Dead or Alive Ultimate

We conclude our huge coverage of this Team Ninja masterpiece with our final verdict, and a fresh helping of 60fps direct feed media. New Itagaki interview to follow!

	Version Xbox	Developer Team Ninja	Publisher Tecmo	Genre Fighting

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By Joseph Jackson

Ah, the original Dead Or Alive - one of the bastions of Model 2 goodness, and incidentally, one of the very few Model 2 games not developed by Sega. In 1996, Tecmo had finally thrown its hat into the 3D fighting arena with the introduction of the original Dead or Alive into the competitive arcade-fighting scene.

As a relative newcomer to the genre, Tecmo pretty much had its work cut out. Sega, having pioneered the genre with the original Virtua Fighter and later a wealth of Model 2 fighters including VF2, Fighting Vipers and Last Bronx - had already mastered the art of creating highly playable 3D fighting games. It was up to Tecmo to overcome the challenges of creating their first one-on-one fighting game - in relatively unfamiliar territory with the Model 2 hardware. Dead or Alive entered the arcade scene to very little fanfare but still played rather well for a first effort - almost rivaling some of the lesser-known Sega fighters.

While Dead or Alive seemed to quickly fall off the arcade gaming radar --- it managed to make some strides on the home front with conversions to the Sega Saturn, followed by the Sony PlayStation. However, what stood out in the conversions, helping them achieve some notoriety was that Tecmo took it upon itself to give the DOA girls some 'enhancements' - virtual breast augmentations that totally defied the laws of physics. The DOA girls had enough cleavage and 'bounce' to make even Mai Shiranui jealous.

DOAU's incredible CG opening provides background story
before Tengu's destruction in DOA1. See it below...

Anyway, fast-forward a few years, and Namco's Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast had just won its umpteenth award for best graphical showcase, best fighting game, and so on. Enter Tecmo with news of Dead Or Alive 2 in the works for Sega's new NAOMI arcade board - a game that would also end up on the Dreamcast and PS2. As more work-in-progress shots were released over the net during the game's development, players salivated in anticipation of getting a hold of the gorgeous-looking fighter.

All-new costumes include Ryu's hot Ninja Gaiden frock

Fantastic character models were just the tip of the iceberg as the game's huge, multi-tiered, interactive environments also left gamers in awe - especially given that the fighters could send their opponents crashing through exposed or weakened areas of the backgrounds and watch as they plummet down in one of the lower tiers, then leaping down after them and continuing the fight within the new locales until there was a decisive victor. Put simply, there had never been a better looking fighter.

Fans of Kasumi, Hitomi, Lei Fang & co. are in for a treat

In any event, with Tecmo's strengthened relationship with Microsoft, they've managed to give the Dead or Alive series a fine home on the mighty black box, and while Dead or Alive 3 has long been kicking butt on the machine since the console's 2001 launch, I can't tell you how great it is to finally have the entire trilogy on the same console.

The burning theatre is just one of many awesome new stages

With Dead or Alive Ultimate, Tecmo has effectively taken the winning elements of Dead or Alive and Dead or Alive 2, improved upon them and brought both into the realm of online play. Oddly enough, Tecmo delivers the games on a double-disc set, when they could have easily fit the two games onto a single disc with plenty of room to spare, but I guess they have their reasons...

Let's take a closer look at both sides of the package.

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