DOA series producer Tomonobu Itagaki loved Aerosmith’s ‘I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing’ so much, he put the rockers on DOA 3’s soundtrackStun (not actually a fatality, it renders
your opponent out of it for a follow-up
attack) or save it up for a super-move
called a Break Blow, complete with
face-mashing animation.
With practice, all moves, even the
Break Blow can be reversed. It’s always
been the game’s strongest suit, the
ability to counter effectively, resulting
in more strategic fights as the window
for reversing moves is generous
enough to allow you to do more than
just mash away, while side-stepping
and moving around your opponent to
move in again with a well timed attack.
There is enough complexity and depth
to really dig into the move-sets and
learn the styles, and being able to pull
off a wider range of moves means that
each fight feels different, the ebb and
flow of the action changing every time.
Single life
Online or offline Versus matches is
standard for a fighter of course, but
where DOA6 really impresses is in its
depth of content for solo play. Dead Or
Alive‘s creators always designed the
games to be single-player, rather than
multiplayer first with a tacked on story,
and 6 has a satisfyingly chunky story
mode that allows you to play different
characters’ story arcs, with chapters
for each character unlocking as you
progress in ‘story time’. Yes, it all ends
up at a tournament, no it doesn’t
make much sense, and every single
encounter between characters ends
up with them fighting... but it’s great.
There’s an additional RPG element of
building up fighters the more you play
with them, whether in Arcade, Versus,
Time Attack or Survival modes. The
most welcome addition are the DOA
Quest fights, with three ‘medals’ to
be won for specific actions or moves
pulled off during the fight. Completing
these will grant you in-game money
and ‘patterns’ - parts of unlockable
costumes. Intuitive and useful trainingmodes and tutorials will really help you
nail those fighting skills too.
If there’s one criticism of the game
it’s that technically it simply doesn’t
feel like a step up from DOA5: Last
Round; but even at the Xbox’s launch,
DOA3 was criticised for not being
different enough from DOA2. Still, when
a game works so well – and it really
does – why reinvent the wheel? QSTAGES OF
HISTORY
Craziest of the new
stages are a pirate
ship that’s on fire,
and a Jurassic Park
style theme park, with
dinos! Smash your
opponent against the
ship’s sides and you
upset a kraken-style
sea monster that will
shake up your fight,
similarly Lost
Paradise’s dinosaurs
will chomp you. Other
stages include a
WWE-style arena and
a gorgeous Japanese
garden in autumnal
colours. Stages are
transitionable, with
environmental
hazards like exploding
cars, while in ‘The
Throwdown’
back-alley fight-club
arena, get thrown or
kicked into the crowd,
and they’ll push you
back into the fight.“Each fight feels
different, the ebb
and flow of the
action changing
every time”
FAR LEFT
Father-daughter
wrestling duo
Tina and Bass.
How does her
long coat not
get in the way?
RIGHT Lost
Paradise is in
no way like
Jurassic Park,
no, not at all.OXM VERDICT
As good as fighting
games get, with
great mechanics,
and visually a
knockout.9
LEFT Ninja
turned bad
Raidou returns,
shiny and new,
and just as
badass.More Xbox news at gamesradar.com/oxm THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE 069REVIEW