TOKYO--Though Tecmo's Dead or Alive 4 was not playable on the TGS show floor, the Japanese developer had a private event to show off the game Friday night. Now officially a Japanese launch title, DOA4 finds itself in the same position as DOA3 did at the original Xbox launch and stands as one of the best showcases for the powerful hardware. Though we had just seen the game a short time ago for our exclusive hands-on, the game has actually come an impressive way in a little over a week.

　　The version on display at the event was still a work in progress and had only 10 selectable characters from the game's sizable roster of fighters. Kasumi, Hayabusa, Elliot, Zack, Jann Lee, Lei Fang, La Mariposa, Chrissie, and Ayane were all on hand for a fight and featured some of their alternate costumes. As with every entry in the series, some of the costumes reflected Team Ninja's sense of humor. The standouts in the version of the game we played were Zack's hyper-reflective silver space-man body suit, complete with a lone antenna, and Jann Lee's Enter the Dragon-style tracksuit.

　　Out of every aspect of the game, the combat system has probably seen the most work since our last look. The faster pacing we'd noted has been focused more and really gives the game a fresh feel. Without being too coy about it, we see the changes as being similar to the differences between the two Kill Bill films. Whereas the combat in the first movie was sound and a little showy, the second movie's fights, most notably Uma Thurman's gritty brawl with Darryl Hannah in the mobile home, were grittier. Such is the case with DOA4. While the battles still have the glossiness of the previous games, you'll have ample opportunity to showboat if you feel the need, and the speed and brutality will let you keep anyone trying to show off from doing it too much. Counters are much harder to pull off--we haven't spent enough time with the game to decide if it's because the fighting is faster or because the timing for them has been tweaked (we expect it's a little of both). The implementation of a visual cue for staggering opponents is an interesting twist, as are the ability to hit opponents when they're on the ground and the ability to snag someone in a throw when you're on the ground.

　　As impressed as we were by the clarity and detail in the visuals the last time we saw DOA4, the latest version of the game was looking even better. The characters featured smoother animation, an impressive level of detail, and, in the case of the female characters, free-flowing hair that, while still a little rough in spots, is looking good. There wasn't a tremendous amount of change in the environments--just a lot of subtle visual tweaks such as improved lighting, particle effects, and minor adjustments to the interactive elements in them. The biggest tweak we noticed, however, was a fast blur effect that filled the screen during key moments during a fight, namely when you stagger your opponent. Besides looking cool, the effect offers a visual cue that will likely be an important aspect of combat. The frame rate continued to improve over our last look and was a solid 60 frames per second almost all the time now. Beyond the improvements in the visuals in the core game, the lobby system has seen some significant improvements with more detail, the inclusion of a TV as we mentioned, and the addition of more animation for the various avatars.

　　The audio in the version we saw is still sounding great. The online rooms--the new visual interface for the lobbies--have had their audio beefed up some and now sport music to match their theme as well as some hilarious sound clips for the various avatars on display.

　　Based on what we saw and played, Dead or Alive 4 is well on track to kick some impressive high-res ass at the Xbox 360 launch. The game continues to gain impressive amounts of polish as development continues and should have some of the best visuals on the 360 when it hits. The fighting system, which is still being tweaked, is feeling good. Though it may not look like much has changed from DOAU, there's quite a bit of fine-tuning going on under the hood that has resulted in some significant tweaks to the battle system that change the entire tone of combat. Though we're pleased by what we've seen, we're eager to get our hands on the final game to see just how crazy the crew at Team Ninja gets.