Dead or Alive (series)

Dead or Alive is a series of fighting games produced by Tecmo. The gameplay is similar to Sega's Virtua Fighter. The story and characters are the creation of Tomonobu Itagaki, and the game was developed by Tecmo's Team Ninja development team. The series has seven games in it so far. The series has also been criticized alot due to the exposure and nature of the females in the game.

Development
The DOA series is designed by programmer Tomonobu Itagaki, who is regarded by the game development community for his outspoken and stubborn nature in the development of the series. Before the release of the original Dead or Alive, Itagaki had recently become a programmer for the budding company Tecmo, which was in need of brand of video games to establish a sufficient market. In this vein, Itagaki made a wager with the head of the company, assuring the president he would create a video game that would garner a competent fan base. Because of the wager, Itagaki named the series "Dead or Alive" to demonstrate the series fail or succeed status and proceeded to form a division in the company named "Team Ninja". Revealed in a December 2004 interview by Game Informer magazine, Itagaki's inspiration for the series derived from the Fatal Fury series in Japan and the Mortal Kombat series in America. In the development, he based DOA's fast gameplay and sexual appeal from the former, and the series' ability to knock opponents off landscapes from the latter:


 * "I wanted to do something that would attract people's attention as I worked on the DOA game. Of course, DOA is known for its bouncing breasts. Well, I didn't come up with that idea originally. I actually got the idea from one of SNK's 2D fighting games Garou Densetsu. Of course, when I applied it to a 3D game, it was almost too much for people. And of course, it hurts to fall off from high places in DOA, but the idea came from Mortal Kombat. In the case of Mortal Kombat, the 2D fighter, the character falls off and he simply dies. That ends the game. That's it. But we figured it would be more interesting to have the character continue to fight after the fall. And that's what we did"

On Itagaki's view on how he wished the series to contribute to the fighting genre, he replied,


 * "To answer your latter question about how I want DOA to be remembered, I want people to remember DOA as a game that was very aggressive and combative. As to the first question - how it contributed to the fighting genre - I look at it as something similar to how sushi was released in this country and became mainstream. You know, like, some people like graphics, some people like animation, some like flashy character design and so forth. Through DOA, we want to reach out to those people and become somewhat of a mainstream game.

Dead or Alive
Dead or Alive was the first installment to the franchise. The original version of Dead or Alive was released in the arcades on Sega's Model 2, and shortly ported to the Sega Saturn (along with a limited edition that included an artbook and a picture of Kasumi on the CD.) Dead or Alive offers eight playable characters and a boss character, none of which display any spectacularly innovation. The throwaround in the formula comes with the the Danger Zone - a large portion of the perimeter of the ring is laced with explosives, so if you knock your opponent to the ground, you'll inflict extra damage, and usually causing them to skyrocket straight into the air. The real achievement is the graphics - this is, quite simply, the finest looking 3D title on the Saturn, especially being that the system is not known for producing decent looking polygons.

Dead or Alive 2
After the success of Dead or Alive, tecmo was able to create a sequel. Dead or Alive 2 was later released to the Dreamcast in April of 2000. Given the powerful Naomi hardware, Dead or Alive 2 really pushed the boundaries of what these games would eventually become. The character models have been redone to look massively better, not only technically but on an artistic level as well. All of the graphics look amazingly better than the CG intro from the original Dead or Alive. The basic gameplay of the original is pretty much the same, although you can now move in full 3D. Using the directional pad lets you use regular 2D controls, while moving with the analog stick lets you circle the opponent, something that adds greatly to the strategy. Practically all of the cast from the original returns, with a few additions: Helena, the opera singer; Ein, the pretty boy; and Tengu, the main boss. This is where the series really begin to hit its stride as a series deserving of respect. By October 2000, the game was re-released for the Playstation 2 under the name Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore. Dead or Alive 2 was the last game to be released for the Playstation and Dreamcast as the series is now releasing the games for only the Xbox.

Dead or Alive 3
Dead or Alive 3 was released as a launch title for the Xbox. Dead or Alive 3 wasn't nearly as gigantic of a step as DOA 2 was, but for everything DOA2 did, DOA3 offers more of it, in spades. While at first glance it may not seem like the visuals have improved that much, there's lots of little details that add a lot to the overall look and feel. And it's a testament to Team Ninja's prowess that this, one of the first games released for the Xbox, is still one the best looking. The arenas in the game look amazing - a gigantic waterfall that reaches miles into the sky, an aquarium full of indivially modeled fish - in one arena, you can knock your opponent out of a window and they'll shock themselves on the neon lights before hitting the ground. The controls have been streamlined so that the player doesn't need to use both the digital and analog sticks, but otherwise the gameplay system is pretty much the same. The new characters around include Christie, the icy haired assassin; Hitomi, the Japanese-German karate master, and Brad Wong, a drunken fighter. The game didn't receive good reviews and Dead or Alive 3 was the last DOA game to be rated T.

Dead or Alive Ultimate
Released for the Xbox, Dead or Alive Ultimate contains the first and second games of the series, shipped in a cardboard foldout box that contains the two DVD cases. The first Dead or Alive is a straight port of the Saturn version, with higher res graphics while the second is a vastly improved version of Dead or Alive 2, using the DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball Engine.

The game is also the first DOA game to have online play. However, some matches, even highly rated ones, will run terribly, while others run almost as silk smooth as the offline game.

Dead or Alive 4
Dead or Alive 4 was one of the first titles for the Xbox 360. Although the game looks great, especially in high-def, the improvements over Dead or Alive Ultimate however are fairly minor. The game adds new enviroments, aswell as a few new characters, these characters are Eliot, the successor to Gen Fu; Kokoro, a geisha in training; and La Mariposa, a masked wrestler. Also in the fray is Nicole, a female guest character who is inspired Bungies popular frachise, Halo. The game recieved mix reviews, but overall, the game was praised for it's graphics, gameplay, and online play.

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball
Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball is a side game to the series. The game is not a fighting game, but it is a volleyball game. DOAXBV focuses on the girls of the series as they were invited to Zack Island by Zack believing it was an invite to the 4th tournament. Despite the contraversial nature of the game, its recieved mostly positive reviews.&nbsp

Dead or Alive Xtreme 2
Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 is the sequel to Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball. The game has included newer games like the jet ski races and butt battle. The game also received negative reviews.

Gameplay
The Dead or Alive series focuses on fast-paced gameplay in a three-dimensional playing field. In comparison to other fighters in its genre, such as Virtua Fighter, the series places emphasis on striking characters quickly and efficiently. There is an emphasis on juggling since countering and fast recovery times make striking risky at times, which prevents slow, technical sets of moves in most instances.

One of DOA's most innovative additions to the genre is its countering system. Beginning from the original Dead or Alive, players could input a backwards directional input in cooperation with the respective guard button to defend against a character's attack while dealing significant damage to the victim's life bar. Counter holds must be timed correctly with an attack, and also must be executed correspondingly with the area of attack. For example, a character that successfully counters a low kick attack from another player must time the input as well as place a downward directional push on the joystick.

Like other modern fighting games that attempt to emulate the real life martial arts, DOA's input system is modeled on the controls to correspond to the actions being carried out by the avatar; a forward directive punch would most likely be executed with the punch input and the pressing of the directional pad in the appropriate direction.

The series controls also make the instances of speed and simplicity more congruent with the focus of timing and combos in mind, as the commands for basic attacks are widely considered more straightforward than most video games. There is only one button for punch, kick, throw and guard, with the player rarely having to combine more than two different input schemes together at a time. There is a general rock-paper-scissors element to the game and essentially boils everything down to timing and ability to read the enemy's style.

In Dead or Alive 2, the series implemented its tag fighting system, allowing characters to switch back and forth for combo attacks and even attack simultaneously when timed correctly. The tag mode also included special throws unique to certain pairs of characters and allows for the participation of four players, something not common in the genre.

Game Modes
These are some of the game modes that appears in throughout the Dead or Alive series.

In Other Media
Dead or Alive hit the big screens with it's first live action film, DOA: Dead or Alive. The movie received negative reviews and was voted #10 in Gametrailers "Top Ten Worst Video Game Movies".

Kasumi, Ayane, and Hitomi, with Ninja Gaiden's Rachel went head-to-head with the girls of Final Fantasy in Monty Oums' Dead Fantasy.

Future Projects
Tecmo has two Dead or Alive projects in works: Dead or Alive: Code Chronos, a prequel to the first Dead or Alive, and Dead or Alive 5, the next installment to the series. Because of Itagaki's leave from Tecmo, the condition of both games are unknown at this point.

Also apparently in the works is Dead or Alive Online, a PC based online installment in the series, very little is known about this game.

Controversy
The Dead or Alive series' use of female characters to attract attention is viewed by some as controversial. Toby Gard, the creator of Tomb Raider and its female protagonist Lara Croft noted his view on the sex appeal of Dead or Alive. In response to a query that supported Lara was a large part of introducing sex appeal into video games and how this had an impact on the gaming industry, Toby replied:

"...I don't think its wrong or bad in any way, really, it just seems to be getting out of hand with the old Xtreme Beach ball scenarios. I think that's going a tad too far. That's not really empowering anyone."