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Chinese garb worn by both Gen Fu and Brad Wong have a smooth sheen to
them. The leather that makes up Tina and Leifang's alternate second
costume, Bayman's orange vest, and Bass' biker outfit are realistic
enough that you would swear you could actually smell the rawhide itself.
The game's realism is that good. But wait until you check out what the
Xbox is capable of in the computer-generated ending movies attained by
taking each character through the Story Mode. I was awed, to say the
least. The best is Jann Lee. His ending movie has him bouncing out some
unruly guests from the nightclub he works at. After resistance from the
miscreants, he takes them outside for a "friendly" little chat. The
shirtless Jann Lee flexes his muscular upper body, and the combination
of skin, muscles, and veins on display is unbelievable. Those perverts
playing the game will like the brief nudity flash during Christie's
movie and the skimpy bathing suit-attired Helena taking a swim with the
dolphins.
Levels throughout the game don't attain the same high graphical
sweetness as the characters, but they aren't far behind. Even better is
the interactive aspect of most of them. In the indoor dojo, you can
throw your opponent through the wall, sending them crashing onto the
roof below. You can toss them down again into the courtyard. The
fenced-in fighting arena explodes with blinding electricity when a
fighter gets tossed into the enclosure. These type of interactions can
change the tide of the battle for or against you, depending if you or
your opponent is the unlucky one headed into a bone-crunching encounter
with interactive level features. One of the most impressive levels is
the forest. The falling leaves and the moss-covered rocks must be seen
to be believed for their fabulous authenticity.
The short and basically easy Story Mode is DOA3's only disappointing
aspect. I can't tell if that is because I was having so much fun playing
that I didn't realize until too late that I had finished the mode or if
it really is as short as it seemed. Regardless, you will be clamoring
for more of DOA3 once you have made it through the Story Mode. And this
takes into account the fact that the game has no coherent storyline to
speak of. In actuality, it's so stupid, I don't even want to give up the
details here for fear it may cause readers to lose some IQ points.
Tag Battle and Team Battle are much more engaging game modes which
rescue the overall game from sinking to the tragically brief Story
Mode's equivalent. Tag Battle lets you and a partner (either human or
CPU) square off against another duo (any combination of two human or CPU
adversaries). The capability of pulling off combo moves, which
incorporates the two teammates to use their skills in a combined attack,
is absolutely a thing of beauty. The team of Zack and Bass, for example,
has two devastating combos. One is when Zack "tags" into the match and
is thrown headfirst into the opposing combatant. It's features like this
that make DOA3 a wonderful multiplayer engagement that thrusts the game
into the realm of mentioning it amongst the best games of 2001.
You are given a great selection of characters to choose. 16 different
and varied fighters are available to select from. And each has a
different fighting style, reflected not only in the moves that can be
made by each, but also differing in speed and strength. Bass is a good
example. Nobody hits harder than the 6 ' 5", 346-pound wrestler. But
that is counterbalanced by his slowness afoot and in his attempts to
rapidly attack. He doesn't have the speed that ninja Ryu Haybusa, almost
200 pounds lighter than Bass, has as part of his fighting abilities.
Microsoft has been smartly advertising the game with the commercial that
features two drooling, obviously female-deprived twenty-somethings
unconvincingly trying to play off the fact that the only reason they
play DOA3 is they really, really enjoy seeing all those vivacious
brawling babes and their patented extremely high and perverse
thoughts-provoking kicks. There is so many beautiful femme fatales to
select from, if you don't notice their prominently bodacious bodies, you
are one of those poor saps that only picks up Playboy magazine for the
articles.
Each character is given a detailed biography with the usual information
you would expect, like age, height, weight, fighting style, and
nationality. But there is also a spattering of eclectic data such as
each character's blood type, which holds astrological significance among
the Japanese but doesn't mean squat anywhere else. They also have their
likes and hobbies listed, which are also a little bizarre. Pro wrestler
Tina cycles and plays video games as a hobby. (Anybody else but me think
she likes fighting games the best?). Kasumi's likes sent me to my handy
dictionary: She likes strawberry millefeuille (it is some kind of French
strawberry cream puff).
Another important attribute is DOA3's excellent control scheme. The Xbox
controller looks and feels intimidating if you haven't had any
experience playing an Xbox game before. In fighting games, combination
moves and variety of attack and defensive positions is a significant
need. DOA3 has it all. And the Xbox controller surprisingly proves up to
the challenge of supplying the necessary fluid control to throw, punch,
kick, or block your opponent with relative ease. The only thing missing
from the fighting aspect of DOA3 is the ability to incorporate any type
of weaponry into your attack scheme. That would have been a welcome game
upgrade.
The speed of the game's flow is very nice. In another nod to the power
of the Xbox, you won't see any pauses during game action. The velocity
and ferocity of some of the attack moves that zoom around the arena are
truly bestial in their utter savagery. Game action is always high-paced,
giving you little time to strategize. You need to be an expert at
fighting on the fly if you want to survive and become a veritable DOA3
master.
Music is better than average, with most of the tunage provided in the
individual levels having a distinctly techno-house sound. And the
ageless rockers Aerosmith, who once were the basis of a mostly awful
videogame some years back, provide three songs ("Amazing," "Home
Tonight", and "Nine Lives") that can be heard if you make it through the
entire Story Mode. Sound effects, especially when character's are thrown
into portions of the fighting environment are okay, but fall a shade
under the technological greatness of DOA3's dazzling visual
presentation. All the characters talk in Japanese, even the Americans
Zack, Tina, and Bass, which is weird, but this game was designed with
the Japanese fighting game fan in mind, so we'll let that go without too
much complaint. Tecmo plans on also releasing sometime in the very near
future a DOA3 expansion disc, which will incorporate many of the options
that were supposedly only to be made available in the upcoming Japanese
version of the game.
Because of the shallow single-player Story Mode, DOA3 ultimately fails
by the slimmest of margins to surpass Soul Calibur as the greatest
fighting game released. We'll see how it holds up to Virtua Fighter 4
and Soul Calibur 2 down the road. However, the game has one quality, an
overwhelming delightful visual treat for your eyes, the original Soul
Calibur doesn't provide nearly as well. Including the beautifully
rendered Super Smash Bros. Melee for the GameCube, DOA3 certainly is the
most impressive-looking console fighter released. Next to Halo, this is
the one launch game that would make buying an Xbox worth every cent (all
29,999 of them) you paid for it.
- Lee Cieniawa
(December 2, 2001) |
