Dead Or Alive 3: New Hands-On Impressions
We spent a few hours beating up Itagaki at DOA3. That\'s right, we did. New impressions and images.
September 14, 2001
Despite the very strong comments made by Itagaki in our recent interview with the head ninja of Team Ninja, I personally don\'t think Tekken 4 is a failure nor do I think Virtua Fighter 4 necessarily plays old. Fighting gurus have been at each others\' throats debating on what game has the best play mechanics, controls, and of course, visuals. Everyone has their own taste on what a good fighting game play like so unless you\'ve got some ungodly gameplay balance flaws (like easy 100% combos and such), there\'s no such thing as the best play mechanic system. Although controls have a bit to do with play mechanics, the responsiveness and speed of a game also varies from player to player; some gamers like the floaty juggles caused by a properly timed counter of Virtua Fighter while others might like the Okizeme "don\'t get up till I let you" aggressive tactics of Tekken. Finally, there\'s the visual style that gives fighting games each their different look - the realistic looking player models and awesome backgrounds of Virtua Fighter or the flashy effects and slick style of Tekken. While we can argue for many moons on which one is the better fighting game, I think players better make a lot of room for the new potential incumbent to the 3D fighting world because Dead Or Alive 3 matches either fighter games in play mechanics, has arguably the best control I\'ve ever played with for a 3D fighting game and the jump in visual quality of Dead Or Alive 3 will probably make most of you start saying, "Virtua Fighter who? Tekken what?"
As I sat down to play with Mr. Itagaki to play Dead Or Alive 3, the first thing he asked me was if the default button configuration was okay. The current button configuration uses X button as the Free action, Y as punch and the clear or white button for kick. Now, that might seem a bit odd especially if you\'re a thumb button presser when playing fighting games. However, if you play your fighting games like an accountant on his calculator - using your index, middle, and ring finger to press the buttons - there shouldn\'t be any problem. Of course, you can totally reconfigure the buttons to your liking as well. It\'s also nice that you can play with either the analog or digital pad though obviously, if you\'re a serious fan of the game, to pull off those six hit counter juggles, it\'s best to use the digital pad.
I\'m not mincing words when I say the control in Dead Or Alive 3 is probably the best I\'ve experienced in a 3D fighting game; it\'s to the point where it\'s pretty scary. You see, to sidestep or move sideways in previous versions, you need to press the Free button and down or up on the D-pad; yes, I\'m quite aware that you can sidestep and move freely with Analog pad but that means you have to take your thumb off the D-pad. Well, in Dead Or Alive 3, there\'s no need to press the Free button to sidestep as a quick up, up or down, down motion will have your character moving in full 3D. So unless you\'re one of those super flexible persons who like to play with their thumb on the D-pad and index finger on the Analog pad (freaks), control has been significantly improved. What\'s eerie is during my extensive play session, there wasn\'t one time that I got frustrated with the controls - whenever I wanted to crouch, I crouched, whenever I wanted to pull off a special move that required a 360 D-pad motion I pulled it off, and whenever I wanted to sidestep at the last second, I sidestepped. You would think there would be at least one instance where I wanted to sidestep but instead crouched or performed that "stupid looking hop", but that didn\'t happen at all. I\'m not a big fan of the Xbox controller\'s D-pad design, but it didn\'t bother me at all when playing Dead Or Alive 3. Because it controls so well, it allowed me to concentrate on the task at hand - pummeling Tomonobu Itagaki, creator of Dead Or Alive 3 to smithereens...
... which, didn\'t happen. I mean, I got a couple of matches off the guy, but I think after beating him pretty handily in one match, like Emeril, he turned it up a few notches. Tag team mode wasn\'t implemented so we stuck to playing it one on one. Not all the characters were in but I got to play with both Hitomi and Christie. Take Paul Phoenix from Tekken but make him smaller, faster, female, and a whole lot cuter and you\'ve got Hitomi. It\'s not that her attacks do stupid amounts of damage, but almost any time she hit with an attack, it sent the other character reeling. Christie, the sexy lass with white hair, is a pretty unique character - the way she feels and her speed remind me Aoi from Virtua Fighter 3 but she has some very heavy roundhouse kick attacks that kind of remind me of Lei Wulong from Tekken 3. Being only about 50% complete, there were a few noticeable effects that weren\'t quite finished but were nonetheless remarkable. For example, when playing in the snow filled forest, characters leave imprints in the snow that stay there throughout the match. Better yet, watching the snow swirl around your character as he performed a roundhouse kick was pretty damn impressive.
Of course, the graphic detail to every aspect of the stage is fantastic but I think the most impressive aspect that left me in awe was the collision detection. For a 3D fighting game, collision detection is extremely important but Dead Or Alive 3 takes it to another level. When fighting against Itagaki on the beach level, there\'s one single and young palm tree that was around our fighting level. Itagaki grabs my character and slams her (was playing Fei Lang at the time) against the tree. While that\'s certainly nothing new in the world of Dead Or Alive 3, the collision detection was incredible; not only did Fei Lang\'s body hit the tree, but her body almost "wrapped around" the tree. We\'ve seen character get slammed into walls and other large obstacles, but here\'s a small somewhat slender tree and Lei Fan not only hits the tree but it really looks like she got flung into the tree arms flailing and everything.
Apart from the awesome fighting levels and the excellent control, the gameplay remained pretty much the same. With the greater differences of ground level, you want to watch out what kind attack you\'re performing and I did notice that counters didn\'t do quite as much damage as they used to. But when playing with Helena, she still had the standard six hit counter juggle combination I mastered when playing Dead Or Alive 2. Of course, let\'s bear in mind that the game is only about 50% complete and I hardly got the chance to fool around with Christie and I couldn\'t deliver some drunken fish action since Brad wasn\'t selectable. All these concerns aside, if the 50% version ofDead Or Alive 3 is playing just as good as the 100% versions of Tekken 4 or Virtua Fighter 4, what can we expect with 50% more to go? I don\'t know, but I\'m pretty excited to find out. I do know one thing... make room.
-- Anthony Chau
I will be getting this game when the xbox comes out. It sounds like a must-have.
:thepimp:
Topic: Doa3 Hands On Impressions!!! (Read 1013 times)