Q and A with DOAX2’s Itagaki

Were history to turn out different, the first Dead or Alive Extreme would have been a jet ski game, not a volleyball game. Team Ninja‘s Tomonobu Itagaki revealed to GamePro his love of the N64 title WaveRace, and thus his interest in including jet skis in DOAX2. Itagaki’s that kind of guy, really.

Okay, back on topic. Itagaki says originally there were two people working on the jet ski game, but it ended up in the hands of their ace programmer (who might have been one of those two people), who worked on the game engine for over a year. For research, the team even headed out to Fiji or Okinawa to try their hands on the real thing. Well, except for Itagaki.

The current build of the game so far doesn’t feature water obstacles and other stuff they hope to include. But Tomonobu says the engine itself’s so good “it could be a standalone game”. He also promises that “you’ll enjoy the kinds of humorous things that happen when you slam face-first into a rock.” Ouch! Poor girls.

The team has also made the volleyball engine faster and more “aggressive”. Expect to see a “Quick Attack” technique that allows you to pull off spikes faster and easier. The graphics are taken from Dead or Alive 4, but have been refined and improved to produce, as Itagaki says, “more lifelike and more vibrant animations.”

… … … Huh? Oh, sorry. The girls are more vibrant and lifelike indeed.

Were history to turn out different, the first Dead or Alive Extreme would have been a jet ski game, not a volleyball game. Team Ninja‘s Tomonobu Itagaki revealed to GamePro his love of the N64 title WaveRace, and thus his interest in including jet skis in DOAX2. Itagaki’s that kind of guy, really.

Okay, back on topic. Itagaki says originally there were two people working on the jet ski game, but it ended up in the hands of their ace programmer (who might have been one of those two people), who worked on the game engine for over a year. For research, the team even headed out to Fiji or Okinawa to try their hands on the real thing. Well, except for Itagaki.

The current build of the game so far doesn’t feature water obstacles and other stuff they hope to include. But Tomonobu says the engine itself’s so good “it could be a standalone game”. He also promises that “you’ll enjoy the kinds of humorous things that happen when you slam face-first into a rock.” Ouch! Poor girls.

The team has also made the volleyball engine faster and more “aggressive”. Expect to see a “Quick Attack” technique that allows you to pull off spikes faster and easier. The graphics are taken from Dead or Alive 4, but have been refined and improved to produce, as Itagaki says, “more lifelike and more vibrant animations.”

… … … Huh? Oh, sorry. The girls are more vibrant and lifelike indeed.