Dead Or Alive 4 (16+)
Format: Xbox 360.
Essential online fighter.
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.
7/10