Dead or Alive Ultimate

"It's not the best fighting game around, or even a truly great one, but the online play is well worth the purchase"

Quick pros and cons:
+ The lag-free online play is amazingly good and worth more than the price
+ DOA2's paper-rock-scissors system is easy to learn and always exciting
+ Multiple methods exist to open up locked content
+ Like all other recent Team Ninja games, it looks awesome
+ Inclusion of DOA1 is a nice bonus...
- ...but it's pretty pointless
- Gameplay doesn't have the depth of better fighting games
- Why not DOA3 online, or an entirely new DOA?

When Dead or Alive first appeared, it was a decent fighting game, but made a name for itself in large part due to an interesting item in the Options menu: "Bouncing Breast."
Several years later, the bouncing is still there, but the game has evolved considerably. DOA2--where most of the series' evolution appeared--took the graphics to a whole new level, deepened the gameplay, added great features like the Tag mode, and placed the fighters in vast environments containing walls and explosive traps.

Now, Dead or Alive Ultimate's release allows players to re-experience the first two games in the series, with extra added features--the most notable being an amazing implementation of online play.

Dead or Alive 1's inclusion is mostly pointless. Basically, you have the Sega Saturn version of the game running at a higher resolution and using the XBox's capabilities to smooth the graphics. However, the graphics, sound, gameplay and features are otherwise exactly the same as the original DOA1, with the exception of the added online play (explained later). Because DOA2 was so much better, there's very little reason to bother with the original, unless you're nostalgic or want to compete for the world ranking.

Dead or Alive 2, on the other hand, has received a complete overhaul. It's now running on the latest version of the same engine that powered DOA3 and DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball, and as expected, it looks stunning. Water splashes, floors crack, snow flies, elephants roar. The environment is as interactive as it ever was. There are more character costumes than ever, and they all look great, along with the characters themselves.

The features have been expanded too. You can try new things like Tag Survival and Tag Time Attack, and Survival mode now has you collecting items as an alternate (and faster) way of unlocking all the costumes. But the biggest addition, as with DOA1, is the online play.

The first thing you'll notice about the online play is that it's set up differently than other online fighting games. Instead of joining an opponent and going at it, you'll notice 2-8 player "matches" set up similarly to other online games. The term the manual uses is "virtual arcade," and it's spot on. In the traditional "Winner stays" setup, the first two people in the room fight and the others watch and wait their turn, just like in a real arcade. The winner faces the next person up; the loser goes to the back of the line. This setup really brings back the days when I had the time to go to the arcade every week and play fighting games for hours, and I really like it!

"Winner stays" is however only one of the possible setups your game can take. There's also "loser stays," as well as a survival mode where one player attempts to beat everyone else in the room, a team battle mode that actually splits all players in the room into two teams instead of just having two players each control a team, and full-fledged tournament and Kumite modes. These modes are not just filler; they're actually fun to play. Of course, most online matches use the popular "winner stays," but you'll often find the others. If not, players will usually join a match you create yourself.

Another great thing about the online play is how the game handles lag. Instead of button input actually lagging behind (like in Capcom VS. SNK 2, for example), DOA Ultimate will slow the game down. The slowdown will effectively eliminate the lag and keep the game fair. Of course, slowdown is distracting and irritating, but it doesn't spoil the enjoyment of the game as much as lag would. Kudos to Team Ninja for coming up with a good solution to the lag problem. Of course, if all players in the game have good connections, the game plays at full speed with no lag at all!

The online ranking systems are superb. This is not just because of the actual player match rankings, which are good on their own...it's also because online rankings exist for Time Attack and Survival modes too, Single or Tag, at every difficulty level in both DOA1 and 2! So even if online matches are not your thing, you can still enjoy competition with the rest of the world! You can also view worldwide statistics such as character popularity, win average, etc.

Basically, the online play is really, really good. It makes the purchase of DOA Ultimate worthwhile--which is good, because if you don't consider the online component, there's really isn't any reason to buy DOA Ultimate. DOA2 was a great game back in 2000, true, but there isn't much covering up the fact that it's basically the same game with a new coat of paint five years later. At the same time that DOA Ultimate represents the best online fighting game, it also represents a whole lot of missed opportunity. There are a few added sound effects and changed voices, but other than that, all of the gameplay audio is exactly the same. Three new characters were added to DOA2, but the game's moves and characters are otherwise identical. Everything added to DOA3 is gone. Which brings about the question: why wasn't DOA3 repackaged, put online and re-released instead? Would the end result have been any less? Or better yet, why couldn't this have been the time for DOA4?

Nonetheless, if these issues and the absence of any real innovation whatsoever in the offline package don't bother you, and you're looking for a great online fighting game, DOA Ultimate will make you quite happy. If you don't have XBox Live, you probably shouldn't bother.

Graphics: 10
Team Ninja's done it again. Everything looks amazing. There's really nothing more to say than that.

Sound: 7
Yeah, it sounds good, with the hard-hitting sound effects, explosions and good music. But I have to take points off for the fact that it's 95% the exact same as it was five years ago. New announcer voices? Who cares?

Gameplay: 8 (I'm ignoring DOA1)
DOA2's gameplay is alright. The rock-paper-scissors system is easy to learn and difficult to master. This system carries most of the game's weight, but it is still beneficial to learn each character's techniques despite the ease of pulling off powerful reversals and chain throws. The quality of the online play is such that it makes up for the fact that this game is five years old. It's solid. Not spectacular, but solid.

Features/Replay: 10 (5 if you don't have XBox Live)
This is simple. If you play online, and enjoy fighting games, you might play this forever. If not, you probably played this game already. Unless you've never seen DOA2 before, the replay value comes entirely from the online play.

Overall: 8
Is it the best 3-D fighting game? Heck no, there are lots of better, deeper games. VF4, Tekken5, and Soul Calibur II are all better games. But they're not online, and DOA Ultimate is, and that's great for everyone who can't get to an arcade all the time, who don't have time to invite people over or don't know local fighting game fans, and want to play versus other people. For these players, DOA Ultimate is really a great purchase. If you don't use XBox Live, on the other hand, you probably should skip this.

Also try: Dead or Alive 3, Tekken5, Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/01/05