Dead or Alive 4 Review

Brutal AI

One major complaint I have about Dead or Alive 4 is that the AI is just ridiculously cheap and frustrating. Even on the default “Normal” mode, you can expect to get beaten by the computer a lot. The problem is that the AI doesn’t have to follow the same rules as human players. It can counter anything and everything, it doesn’t seem to have any input delays or animation delays (it can just go from one combo to the next without any interruption – something that is impossible for human players) and it can and will unleash multiple 10-12 hit combos on you all in a row. You get the feeling that you only win because the computer lets you and it isn’t all that fun of a way to play. When you beat it it is very satisfying, but when you lose a bunch of times in a row you’ll want to throw your controller through the wall. It isn’t so bad when you know why you are losing and you know what to do next time (which is how pretty much every other fighter works), in DOA4 the AI is just cheap and since you have to play against the AI to unlock everything it is a very frustrating process. It isn’t impossible to beat, but it is a lot harder than a default setting should ever be.

Online Play

Thankfully, playing against other humans isn’t nearly as painful as fighting the AI. They have to follow the same rules as you do at least so it isn’t too frustrating when you lose. DOA4 uses a similar online setup to DOA Ultimate in that it represents a virtual arcade. Several people can all join the same game and then take turns fighting and you get to watch the other players fight and voice chat with the other players when it isn’t your turn. You can adjust a variety of options when you create your game such as single or tag, number of rounds, time, and whether it is a winner stays or tournament style setup. Or you can just join a game already in progress if you don’t want to wait for someone to find you.

As far as performance goes, DOA4 is smoother online than DOA Ultimate but it still suffers from periods of serious lag. I would say that 2/3 of my matches have been smooth (mostly) but the ones that are laggy are pretty horrible. I’m talking 1-2 frames per second horrible. The lag drastically affects the way you play the game and some characters (such as my beloved La Mariposa) are basically impossible to use because it throws your timing off completely. Keep that in mind when selecting your character.

Graphics and Sound

Graphically, Dead or Alive 4 is at the same time impressive and disappointing. The character models aren’t that much better looking than DOAU but there are some little touches such as much nicer looking cloth textures that make things look pretty good. Also, there are some glitches such as flowing hair and billowing clothing that clip right through the fighters body which looks really bad. An area of major improvement is the environments. The areas you fight in look spectacular and are really the highlight of the visuals.

The sound is also pretty good but it is pretty similar to what we heard in DOAU. Itagaki’s obsession with Aerosmith once again rears its ugly head, but there is a lot of other music as well (and you can use custom soundtracks which is very nice). The grunts and groans of combat are fairly standard, but still good.

Overall, Dead or Alive 4 is a very good looking and sounding game that is clearly better than what we saw in the previous generation but it is obvious it isn’t pushing the Xbox 360 all that hard.

Bottom Line

We had quite a drought between the Xbox 360 launch and the next new release, but Dead or Alive 4 has been worth the wait. It looks better and plays better than any DOA before it so fighting fans are really in for a treat. The main attraction is the online play and while it is smoother than DOA U it can still be pretty laggy. We can only hope that will get cleaned up eventually. Between the online play and the tons of single player modes, there is a lot to do in DOA4 so you can definitely get your $60 worth of enjoyment out of it. If you aren’t a huge fighting game fan you might want to rent it first, but for fight fans Dead or Alive 4 is a worthy addition to your Xbox 360 collection.