The Future of Dead or Alive

It's been a while since we've seen a Dead or Alive game. DOA 4 came out a little bit after the Xbox 360 launch and Xtreme Beach Volleyball 2, which was horrible compared to the first, a year later. Ninja Gaiden 2 has now since come out, and Itagaki has left Tecmo due to payment disputes. Tecmo looks to be a former shell of itself as one would infer from their Holiday offerings and TGS showing. I asked the question before, what's in store for the future of Tecmo?

This time I'd like to focus more on the future of Tecmo's Dead or Alive franchise. Some would like to think that Tecmo and DOA are dead in the water. It may look that way. But I see this as a great opportunity to create something new. With Itagaki gone, this opens up door to changes and possibly fixes.

One problem I've always had with DOA is that each game really never feels like a completely new game. Character animations, game menus, and overall presentation never feel worth the cost of admission. I'd like to see them ditch the Aerosmith, redesign the characters. Put more detail in them. Look how the Tekken series has changed from each game. There's dramatic visual improvement in each iteration. Besides the background details, you cannot say the same for the DOA series. The characters just aren't designed in a way for graphical improvement. They're created in an anime style with limited detail. Here's the chance to improve that. Make a new character selection interface. Redo character animations. Make it feel like a different series.

While we're on the subject of looks, Change the ribbon hair physics! They look like crap. They're unnatural and should be one of the first things changed.

Let's be honest, too. Why do we play Dead or Alive? We play it because of the ladies. You can call a donkey a horse all you want, but everyone just knows you're being a jackass. So give people what they want. Costumes. I'm talking about a massive amount of unlockable costumes for everyone, but especially for the girls. I'm not even asking for a customize feature where you could make your own costumes for your character. That would be awesome though. DOA 2 Ultimate had like 15 for the more popular of the girls. Dead or Alive 4 had like two characters with the most of 6 costumes. I want at least 30. AT LEAST! As for the unlock method. Come up with something creative. Enough with this beat the game, unlock a costume. Beat it again to unlock another one, so that you end up beating the game 30 times to get all 30 costumes. That's just retarded. Come up with something new, make it like Smash Bros where you spend coins on a capsule machine. Shit, even that's better than the old method, and I just thought of that sitting on my ass eating Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. One more thing about the costumes, make them unique and classy. None of that color palate swap shit.

So combat. This one is tricky. People argue all the time. Dead or Alive is a good game. It really has depth. I'm not just mashing. I don't care how DOA was in the past. This is a new DOA. So the reversal system needs to be refined more. Less of this guesswork and random spamming of reversals. Any competitive play I saw tons of just throwing out random reversals hoping to get lucky. Online play, I saw even more of that. If you leave yourself open like that, you should get punished. Maybe even slow down the game a little. Also I think hit detection desperately needs to be cleaned up. When someone blocks, it should look like they blocked. You should feel it too. Juggles shouldn't look like a character being poked in the air by a series of quick slaps. It should follow suit with the moves they are being hit with. I've always hated knock back system in DOA. I feel like it moves your opponent back taking away from the action and wake up games. Mostly I think it has been done to allow people chances to use the environment damage. I've never liked environmental damage, but it is something that makes Dead or Alive unique. So let's keep it. Just be clever about it. Make it not so gimmicky or too cheap.

Online play? Hmm, I don't know about this one. It's not worked with a lot of fighters and DOA being one of the fastest, it's not going to be pretty. I'll get back to you on this one.

Story wise, blah blah blah. It's another tournament. I'd like something realistic with deep story making me care about the characters, but I'm not asking for Tecmo to change the world either. Just make some good ending cutscenes without that cheesy music they used for DOA 4 and I'll be happy.

Team Ninja is still around. Tecmo, I'm pretty sure, still own the rights and likenesses to DOA. I even remember DOA 5 and DOA: Code Cronos were already in the works. Itagaki, the father of DOA is gone. With all respect to him and what he's done, sometimes you need a change in perspective to breathe new life into something. With all these hardcore deep fighters trying to appeal to more mainstream audiences, Dead or alive could go the other way. They've always had the appeal and look. This time they could finally silence all the critics. Dead or Alive saved Tecmo from bankruptcy once. Here's the chance to do it again.

Actually, let's see less of the above. And more of the below.
David

Wait, not this.


Close...

Closer...

Too Close...

There we go. This is what we need.

Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon (Wii)

There was a good three or four months when things were a little shaky. I couldn't get excited about any games. Brad was beginning to worry a little about my interest in pursing the site. I honestly just could find any games that looked interesting. Recently I began being a little lenient with my money. Buying games just because I wanted to play and own them, not always thinking about the consequences. This spark helped me to start thinking about games I was excited about. Nobi Nobi Boy. Oboromuramasa. Flower, Sun, And Rain.

And now Fragile: Sayonara Tsuki no Haikyo

I think I saw a few posters at TGS 2008, but of course with everything being in Japanese, you kind of just overlook it. This is not supposed to be a survivial horror game. It is being dubbed a human drama, which both excites and worries me. The game is set in a destroyed world, a young boy Seto is searching for survivors and answers. Of course the animation looks fantastic, which is one of the reasons I'm excited. And being something unique and different for the Wii, it's something for the starving system. It's being developed by tri-Crecendo, who's most recent work was Eternal Sonata for the Xbox 360. Here's the translated trailer, the theme song for the game is "Hikari" by Aoi Teshima.



Please visit the Official Site, listen to the music. [Link]
David

Brad's Little Big Planet Contest (Update)

It's simple really. You have exactly one week to make the best level you possibly can in Little Big Planet. I am the judge. The goal is simply to entertain me. The level I have the most fun with wins. I will play the levels on Saturday, December 26th. Prize is a 20 dollar PSN Store points card (or just the code).

Update: The contest was extended a week to better set up how you guys will submit your levels. If you are interested in entering the contest, send me an email at bradsimons@4playerpodcast.com. Title the email: "Little Big Planet Contest". In the email, simply leave your PSN tag. I will go from there.


Brad

Who is Street Fighter IV?

Seriously, who is Street Fighter for? I love the characters, especially Sakura and Chun-Li. I love everything Capcom does. But I can't see Street Fighter IV doing well here. I'm just a little puzzled at who will get excited about this game.

Personally, as a person who's always trying to be deeply involved in games, I'm dissapointed that I've never been able to really get into fighting games. I've always wanted to. It's not that I'm not a fan of the genre. But I think that it's gotten to a point that it's incredibly difficult to break into those types of games. There are three basic types for fighting game players. Those that don't play. Those who somewhat play. And those who play competitively. Of course there's some spill over into each and some people don't exactly fit into one or the other. But overall that's what the breakdown is.

My question is of course, who is Street Fighter for? Who is going to get excited about this game? I am moderately excited. More so than I was for Soul Calibur IV earlier this year. Seeing the cover with Chun-Li makes me want to buy it. There's no question about it. Out of respect and support, I will pay for this game day one. But will I play it? That is the real question.

Thanks to Brad I got introduced to the world of Tekken. I really enjoyed learning the game and while I never got to the level I wanted, I am confident enough to where I could play the game against most players and enjoy it . Other fighting games are different though. I've tried/wanted to pick up other games. They had things to draw me in. The character design of Arcana Heart. The art of Guilty Gear. The uniqueness of Battle Fantasia. King of Fighters, Melty Blood, Third Strike, Project Justice, Soul Calibur, Virtua Fighter. They all had something to get me interested. But to keep me interested, I need something more.

First off, I think a lot has to do with having someone to play with. Playing the CPU is only fun for so long and a lot of the draw of these games is learning from other people. That is the second reason my experience with Tekken lasted as long as it did. These games can be very frustrating when you don't know what you're doing. I'm not content with just hitting buttons hoping things will work out. I want to know what I'm doing. Trying to learn a fighting game by yourself is a huge bummer and online is still not yet up to speed.

I can't find the time or determination to get into these types of games. Will others? I think there are very few fighting games that can survive now. You see fighting games have these tie ins. MK vs DC, perfect example. Soul Calibur with Star Wars. Is that the only way a fighting game can come out be reach an audience? Hardcore players took it to another level. Competetively there's just too much of a gap in skill. It's like how it is in Dragon Ball. The power level is just too great. So you find games aimed for the casual players and you find some for the hardcore. The latter does not sell well because honestly, there's not that many players in that category. Bridging the two to make a game appeal to the both is near impossible. I don't want a game to be too hardcore but I also don't want it to be dumbed down so that it's too easy. It's a very difficult balance to try maintain. Honestly, I think they have the best chance. The name is there, it basically popularized the genre. Other's have tried to bridge the gap before. They're were never really on one side or the other, so they never really garnered the success towards either side. And with Street Fighter IV, I'm worried it will be the same way. Hence the question, Who is Street Fighter IV?


Thanks,
David

Help Wanted: Best Moments of the Year

So we've had a lot of stuff happen over the last 10 months since we started broadcasting. I'm trying to put something together for the end of the year special but I need your help thinking of your favorite moments.

If you're a forum member, you can help us out at the forums in the help wanted section.
[Link]

Thanks,
David

Trophies vs Achievements

Last week I chose to play Mirror's Edge on the Xbox 360 over the PS3. Nick was somewhat shocked because he claimed Trophies and Achievements are essentially the same. They are set to unlock dependent on what you are able to do in the game. You get something that really adds no physical value to your game purchase. Feeling of accomplishment aside, I say Achievements are worth more than just trophies.

The primary reason that Achievements are superior to Trophies is that they have an overall way to compare one player vs another player. It's arbitrary to assign points to each accomplishment, but because Microsoft has chosen to do so, there is now a way to compare not only game to game but also player to player. Everything adds up to a total. So no matter what games a player has tried, they are able to be measured up against another. With the Trophy system there is no easy way to do this. You could compare games individually, trophy by trophy. Certain ones are worth more because of the gold, silver, or bronze rankings. There is no easy way to compare across the board.

Whether it was a good move or a bad move, Achievements have sparked a competitiveness among game players and is the much better "points" system.

David

Top 5 Podcast Recording Tomorrow Night

Top 5 features or mechanics within games that we hope will(or would have) catch on with the rest of the industry. These can also be from older games long gone.

Example of something that did: Shield recharging from Halo. Everyone has that now.

Example of something we might want: Dead Space's HUD integration or Prince of Persia 2008's failure masking.


Leave you ideas for a shorter title name to the show in the comments section.

Thanks,

Brad

Look guys. We laughed Free Radical out of business!

So Haze was easy to make fun of. I mean the game was fucking awful. But prior to me playing the demo, I was willing to give the game the benefit of the doubt. I was on record of saying the game would probably be good.

This was because the game was being developed by the Free Radical. Never heard of them? Last generation that made the Timeplitters series. I consider is one of the most underrated FPS franchises around. I absolutely adore the second game in that series. They also made the surprisingly good Second Sight. Oh yeah, and the generation before that? Well, the studio was created by the guys that left Rare who worked on Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. Which is why Timesplitters feels so much like those games. And most likely why the Perfect Dark sequel was shit.

So they are gone now. Is this okay because Haze was a bad game? Larger companies are allowed to make mistakes. Square has the Saga games and Ubisoft has Prince of Persia 2008. I dunno, it just doesn't seem fair.


Brad

New Star Ocean 4 trailer looks shitty, then awesome, and then shitty again. Fine by me.

So in my eyes, everything I've seen outside of battle in this game looks pretty bad. Character designs get special mention of being amazingly fecal. But keep watching and about half way in you will see 20 or 30 seconds of battle gameplay. And it looks fucking awesome. I love me some completely over-the-fucking-top special attacks.

I just hope this controls a hell of a lot better than Star Ocean 3.

Brad

MGS4 Lives to See Another Day as a PS3 Exclusive

Remember that teaser trailer that went up a few weeks ago. The one that everyone assumed was leading up to the announcement of MGS4 on the Xbox 360. Yeah... it has been confirmed that this is no more than MGS Touch.... an iphone game based off of the story and characters of MGS4. I know this will probably annoy alot of you (including Brad) but color me excited... MGS4 remains an exclusive for now. Since I don't have an iPhone, don't expect any thoughts or impressions from me. However, it is nice to see that the iPhone is creeping closer to becoming a legitimate gaming portable device.

-Nick