Well, we certainly didn't see this coming. I say that without a trace of irony, because Dead or Alive remains one of my favorite memories from the early console days, especially because it gave me an excuse to keep playing my Dreamcast after that system tanked. Sure, there was a definite element of over-the-top sex appeal in Dead or Alive, but that has been the stock in trade for just about every fighting game in existence. Fan fiction and the art to go with it kept dreams of Tina Armstrong, Hitomi, Kasume, and Ayane alive for young men throughout the videogaming pantheon. Perhaps it's just our conservative side coming through, but we're sure that fan fiction and art would have been a better vehicle for the seamy side of Dead or Alive than something like this.

It isn't that the girls aren't depicted in a natural, lifelike manner. They look pretty good, on par with just about any 3D model of a bathing-suit beauty. The problem is that most people with access to a computer and a high-speed Internet connection can get themselves into seamy territory quicker than they can induce one of the girls in Dead or Alive Paradise to show off their scanty bikinis. If you live in a town where girls aren't allowed to strip down further than bikinis, you may find this titillating, but most of us just aren't so easily impressed. The locations in the game are very limited, so it isn't like you'll have a lot to see outside of a few staged areas. Spoken dialogue might have lent a great deal of sex appeal to the proceedings, but we were highly unimpressed - the notion that A.I. flirting is going to get a rise out of male gamers is already barely credible, so when the girls talk like they are mechanized fembots, it puts a "fail" stamp on the entire proceedings.

There have been some successful RPGs that incorporated dating, and we can all relate successfully to the boy/girl subplots in games like Harvest Moon or Ico. The idea of dating as the main focus for a game seems to have difficulty making its way across the drink, so you have to partition the diagnosis of Dead or Alive Paradise a bit. For fans of the dating-sim subgenre, Dead or Alive Paradise may really have some appeal. In this light, the ability to befriend girls on the remote (and recently reopened) Zack Island is a nice gaming premise. You can chat with them, give them gifts, take pictures of them, and play some fun games with them in casinos or in the open air. The purist may say this is more voyeur-sim than dating-sim, since you don't necessarily build any kind of ongoing relationship with these girls, but there is at least a flirting-sim compromise we can reach. Why this type of game matters to you doesn't factor into the score, if it really is something you enjoy. In that light at least, aficionados of light entertainment with robotic women may find Dead or Alive Paradise fits their bill to a tee.

On the other hand, for most gamers this will be a monumental waste of time. Virtually no authentic game development is to be found in Dead or Alive Paradise. It even fails the test against its sports-themed counterpart, Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, which at the end of the day could argue for its legitimacy as a reasonably good volleyball simulation. For anyone under the age of 15, Dead or Alive Paradise feels like a tease and a holdout, and anyone older than 15 would be mortified to be caught holding the game in his hand. The most entertaining parts of the game are the casino games, since they rely on tried-and-true A.I. and gameplay devices. The camera feature is relatively useless in the sense that nothing you gain from it really has any practical value, and the other games you play with the girls only serve to earn you points that you can use to buy them new outfits or accessories. Let's face it, we're trying to get the clothes off these girls, not the other way around!

There's no learning curve to this game; it actually does a great job introducing you to all the new gameplay elements, and what's not intuitive is usually explained or demonstrated. A nod to the old volleyball game is included here, and provides a bit of action gaming, but otherwise you'll find little to capture your imagination or satisfy itchy twitch reflexes. We would liken the majority of the gameplay in Dead or Alive Paradise to the kind of chick dress-up games that litter the DS marketplace, even those for younger girls like the Bratz or Littlest Pet Shop games. Perusing a closet full of girls clothing in real life is called a fetish, not masculine entertainment... It's anything but challenging. After you see everything that Dead or Alive Paradise has to offer, the only element with a resemblance to strategy is the casino night entertainment, and the camera mini-game. In the latter, you're only competing against yourself, since the pictures aren't scored or graded in any way. You can use them as wallpaper for your PSP's main display, which might bump up the cool factor by the slightest degree.

We'd love to report that interesting and novel things are done with the control scheme in Dead or Alive Paradise, but it just isn't true. I can think of a million scenarios, like putting on sunscreen lotion with the Analog Stick, or various types of Leisure Suit Larry content, that would have made pressing the buttons a bit more fun. The basics of persuasion that folks like B.F. Skinner and Pavlov demonstrated so long ago have been lost on Dead or Alive Paradise. The mechanics of playing the game are tedious at best, with the greatest amount of creativity placed into the camera portion, where you may feel for a moment like you're actually setting up shots of the girls doing their thing on Zack Island. The products of your labor are paltry, and don't reward you for replays or for sticking out the more ridiculous parts of the game.

We just can't say enough how much better the universe would have been without Dead or Alive Paradise. For all the parents worrying about Mature-rated games and for moralists beating the drums of apocalypse at the thought of Adults Only titles hitting the market, there are more lurid sights on a summer beach than in Dead or Alive Paradise. Why anyone thought there was a demographic for this, we can't imagine. We can only dream that when Dead or Alive Paradise earns the scorn it so aptly deserves across all Gamerdom, whatever marketing department created it will be forced to do penance by donning skimpy swimsuits and lolling around a pool, while some creepy dude runs around shooting pictures of them. Ah, if there were any real justice in this world...