Price: £44.99

Players: 1-4

The third game in this series and things haven't changed a great deal apart from the quality of its appearance. What gains this game most admirable notireity is again the "bouncing bosoms" effect, which means it'll sell plenty to testosterone-filled blokes and the beefcakes in the game may attract their girlfriends. Yes, June is most definitely busting out all over! Babes out to bash your bonce begin with Kasumi, Hitomi, Tina, Helena, Christie, Ayane and Leifang. The men include a moustached Patrick Stewart-a-like and one who must be a copy of Wesley Snipes in Demolition Man but more are unlockable as you progress. Whereas game venues include ice caverns, the beach and mountain tops, what sets Dead or Alive 3 apart from the crowd is the way you can jump about pieces of the scenery, for those locations which allow this, as another way of causing serious damage to your opponent.

The Story mode is a standard arcade game and for each character you fight with, you'll get a bonus movie to watch after dispatching of all your opponents for that game. "Time Attack" takes you through a series of bad guys and gals and once the entire run is completed the time taken will be added to the scoreboard so it pays to be quick. "Survival" is the third game as you face a procession of enemies - one at a time, there's a dedicated "Tag Battle" mode, the "Team Battle" mode lets you select a team of up to five characters to face the Xbox's elite force to see who'll have the last man standing. "Versus" is a standard two-player game; "Sparring" is DOA3's practice mode - which will also keep a record of your button presses so you can note down your fancy moves while jumping about your choice of several arenas; "Watch" mode is purely for a demo and "Theater" plays back all the end-movies unlocked so far. However, where's the "Battle Rec." mode gone which recorded the complete melee for you to play back at your leisure? Tag-team battles are also available for some of the game modes, which allows up to four individual players to take part.

Visually, it is stunning and is a treat to watch, bar the odd minor annoyance the way superfluous edge-background items appear and disappear so as to let you see what's going on and stop them getting in the way. The characters get more lifelike with each successive game in a series like this and here the hair sweeps around naturally, as does Leifang's split skirt. There's also a very clever visual effect when fighting in the fiery depths occupied by Omega. The game contains a few Aerosmith tracks, but most of the in-game music is typical arcade hi-energy synth music, accompanied by grunts and taunts from the onscreen foes.

Overall, Soul Blade and Soul Calibur still have the edge over the Dead or Alive series, partly because it feels like a better fighting game and also because of the extra "Edge Master" mode, which added depth once you'd got past all the standard fighting sections. Also, the smallish buttons on the joypad don't really lend themselves to constant button-bashing that is required for such a game as this. You can buy a separate arcade stick, but I got on okay with the joypad for the Dreamcast and PS2 for their respective battle games.

GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ENJOYMENT
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2002.