DOAU: Underwhelmed by the Graphics

DOAU look better than DOA3, which isn' t surprising since DOAU uses the DOAVB engine (which is just an enhanced DOA3 engine). Sounds like a good thing, but DOAVB wasn' t graphically better than DOA3 by that much.

Now we have DOAU and its age is starting to show IMO. Character models aren' t noticeable better and texture quality hasn' t significantly improved either. The only real differences I notice are better lighting and particle effects in the background. The game is artistically better, but on a pure technical level DOAU just looks dated.

These are essentially the same graphics we' ve been viewing for the past three years. Granted they' ve been tweaked, but there is no real graphically leap. From Halo 1 to Halo 2 the graphical difference is obvious. But on any given day you could easily mistake DOAU for DOA3.

Itagaki is supposed to be a " graphics who*re" , but it' s obvious he' s not pushing the X-Box' s graphics to their limit. After 4 games from the same engine (DOA3, DOAVB, NG, DOAU) you' d think Itagaki would have thrown in some bump mapping somewhere. Unfortunately all four games just blend together graphically turning them from beautiful to bland. How many times can I possibly be impressed by the same character model?

To quote any random car commercial -- Had Itagaki truly been trying to push the X-Box, we could be seeing the graphics of tomorrow today!

P.S. I' m basing this off playing the DOAU demo, playing DOA3 afterwards, then playing DOAU again.

I think it' s the Xbox showing it' s age more than Itagaki' s graphics. True, the graphics could probably be a bit more impressive even on the Xbox, but probably not by too much. The fact that it is 480p and widescreen is a good thing, as widescreen games tend to use more polygons. And the PS2 needs to be told to use a full-height frame buffer, which it must do for 480p, and it degrades that machine' s performance. So all in all DOAU isn' t that bad.

I can' t wait for the new machines with true HD gaming, though.

I think Joe is right. Nowadays we all keep expecting more from games and are disappointed when they don' t deliver. I know I' ve become an X-Box convert and refuse to buy multi-format games for my PS2 because I know they' ll look better on the Box. While we may not know it I think all the consoles have reached their potential.

I have always had a playstation, and I recently bought an xbox.

I' ve never cared much about graphics, but I bought an xbox b/c I was expecting almos PC-quality visuals. I must say I was impressed by the graphics in ninja gaiden, but I was expecting more. So, I am with you guys. I can' t wait for the next gen systems.

Even a good looking game of this gen isn' t going to compare to what these machines are going to be capable of. I just hope development companies are going to have the resources to use these new machines.

dead or alive ultimate will still be greater then part 2,3 together. dont hate the player or the game the one whos changing is you....... nah sorry that was rude. but i love to play doa games and im sure other people do too.