playable versions of the game, in varying stages of completion), they had almost nailed it exactly, first time. When Nicole fights, you believe it. Punches are quick and brutal. Kicks are telegraphed, and pack incredible force.

In fact, very little had to be changed in terms of animation, fighting moves or anything else. Most of the alterations and variations that were made to Nicole's fighting style were Team Ninja's own tweaks for balance and fun.

Since the purpose of these approvals was nitpcking, we picked nits. We went back and forth on how reflective the visor should be, ran into some animation issues of our own making – basically we had to adjust the way Nicole's armor was animated so that fighting moves worked well with the intersection of armor plates.We worked hard to make sure her torso and waist looked female, without necessarily looking feminine. Spartan armor is designed for combat, and makes few allowances for girlish figures.

Although the reworked geometry and many of the textures we supplied were plenty sharp enough for HD, some of our stuff, including the planetscape in the background of Nassau Station, was simply too low resolution for the 360's increased definition. Luckily, we had made a very high resolution future Earth for one of our ad campaigns. Funny how stuff like that suddenly becomes hard to find when you really need it. That sharper Earth was a last minute addition that really made the Nassau level pop.

When you're fighting on Nassau, try knocking your opponent into the Warthog parked in the hangar bay, it has full suspension and glass that will spider if you hit it. That commitment to detail and excellence is exactly why Bungie – normally shy about this kind of stuff, was so excited and confident about working with Team Ninja.

Team Ninja left a lot up to us, including the dialog for the character – largely the work of our very own Robt McLees, who very deliberately blended Military-themed bravado with fighting game bombast. THAT was fun. We also had a hand in naming some of the moves, but largely relied on some excellent suggestions by one of Tecmo Japan's American employees. They perfectly caught the tone of fun and fighting we were looking for. They include some amusing jabs – like the Grunt Punt and The Great Journey (fwd, a and y when facing a stairway or drop).

The big money move for Nicole however, is the plasma stick. Learn it, love it. My personal favorite is a powerful uppercut with a low ceilinged level. Thanks to DOA4's sweet use of onscreen obstacles, THAT results in a very nasty impact.

One "move" is actually a taunt. You can turn on active camo, turning your Spartan into a translucent killing machine. Mr. Itagaki worried that this might affect online gameplay negatively, but the "invisible" Spartan is actually perfectly visible in almost all circumstances and simply looks cool. You can even see the slight reflection of your opponent in the glassy surface.

DOA4 is in a lot of ways, a logical evolution of DOA3, but there's so much new stuff, it's hard to know where to begin. The fact that there are moving objects on screen that can actually injure you is awesome, without being intrusive. The fact that you can not only hop over barriers, but turn that into a powerful attack, is genius. Making the backdrops truly interactive makes DOA4 seem deeper, without sacrificing the fluid simplicity you need from a fighting game. You'll have to play it yourself to find out just how fun, addictive and compelling it is. Of course, we might just be saying that because there's a Spartan in it.

DOA4 Delayed Again. Release date now December 21st?

2005-12-16T14:57:00.000-08:00

Tecmo has announced that Dead or Alive 4 for the Microsoft Xbox 360 has been delayed for another week.

Dead or Alive 4 Xbox 360 fans, don't worry. Tecmo's much anticipated sequel Dead or Alive 4 for the Microsoft Xbox 360 is only delayed by one week. The Xbox 360 launch for Dead or Alive 4 will now be available on December 21, 2005.

Dead or Alive 4 will be the defining gaming experience on the next generation console as it will encompass all that Xbox 360 has to offer, giving players the most rewarding digital fighting experience to date on any video game console. Dead or Alive 4 will be the leader in fighting games as it once again raises the bar in both online and offline fighting. By utilizing the advanced technology of the new Xbox 360 hardware, Dead or Alive 4 will redefine 3-D high definition graphics and sound, creating the most visually beautiful and realistic looking video game to date.

Dead or Alive 4 is dead for Japan Xbox 360 Launch

2005-12-01T11:35:00.000-08:00

For all the talk about Microsoft trying to get a leg up on Sony in the Japanese console market, it sure is unfortunate that another game won't be available for the Xbox 360's release in Japan on December 10th.

When the new console makes its debut in the land of the rising sun, there will only be six games for Japanese Xboxers, Every Party, FIFA06, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Perfect Dark Zero, Ridge Racer 6, and Tetris. They'll have to wait another week for DoA4.

Couple this paltry selection with an equally meager list of backward compatible games (there are only 12 Xbox games that will be playable on the Japanese Xbox 360) and the unfortunate Tokyonians seem to be getting a little short changed.

However, I don't expect this will stop the Xbox 360 from selling out over there too. And Microsoft has announced that it is very keen on making sure Japanese Xboxers have enough options to keep them interested. I suspect they'll have more success if they get those games out before the PS3 hits the shores.

Dead or Alive 4 - Features

2005-12-01T11:27:00.000-08:00

Taking advantage of the superior technology of Xbox 360™, Dead or Alive® 4 offers the defining gaming experience on the next-generation console. The game encompasses all that Xbox 360 has to offer, giving you the most rewarding digital fighting to date on any videogame console.

Dead or Alive 4 once again raises the bar in both online and offline fighting. By utilizing the advanced technology of Xbox 360 hardware, the game redefines 3-D high-definition graphics and sound, creating one of the most visually beautiful and realistic-looking video games available. Unsurpassed online capabilities via Xbox Live™, incredible new interactive stages, an all-star lineup of old and new favorite characters, and a complex DOA countering system all combine to create a must-have video game for Xbox 360.

DOA Online: Experience unsurpassed online play on Xbox Live, including large-scale global online tournaments, increased worldwide simultaneous online play, detailed scoreboards, the ability to form clans, a new and interactive lobby area featuring voice and text chat, and more!
3-D high-definition graphics: Utilizing the advanced technology of Xbox 360 and Team Ninja's development expertise, Dead or Alive 4 takes 3-D graphics to a new level, creating a visually stunning video game.
New characters and old favorites: Meet new faces in the DOA cast of characters, and get ready for the return of Dead or Alive® 3 favorites Christie and Brad Wong!
Interactive stages: Incredible new interactive stages showcase 3-D graphics and astounding attention to detail, from each strand of a character's hair to the individual cherry blossoms falling from the sky.
In-depth story line and cut scenes: A new plotline and amazing cinematics give you a new insight into the mysterious yet captivating world of Dead or Alive.
New costumes: Characters sport a variety of costumes while they fight. Some characters even have new hairdos!
Complex DOA countering system: The game's fighting system has been overhauled, allowing for even more strategy and mastery of your favorite character. Check out the most complex DOA countering system yet!

Dead or Alive 4

2005-12-01T11:26:00.000-08:00

Dead or Alive 4 Blog - Xbox 360