Dead or Alive 3

"Didn't I just play this game 2 years ago?"

Take a kick-ass system like the Xbox, add in some scantily clad women with abnormally proportioned mammary glands, throw in some fist-pounding, over-the-top, take-no-prisoners fighting, and you've got yourself a winner!

Dead or Alive 3 is the next installment of Tecmo's popular fighting series. While it delivers in most areas, it remains unchanged in others. While that is good in some aspects, it's bad in others.

Graphics - There is absolutely no complaining when it comes to this area. DOA3 shows off the Xbox's graphical hardware in a way that almost brings tears to your eyes.

The fighting environments are beautifully rendered, a true marvel of programming. They are also partially interactive, allowing you to knock your opponent through glass windows out of multi-story buildings, through ice pillars, and trees. Basically, if it's standing there, you can probably cause massive amounts of pain with it.

The girls deserve a paragraph all their own. Keeping the tradition of the DOA series, the female characters are just as buxom as ever, and in some cases, such as Kasumi(drool), it quite obvious that she's been taking her vitamins. She's more bouncy than ever....Jeez, I need to get a life.

Another nice feature about the game is the loading time, or lack of it. There's about a half a second delay after selecting your character to when you get to the 'Round 1' screen.

Gameplay - While I'm not a big veteran of the original DOA, I am very experienced in its sequel. The gameplay in DOA3 is identical to DOA2. This is good and bad at the same time.

The Good - Veterans of the game won't have any trouble jumping right in with their favorite characters. Every combo is there, you just have to make adjustments for the Xbox controller.

The Bad - If gameplay is mainly the reason you buy a game, then you might be disappointed with DOA3. Aside from the addition of a few new characters, there's nothing much new in that department.

Story - This is the part of DOA that has always perplexed me. There's a bit of a story in the manual, a story mode, and really cool ending sequences for all the characters. What else could it possibly need? Oh yeah, how about some damned linearity???

The story mode still makes absolutely ZERO sense, to me anyway. While the ending sequences are really neat, they don't mean a whole hell of a lot.

I think that when DOA4 graces the store shelves, Tecmo needs to really put some thought into the story aspect of it. All it will do is make a great game even greater.

Audio - Nothing bad here. DOA3 still has the tradition DOA theme music at the menu screen, and a lot of hardcore ass-kicking music during the fights.

Replay Value - For people with friends, DOA3 will provide endless hours of ass-kicking entertainment.

As for singles competition, there's a time-attack mode, survival mode, and the story mode will keep you occupied for a while. Even several unlockable costumes are available to players as well.

Buy/Rent - Like I always say, rent before you buy. As much as I like DOA3, if you've already got DOA2 for the Dreamcast or DOA2: Hardcore for the PS2, then you might want to consider passing this one up. But rent it before you make that decision.

Overall - DOA3 is a good first time out for Tecmo in terms of Xbox titles. However, the continuation of confusing the story mode and same-old-same-old gameplay may hinder a DOA veteran from really enjoying this title.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/02/02, Updated 04/02/02