On The History Of Dead Or Alive 33
Thanks to IGN Xbox for its article documenting the history of Tecmo's Dead Or Alive fighting game franchise. The piece discusses the "series that brought [Ninja Gaiden developer] Tecmo from an underrated developer to one of the most popular companies in the industry", focusing on titles including Dead Or Alive 2 ("...introduced many concepts that have yet to be fully utilized in other fighting games") and the forthcoming Dead Or Alive Ultimate ("All the buzz is around the online play at this moment, and whether or not Team Ninja will be able to pull it off successfully.") TeamXbox also has an interview with Tecmo's delightfully deranged Tomonobu Itagaki, who declares: "To be thrown off of a cliff by an ugly opponent might make you feel bad even if the fight was fair, but to be thrown off by a beautiful woman... that should make you feel good about losing."
How can you mention Dead or Alive... (Score:5, Interesting)
The weird thing is that it isn't actally that bad a game, nor is the content particularly shocking. It's... like... girls in bikinis. You've seen worse on Baywatch. In fact, here in the UK, you can walk into a newsagent and buy worse in a mainstream tabloid newspaper (eg. The Sun, The Star) and those are sold for a few pence each with no age restrictions. I guess it's a good illustration of how double-standards apply to video-games.
Re:How can you mention Dead or Alive... (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought DoA:XBV was a wonderful game, and quite an original one at that. It was very peaceful with no real objective or aim. You just wandered through the game playing a bit of volleyball, looking around the island and collecting swimsuits and items.
When it came out I had a weeks holiday from work and bought loads of games (DoA:XBV, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Metroid Prime, and a few others), intending to play them that week and then take them back for a refund at the end of the week. I ended up playing DoA:XBV all week as it was so captivating.
Re:How can you mention Dead or Alive... (Score:1)
If you had no intention of keeping the games why didn't you just rent them?
Re:How can you mention Dead or Alive... (Score:2)
The people in the shop know I do it and don't mind. They resell the games as new and I end up spending more on games this way (as well as getting more value for my money).
Re:How can you mention Dead or Alive... (Score:2)
It was a pretty fun game, mixing elements of volleyball and dating simulation.
The beat em ups were a bit lame tho, somewhere between Soul Calibur/Virtua Fighter and Tekken in quality.
Re:"Worse" (Score:1)
Re:How can you mention Dead or Alive... (Score:1)
Re:How can you mention Dead or Alive... (Score:2)
I'm a professional game developer, so I get this a lot.
Scott McCloud [scottmccloud.com] in his bood Reinventing Comics had a wonderful insight:
Even though he was talking about comics, you can apply this just
If only... (Score:1)
Must... resist... XBox. Must... not be... drawn in... by... the evil...
Re:I'll tell you why... (Score:1)
Re:If only... (Score:5, Informative)
That being said, I'm sure there are financial incentives given to publishers if they release exclusively on a particular console, probably in the form of lower licensing fees. Of course, this is obviously just as true for Sony (see Rockstar/GTA for a clear example of paying off a developer for console exclusivity). Considering the paucity of [US] third-party exclusives on the Gamecube, I don't know if Nintendo offers incentives.
Re:If only... (Score:4, Interesting)
The story goes that when they got an Xbox dev kit, they ported over the PS2 version of DOA2 (which didn't even look as good as the Dreamcast version) to the point where it ran, then sat back in amazement as it ran at over 130 frames per second.
Re:If only... (Score:3, Interesting)
Still apart from this beach ball game and project gotham, there's nothing i want to play on the xbox (and i have msr on the dreamcast), so spending 200 on the opportunity to have a console with a crappy controller and more hassle with scart cables doesnt appeal.
Re:If only... (Score:1)
Re:If only... (Score:2)
Re:If only... (Score:1)
Re:If only... (Score:2)
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
But seriously, when you consider all of the complete-unknowns in the video game industry, Tecmo does stand out. They are no (Capcom/Konami/Square/Enix/Rare). But, they've been making games since the NES, and good ones here and there. I can't think of any for the PSX/N64 era, but they have good ones on NES, SNES, Genesis, PS2, and Xbox.
Re:WTF? (Score:2)
Then I picked up ESPN/NFL2K5. Even a lame-ass like me, who has problems with games that use a lot of buttons, can handle this one. The play is great, it looks amazing, and is a lot of fun.
Finally- Tecmo Bowl gets unseated in my mind as number 1..after 14 years!
Re:WTF? (Score:2)
The original DOA was PSX only, right?
Re:WTF? (Score:1)
Poor, poor Saturn; such a good, yet often maligned, system.