Dead or Alive 3 (Xbox only)

This is basically like Tekken games you might think, but fortunately it's something different. This is an innovative new type of fighting game. By that I do not mean that it has something new brought into it like magic, but the fighting is of the highest caliber. Everything is just so realistic, if you are about to kick someone in the head, then they would grab your leg as they would in real life and usually end up throwing you around the place. There are about eight to ten different styles of martial arts available. Each character know a different style of martial arts, and there is even a person who knows Bruce Lee's martial art - Jeet Kune Do. You do need to pick your characters carefully though because different characters move differently, the females are usually quick and some of the males are very strong but quite slow. After you complete the game with a character you are awarded with a trailer featuring the character you have just completed the game with. If you accidentaly skipped the trailer then you can just go to "trailers" in the main menu and view it from there. If you have played any games designed by team ninja such as Ninja Gaiden then you will notice thet the trailers are as realistic as ever. You might comfuse some parts of trailers for reality, that is how good it is.

You will find however that the story mode is a bit short, and can easily be completed in one sitting. But after completing the game you can try playing through the extras such as tag battle mode. Here you chose the two characters with whom you want to fight, and face five pairs of opponents in five stages. Be carefull, because it may seem easy at the beginning but as you go up a stage it gets harder and harder.

There is also a "practice" mode where you can pick your character and your opponent and practice some moves. You can also change the CPU level which is how good your opponent is, for instance if you choose 'level 1' than your opponent is going to be very weak but if you choose something like 'level 7' then your opponent will be very skilled and hard to attack.

This is a great game to have if you like fighting games. The graphics are astonishing and everything looks very realistic.

Sound 8/10 - Generally quite good. There is different baground music depending on who you fight.

Gameplay 9/10 - The controls are very easy to get used to and quite hard to master.

Graphics 10/10 - Some of the best graphics you might ever see on the XBOX.

Value 9/10 - You can get alot from this game. Although the story mode is short there are many other options to keep you entertained.

Final Score 8.9/10