The last thing we heard about the movie port of Team Ninja's fighting game, Dead or Alive, was about that incident where somebody uploaded the movie. Now, The Weinstein Company's website has indicated the release date.

Yes, for North America. Well, get ready to meet Dead or Alive's femme fatales: Tina Armstrong, Christie Allen, Kasumi, Ayane, and Helena Douglas. Dead or Alive the game is known for flaunting certain parts of the female anatomy; the film looks like it practiced a bit of control in that department. Anyway, whether it'll be a hit or a flop remains to be seen.

There are some differences in the film version that fans will surely spot, but then... well, you be the judge of that. Dead or Alive is set for release on the big screen on June 22.

At the beginning of this month, we reported that Microsoft updated its Platinum Hits series for Japan. This is highly impossible but in case some of you are still not aware what the Platinum Hits is all about, these are re-packaged games that are being sold for a much lower price.

Anyway, the company announced today that it has updated the series as well for North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. Here's the list:

• U.S. Platinum Hits (US$ 29.99 each): Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, Burnout Revenge, Call of Duty 2, Dead or Alive 4, Fight Night Round 3, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Top Spin 2, and Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis
• Asia Pacific Platinum Hits (pricing depends by region): Dead or Alive 4, N3: Ninety-Nine Nights, Project Gotham Racing 3,  and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
• Europe Platinum Hits (EUR 29.99): Call of Duty 2, Dead or Alive 4, Project Gotham Racing 3, Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend

If you ask us, that's a pretty good line-up. The European version was actually released at the beginning of this month while the Americas and the Asia Pacific Region will get theirs on March 16.

Aussie gamers will now finally be able to grab their copies of games from the Xbox 360 Classics range soon. Kotaku reports that the re-released budget Xbox 360 titles will become available in Australia come March 1. The initial wave will include ten titles going on sale for AUS$ 49.95. The titles included are:

• Project Gotham Racing 3
• Perfect Dark Zero
• Kameo
• Dead or Alive 4
• Call of Duty 2
• Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter
• Condemned
• King Kong
• Tomb Raider: Legend (due "late March")
• Rockstar Table Tennis

If you're looking to save a bit of money on your next games purchase, check out these titles when they hit retail stores.

If you're looking for one more reason as to why you should pack your belongings and migrate to Japan, well we do have one more that might help. That would be the fact that Japan is one of the few countries who love their anime and video game characters so much, that these characters end up immortalized on either postage stamps or credit cards.

So, when Tecmo's well-known Dead or Alive game franchise turned 10 years old, they did the most obvious thing and decided to commemorate the event by plastering three of the most popular characters in the game onto an object which you would most likely closely guard and care for. After all, it wouldn't be pretty if you lost your best picture of Kasumi AND ended up with credit card charges you didn't make.

On top of being the proud owner of one of these cards, though, they're also throwing in special DOA 10th Anniversary original trading cards into the deal. Each credit card owner will be given one trading card which belongs in a set of nine. These nine cards also have parts of a larger image printed on the back, so if you somehow manage to collect all nine designs and put them together, you're then rewarded with an A4-sized piece of DOA artwork.

Now whether this is something that is worth extending your credit line for, is completely up to you.

We said it would hit US shores in a box, but we were wrong. Dead wrong. Some intrepid member of the online community uploaded the entire Dead or Alive film onto Google Video, where sites like ours can partake of the cheese that is Corey Yuen's bouncy, busty epic.

In any case, you can either thank or throttle Xch4ng3 for putting this up. Needless to say, we don't know why he did, much less why he used the text below as a caption, but we're definitely here to let you know about it. Get to watching before it gets taken down.

While Dead or Alive was actually a nice action movie, it wasn't exactly the kind of thing that pushed video gaming as something serious and worth fighting for. Actually, the words "soft", "core", and "pornography" come to mind when faced with the whole plot behind it.

Luckily, America will not suffer the same fate. Only the most persistent fans of videogame movies or of Team Ninja's game itself will be able to see it on something larger than a TV screen.

The DOA movie is poised to hit store shelves rather than theaters, it seems. Kotaku notes the IMDB entry, saying that the film won't be headed to movie theaters. Instead, it will have a direct-to-DVD release in the U.S. sometime in April.

Expect the DVD version to have deleted scenes (the parts with the conversations and stuff), outtakes (the one where Corey Yuen cries himself to sleep while making this), and extended beach volleyball action (no comment).

The Dead or Alive Movie, being billed as a cross between Charlie's Angels and Enter the Dragon, has just released some of its character posters. Hong Kong action guru Cory Yuen (Director of The Transporter, Martial Arts Choreographer for Lethal Weapon 4 and Romeo Must Die) would be calling the shots, and the movie stars Jaime Pressly, Holly Valance, Devon Aoki, Sarah Carter, Kane Kosugi, Natassia Malthe, Matthew Marsden, and Eric Roberts.

So now where were we? Yes, the character posters. Here are some of them. Whether this movie will be a killer in the tills or it would suck big time, well, we don't know. Time would only be the judge of that. Thoughts? Opinions? Violent reactions? Share it with us through your comments.

 

 

Though Dead or Alive is one of the most popular fighting games in the market, which on top of having been released on multiple consoles, has also spawned a plethora of merchandise, many believe that bringing the whole concept of female fighters in scanty clothing to Hollywood may not have been such a good idea.

Slated to be released in October this year, Dead or Alive the Movie centers around the characters Tina Armstrong, Christie, Kasumi (referred to as "Princess Kasumi" in the film), and Helena Douglas. As the plot goes, these ladies are invited to a secret martial arts meet to compete against each other, only to end up fighting as a group to defeat an evil force.

One has to admit that the soup isn't particularly thick in this one. However, judging from the trailer (which I have watched after the credits of another particularly good movie this year), it does promise some slick action moves from our femme fetales. Yet the question remains: will watching the movie and the ladies who star in it be even nearly as rewarding as just staying home and playing the game instead? What do you think? Let us know via the comments.

We earlier reported about the Dead Or Alive 4 demo's recent availability on the Marketplace. Many of you were asking why in the world it became available six months after the game was released. Well, to answer those inquiries is TeamNINJA's very own, Tomonobu Itagaki who recently answered some inquiries about DOA4 and why now is the right time to come up with a demo.

Mr. Itagaki mentioned that the reason why they released the demo six months after the game came out is because they want to "let the bigger installed base try a game they may have overlooked in favor of newer titles". TeamNINJA would like "as many potential players as possible to get their hands on the game and try it out." He also mentioned that the demo will have two playable modes which are the versus and time-attack modes with both modes featuring single battle and tag battle.

When asked if TeamNINJA is considering any new downloads or add-on features for people who already own the game, the ever colorful Itagaki said that he and the team are completely focused on the DOAX2, therefore they don't really have that much time to make more downloadable content. He also divulged that they have "not done anything to DOA4's online code since the March update."

If you are a frequent Xbox Live particpant, there is a chance that you have played with Itagaki himself. He admits that he still joins matches on Xbox Live incognito and that "it is a very valuable experience to be able to listen to players discussing the merits of various aspects of the game." When asked if DOA4 would be his last fighting game, he seem to have changed his mind about it for he answered with a more hopeful - "at the moment, I am making several other games; after I have brought those to completion I will be more ready to talk about the future of Kasumi and company."

For those of you that haven't gotten around to trying Tecmo's Dead or Alive 4 in the last seven months now is your chance as the demo has finally hit the Marketplace. DOA 4 is still the only "actual" fighting game available for Xbox 360 and features a cast of mostly female characters as well as others including Ryu Hayabusa from the Ninja Gaiden Series. The demo weighs in at 680.76MB so go ahead and check it out by downloading it over at the Marketplace.