Dead or Alive 5

With little exception I'm not good at fighting games. At all.

I'm just not good at memorizing commands and when I can memorize them I'm not necessarily able to input them accurately or quickly enough to make good use of them within the actual game.

I'm the kinda guy that actually will play a fighting game for the story, daft as that might seem.

And DOA 5 does the Mortal Kombat thing of having it's storymode be comprised of in-engine cutscenes that either advance the games plot or provide a reason however weak for two characters to fight. And man there are a lot of flimsy excuses for the various brawls that take place in this games story mode.

The only problem I have with the story mode is that outside of the Kasumi and other various Ninja-people chapters, it doesn't feel like a lot of the characters stories really mattered to the overall arc. So you have like three or four important chapters and then a whole lot of filler.

And whilst I loved how Mortal Kombat handled the story mode, I appreciated that they didn't do away with character specific endings in the games arcade mode - canon or not those endings were just plain fun.

DOA5 however does lack character specific endings, indeed the only thing you really gain from playing arcade mode is alternate outfits for whoever you complete it with. It's a bit of a bummer.

Again I feel I must reiterate as I begin to talk about the gameplay, that I'm no fighting game expert.

So bare that in mind when I say that DOA5 feels pretty much exactly like DOA 4.

There's more environmental interaction, which is cool.

But the basic flow of combat feels the same, save for the fact that counters are less prevalent and thank god for that. Used to be playing against my bro in DOA4 that he got so good at countering that unless he was playing offensively I didn't stand a chance, he'd just counter all day, every day. I suppose the timing here is a bit tighter and harder to pull off, so it's not as reliable a tactic as it used to be.

Aesthetically the game is looking incredibly sharp.

Characters now have skin textures that actually resemble skin, blemishes and all - rather than the kind of weird, plastic doll look they had in games prior. And, y'know, there are boobs yo. You'll either like that or you won't, personally I'm for it. I'm sure that makes me some sort of creep or whatever and I suppose I hate women or something, because apparently that's how things work nowadays - but whatever, you like what you like and if you don't like busty ninja ladies then you can continue to not play Dead or Alive I suppose.

And that's about all I've got.

It's been awhile since the last Dead or Alive game - if you ignore handheld titles and volleyball themed spin offs. So if you feel like you want more of that, then DOA5 will provide, it'll scratch that itch good.