DOA Ultimate: DOA 3: Price: £39.99 Players: 1-online Widescreen: Yes (DOA2 only) 60Hz: No Dolby Digital 5.1 sound: Yes Xbox Live-enabled: Yes It's been three years since the release of Dead or Alive 3, a game which looked fantastic but still had some faults. Dead or Alive Ultimates takes the two earlier editions in the series and attempts to update them for today's audience on the Xbox. Does it work?

There's one disc for each game, and for Dead or Alive 1 Ultimate we have the following game modes: Arcade mode: Two players duel and the one who wins gets to come back for another shot. Time Attack: Bash up the baddies again but now you're timed, so the aim is to complete them faster as you progress. Survival: Here, you only have one life. See how long you can last. Kumite: fight up to 100 opponents in turn. This one'll take a while! Training: Get some practice in And then, for the first time ever, there's a DOA Online mode. All the usual quick match, optimatch, create match, etc, options are here.

All the usual game options are available. You can configure the size of the playing field, the number of elements to your life gauge so you can stay on for longer if you're a bit crap, and the 'Bouncing Breast' which I thought was the effect that knocks seven bells out of whoever falls out of the ring and lands on the surrounds, but it isn't and now I don't know what it is. As for the look, DOA1 is rather bland and features mostly-static backgrounds that scroll round to accommodate your position, certainly looking very dated. Ok, so they may be perfect renderings of the original 1997 Sega Saturn release but this will only wow you if you're a die-hard DOA fan. There's nice background music, but you can't sidestep around the enemy and overall it's not as much fun as the Soul Calibur series. I couldn't seem to be able to quit out of the Kumite mode without resetting the Xbox and the online version doesn't appear to be available in this game. There's just no-one about. Anyone know why?

Things improve greatly with Dead or Alive 2, beginning with a re-rendered opening FMV sequence. In addition to the Time Attack and Survival modes, there's a 4-man Tag Battle where you can play with up to that number of humans, and a Team Battle where your five selections go against an opponent's five. Whoever goes through them all and is defeated at the end is the loser. You can also watch matches taking place, and the sparring mode lists the button presses made at the bottom of the screen. However, the two most notable are the Story and Online Modes, the first in which you'll battle each enemy in turn, with only one 'life' per round, but if you lose then you'll just replay that round so really you've nothing to lose. The manual says you'll learn the truth behind each character with this mode, but it's just damn good fun so forget the whys and wherefores and just get stuck in! One problem is that these are over quite quickly as they're not particularly difficult, especially once you learn how to defeat the end-stage baddie.

Playing online, this time it works a treat and all the usual options are in there. Examples include being able to create your own game for you and whoever else, or join another one where 'Winner stays on', so there won't just be two of you in the 'room'. Even if you're not taking part, you can watch and move the joypad, or press the buttons, to dramatically alter the view. As an aside, I had to open up a couple of ports in my firewall order to utilise the online mode, so thought that was the problem with DOA1, but no. However, after putting that disc in I was still able to access the DOA2 online mode which was a nice and handy touch. One plus is that here you can side-step, and blocking an opponent up against a wall isn't as bad as in Dead or Alive 3, with which I had some issues. There are far more engaging backgrounds and environments on which to wreak havoc. I love being able to smash someone through a wall or plate-glass window and falling to our, otherwise certain fate but here, next level of ground down, be it a mountainous area - facing a female opponent with a mountainous chest! - or a lush, snowy and icy landscape, with stalagmites that smash when someone hits against them with force. Overall, I'd forget DOA1 unless you've a penchant for not-very-good-retro, and make this a rental if you're not 100% sure about whether another fighting game is for you. Sure, DOA2 is an improvement all round but, despite the online mode, it just doesn't have the longevity of Soul Calibur II and feels like we've been here way too many times before.

DOA1 GRAPHICS DOA2 GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ENJOYMENT
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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2005.