DOA2: Hardcore

"Cory's Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore Review"

Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore is the second game in the DOA series. DOA came out on the Saturn in 1997. The same game was released a year later for the PlayStation. Then in the year 2000 DOA2 was made for the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast version was then ported over to the PS2 and the name was changed to DOA2: Hardcore. There is very little difference in the game. Only a few costumes were changed.

Gameplay 9/10
In Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore there are a total of fourteen selectable characters and each character has up to 8 costumes. There are about fifteen arenas you can fight it, some are single player arenas and some are multiplayer arenas. There are ten game modes including story mode, tag mode which supports the multi-tap and special tag moves that can only be done by a certain combination of characters, team battle mode and my personal favorite survival. In survival mode characters will drop items when you beat them or when you do a good combo. There is an area in the game that shows what items you have and what ones you are missing. The items can give life or points. You can record your matches, and change camera angles, to watch them later. You can unlock a slideshow that will show pictures of the female characters in the game where you can add or remove slides. The control in the game is set up as most fighting games, you have a punch, kick, block/counter, grapple, free step so you can walk where you want to make it easier to pick up items, and a tag button for tag matches. You can make any button in the game where you want it to be on the controller so it is very universal of how you want it set up. The attacks are quick and responsive, well animated and the game has over 250 moves total among the characters so it is enough to give the game a variety of moves but not too many that it becomes frustrating when you try and master every character in the game. One of the best features in this game is that most of the levels are layered so you can kick someone out a window and the fight will continue outside or throw someone off a balcony and the fight will continue on the ground below.

Story
In Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore there isn’t much of a storyline. You play as each character and they have a few cut scenes each. In the manual it has a few pages of the background of the characters and a short story. Since most fighting games don’t have a storyline I won’t rate this.

Graphics 9/10
In Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore the graphics are very close to perfect. The textures are some of the best I have seen in any game. The clothes on the characters are look very realistic and flow with the characters movements though sometimes the body parts of the characters will move through the clothes. There are very few jaggies on the characters and the arenas but with a high definition television and s-video you can take them out to make almost everything flawless. Elements will sometimes move in the background of arenas like clouds, water, trees, and snow.

Sound 8/10
In Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore there are some nice sounds. There is wide variety of them ranging from the sounds clothes make, punching, kicking, slamming into walls, and taunts though some of these sounds do not sound very realistic.

Music 10/10
In Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore the music is the best I have seen in any fighting game that uses real songs and not ones that were created for the game. Most of them are upbeat and fit into the fast paced action of the game.

Play Time/Replayability 9/10
In Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore there is lots of replayablility. There are up to eight costumes to unlock for each character, there is a slideshow to unlock that shows pictures of the female fighters in the game and there is an item collection that you can collect. To collect all the items and unlock all the costumes the game should take you about thirty hours.

Final Recommendation
I would recommend this game to anyone who wants a solid fighting game that has some nice arenas and good looking ladies though there are probably some better fighting games out now.

I Wish
I wish that there were more characters.

Average Score 9.0/10
Cory's Score 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/13/02, Updated 12/13/02