| Dead or Alive (Deddo oa Araibu?) is a video game series produced by Tecmo that comprises primarily fighting games. The story and characters are the creation of Tomonobu Itagaki, and the game was developed by Tecmo's Team Ninja development team. A feature film, DOA: Dead or Alive, directed by Corey Yuen and starring Devon Aoki, Jaime Pressly, Holly Valance, Sarah Carter and Natassia Malthe was released in the U.S. on June 15, 2007, without press screenings.
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. Air juggling is a factor in the series, but is easier to execute and more favorable due to the countering system and characters' recovery times, which disallows slow, technical sets of moves in most instances.
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 the time.
Such an ease of control creates a rock paper scissors mentality and essentially boils everything down to timing, and how well you know your enemy's style.
In Dead or Alive 2, the series became innovative in 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 implemented special throws unique to each pair of characters chosen, and allows the participation of a four player mode, something not common in the genre.
Inspiration and 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.
Plot
The Dead or Alive series revolves around the various motives and goals of skilled martial artists and their participation in a fictional world-wide fighting tournament named the "Dead or Alive tournament", held by a massive corporation called DOATEC (Dead or Alive Tournament Executive Committee) who runs the competition regularly for unknown motives. The tournament is held in arenas around the world, ranging from the North Pole to the Amazon rainforest. In the first Dead or Alive, characters were described in the story as attempting to enter the tournament for personal reasoning, such as Zack entering for profit and the runaway kunoichi Kasumi using the tournament as means to take revenge upon her traitorous uncle, Raidou. In the conclusion of this tournament, Kasumi kills Raidou but cannot return to her village despite her honorable motives due to ninja society's strict laws upon the departure of clan members.
The following game, Dead or Alive 2 takes place after the original in an undisclosed timeframe, (though within the same year due to the characters' retention of their chronological ages from the original game) with the world's peace and stability threatened by a super creature known as the Gohyakumine Bankotsu-bo. It is also discovered in this tournament, that Kasumi's brother Hayate has recovered from injuries sustained from a previous fight with Raidou, but was recently captured and used as a test subject by DOATEC to carry out a bio weapon experiment codenamed Epsilon and then subsequently discarded. In this iteration, several characters (including the opera singer Helena, the mercenary Leon and the kunoichi Ayane) are introduced into the storyline and also enter the tournament in pursuit of their personal aspirations. In the end, Ryu defeated Tengu and thus, becoming the 2nd DOA Tournament winner.
The third game, Dead or Alive 3 takes place shortly after Ryu Hayabusa's defeat of the Gohyakumine Bankotsu-bo and features a similar premise. However, the main plot begins to revolve around the dealings of the DOATEC committee and it is revealed they perform experiments on various test subjects in an attempt to create the ultimate fighter. With the populace and fighters vastly unaware of DOATEC's wrongdoings, the company continues their experiments proceeding the Epsilon and Alpha stages, initiating the Omega project and transforming a ninja named Genra into a vicious being with no memories of his past life. DOATEC then proceeds to hold a third tournament, using the premise of the fighting arena as a test bed for Omega's abilities. This game concludes its story with the ninja known as Ayane destroying the Omega entity and the introduction of three more fighters, Hitomi, Brad Wong and Christie. The Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball installment occurs immediately after the conclusion of the third tournament, where the Muay Thai kickboxer Zack, wins a large sum of money at a casino and buys his own tropical island. He then tricks the female entrees of the tournament into staying at his island resort for a two week-long vacation.
Dead or Alive 4 depicts the previous games' attempts of DOATEC to produce the ultimate bio-weapon and continue their operations. DOA 4 reveals the existence of a product of the Alpha project and a clone of Kasumi, who employs powerful energy and battle tactics. This iteration also establishes the knowledge of various fighters discovering the true nature of the organization and in the climax of the tournament set out to stop its evil deeds.
Games
Main series
Dead or Alive has spawned five canonical sequels which have continued the storyline. Of the six games in total, four of them focus on the fighting genre of gameplay. This number excludes the numerous updated editions, ports and remakes of each title.
The original Dead or Alive was inspired by Virtua Fighter, as noted by Itagaki in an interview. In comparison to other 3D fighters such as Tekken which gained a substantial market base in Japan and North America, DOA introduced a countering system unique to the genre and an added emphasis on speed, as well as a rich graphics engine that lacked many jaggies and incorporated very smooth surfaces. The original DOA was first released for the Sega Saturn and arcades in 1996. In graphical comparison, the arcade version featured superior detail, using fully three-dimensional backgrounds and high quality music. When released for the Saturn, the game sacrificed quality in the character models and used pre-rendered images for background stages. Additionally, in a review of the game's moveset, it was discovered by players that the move lists included were not aligned properly with the game. In 1998, a PlayStation version was released in Japan, with the North American and European versions following shortly thereafter. It introduced new characters, improved graphics, "remixed" stage designs and additional unlockable costumes for the player. This was also re-released in the arcades and named Dead or Alive ++ due to its upgraded content.
The second installment, Dead or Alive 2, was released in 2000, and like its predecessor improved upon the graphics engine by using NAOMI hardware. Notable features included introducing CG cutscenes in line with the plot, replacing the original "danger zone areas" in stages with fully intractable ones, allowing players to juggle each other into walls, propelling characters from landmarks for more damage (the first game to implement this feature was Samurai Shodown 64) and upon completing the game, presenting the player with (sometimes ambiguous) endings for each character using the game's standard engine.
Dead or Alive 2 has spawned the most upgrades and remakes in the series to date, with the original North American Dreamcast version and arcade version serving as the starting point. When the PlayStation 2 was launched in Japan, a DOA2 version was released for it as well. Although this version was considered graphically inferior to any of the previous versions, lacked the 4 player Tag Team feature, and was never released outside of Japan, it did include extra backgrounds and costumes. The extras from this PS2 version were then included in the belated Japanese Dreamcast release, which was available in both Regular Edition and Limited Edition versions. Another remake was released in October of that year for the PlayStation 2 in North America, re-dubbed "DOA2: Hardcore". This version provided improvements larger in scope than any previous franchise entry. It expanded the unlockable costumes, amended graphical problems prevalent in the Dreamcast versions, added new game modes and included English voice acting. (Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore is the only installment in the series with the ability to switch between English and Japanese voice acting.) After this, a final version of DOA2 was released in Japan dubbed Dead or Alive 2: Hard*core which was essentially the North American/European version but with a few extras; it was considered the most up to date version until the XBOX version.
In 2004, after the release of Dead or Alive 3, Team Ninja once again remade DOA2, this time for the Xbox system. In the planning stages, this new game was named Dead or Alive Online for its addition of online support. On January 14, it was renamed to Dead or Alive Ultimate and promised fresh content, additional characters and a upgraded version of the original Dead or Alive for the Sega Saturn. According to Tecmo, the name change was due to "..Ultimate would more accurately describe the feeling players feel upon experiences with the game".
Dead or Alive 3 was released for the Xbox as one of the system’s launch titles for American gamers (as well as Japanese and European). As with previous facets of the series, it took advantage of the system's power to push the range of the graphics and stage sizes farther than DOA2. However, it lacked in unlockable content compared to Hardcore and controls were somewhat more lenient to allow players new to the series to adapt to gameplay. Dead or Alive 3 was one of the best-selling installments in the series; in 2002 Tecmo announced the game had reached sales of over one million copies.
Dead or Alive 4 was released later in 2005 as a launch title for the Xbox 360 platform. Initially held back by retailers, like Ultimate it included Online support where players could interact in a similar fashion to an arcade setting, fighting opponents at win/loss intervals. Nevertheless, like DOA3, the game featured a low number of costumes and numerous series characters now had to be unlocked by the player.
Dead or Alive Online is currently in development for the PC platform. It is expected to be released in China shortly before the 2008 Summer Olympics, with an unspecified worldwide release sometime later.
Side series
Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball was released in 2003, shortly after DOA3 and is set immediately after the conclusion of the tournament in regards to the plot. The gameplay revolves around the women of the series playing various mini-games about the many locations of Zack Island, a reclusive private resort. This installment features no fighting engine, instead being much like a simulation game that encourages the player to establish relationships with the AI of characters, and eventually make a two-person team to compete in volleyball competitions. "Zack dollars" earned from completing mini-games allows the player to purchase hundreds of different swimsuits, some of which range from regular to extremely provocative. According to Itagaki, who revealed the basis for the game in an interview with G4, he claims to have taken note of fan's wish for a beach ball mini-game in DOA2. A sequel for this game, merely called Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 has been released for the Xbox 360.
A side-story game, named Dead or Alive: Code Cronus, is also in production for the Xbox 360, and was confirmed in the July 2006 edition of Play Magazine by Itagaki to "...not be a fighting game" and instead act as a prequel to the series proper, relaying the history of ninjas Ayane and Kasumi. Earlier reports had implied the character of Helena would be more heavily involved
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."
Connection with the new Ninja Gaiden
Ninja Gaiden was revived by Tomonobu Itagaki and Team Ninja. While the new Ninja Gaiden was in progress by Team Ninja, Itagaki had it linked to Dead or Alive. The new Ninja Gaiden game was a 'reboot' to its universe and instead of continuing the original NES story, the game became a prequel to the first DOA game.
Ryu Hayabusa, one of the DOA characters, is the main protagonist of Ninja Gaiden. Before the existence of DOA, he was moved to the fighting video game. He plays a major role in the game and he's the 2nd DOA Tournament winner.
|
