PSP Review – Dead or Alive Paradise

Team Ninja takes the beach babes to a whole new level with this PSP spin-off of the popular Dead or Alive series, as players are able to mingle, flirt, play, take snapshots, and challenge the girls in various mini-games found throughout your private island. But does this all translate into a well polished PSP transition of Dead or Alive?

Upon starting the game up, a rather revealing and humorous intro video pops up, featuring breasts, bikinis, and lots of suggestive poses. The game is set in ‘New Zack Island,’ also known as the land of bullshit because that’s what most players’ impressions will be. The menu is what defines this game, because that’s what you’ll be using for the most part. Once you’ve started the “Travel to New Zack Island” mode, which is the main ‘career’ mode if you like, you’ll witness a nonsensical conversation between two girls. You then have to buy a bikini and gift wrap it according to the on-screen female’s preferences.

The concept of Dead or Alive: Paradise is bland at the very least. Playable characters from the previous Dead Or Alive games, including Kasumi and Christie, have been invited to a two week holiday on New Zack Island. Your main aim is simply to help them make friends with each other. This is done by helping the girls bribe one another with presents such as bikinis. To acquire new virtual large-breasted friends, a player must earn money by playing volleyball.

Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball for the original Xbox featured some solid gameplay mechanics–the volleyball was good enough to warrant at least one playthrough. However, the same cannot be said about DOA Paradise. Tecmo hasn’t delivered any of the gameplay elements from DOA’s console counterparts. Dead of Alive: Paradise certainly doesn’t feel much like a game–it’s more like an interactive version of a bad issue of Maxim magazine. Although one could argue that Tecmo’s main goal is simply to titillate players, the game doesn’t even manage to do that. Although we’d like to take the time to point out, if you are playing this game for “arousal”, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Unresponsive controls in several modes give even more reasons to dislike the game. When playing volleyball, it is quite obvious that the aim of the game is to focus the camera on the girls, as the camera remains focused on them rather than the ball.

Next Page >>

TRENDING