| | GameDAILY Editorial:Dead or Alive UltimateBy Bryan Dawson, Senior Editor
Many years ago, having online play in any video game was an amazing feat. But, times have changed, and the introduction of broadband Internet has made it possible for developers to implement online features into a wide variety of games. You’d be hard-pressed to find many first-person shooters that don’t have some sort of online play, as well as an extremely riveting single-player mode. However, fighting games, a genre that fits online gaming like a glove, given its deep roots in competitive play, has yet to really make the jump to the online gaming world.
Killer Instinct for the Super Nintendo attempted to remedy this situation by having Xband modem support, but the result was a lag-filled display of sub-par gaming. Fast forward nearly a decade, and you find Capcom’s online fighting games for the SEGA Dreamcast, but they were limited to the Japanese market. Finally, Capcom came to their senses and gave U.S. gamers what the Japanese had been experiencing for several years. Capcom vs. SNK 2: E.O. hit Xbox Live, and things were looking up, but when would the 3-D fighting game fans finally get a shot at online gaming? Well, Tecmo has kindly stepped up to the plate to answer that question.
Dead or Alive® Ultimate makes its Xbox Live debut in less than two months, and it’s a compilation of the original Dead or Alive® and Dead or Alive® 2, complete with enhanced graphics and gameplay (reserved strictly for Dead or Alive 2). Finally, 3-D fighting fans will have their time in the limelight, and things will forever change within the fighting game community. What sort of changes can we expect? More than you may think. Read on for a look inside the online Dead or Alive community. 
3-D fighting fans, get ready!
The first major change to hit Dead or Alive players will be the realization that there are people out there who are better than the local hot shot. Until now, your average fighting game fan has compared themselves to the local competition and come to the conclusion that, if they are not easily beat, they’re among the best. Come March, you can prove them wrong (or right) by logging on to Xbox Live. Instead of endless arguing, someone will be put in their place in a matter of minutes, and the real top fighters will make themselves known.
While this will help end the rants of those who think they’re better than they actually are, it will also entice the better players to talk even more trash. Meanwhile, the players who thought they were good will have two options. They can complain that something went wrong in the match and the winning player was using “unfair” or “cheap” tactics, or they can swallow their pride and learn from their loss. The latter option will likely be the most frequent response.
The Dead or Alive series has always been a top-selling franchise. Dead or Alive® 3 still remains one of the top-selling games on the Xbox. With Xbox Live subscribers reaching more than 750,000, it’s safe to say that Dead or Alive Ultimate will have a vast community of players. These players are already talking trash and issuing challenges across Internet message boards. This is all leading up to the inevitable tournaments that will quickly follow the game’s release. 
Challenge gamers on XboxLive.
While Microsoft will likely hold some sort of official Dead or Alive Ultimate tournament at some point, there will be a plethora of unofficial tournaments. These will consist of your standard single- and double-elimination events as well as ongoing ladder tournaments, where players are constantly battling for the top spot. Not only will these tournaments help to increase the overall skill level of each player, but they will also help to mold the Dead or Alive community. Right now there are widely populated sites for almost every Capcom and Namco fighting game series. Any Tekken fan can head over to http://www.tekkenzaibatsu.com and find an endless number of strategies, tournament posts, local threads for most major cities, and players ready to talk about anything Tekken-related. Another site, http://www.shoryuken.com, provides the same atmosphere for Capcom fighters. However, the Dead or Alivecommunity has nothing to hold them together.
Dead or Alive Ultimate will help to change the way the Dead or Alive community thinks. Players across the world will drastically increase their level of play. Fans of other fighting games will take notice, since it will be the only online 3-D fighting game, and the Dead or Alive community will come together and show the world that Dead or Alive is more than just fan service for teenage males. The question is, will the world be ready for the coming of Dead or Alive Ultimate? Come March 23, 2004, we’ll find out.
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