Parent's Guide: Dead Or Alive: Dimensions - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

Dead or Alive: Dimensions is a beat 'em up game, which sees a wide variety of madcap fighters competing in one on one battles across a range of diverse environments. It's as much about quick reactions as it is about performing complex combos, and a little foresight into what your opponent's going to do next, in order to give you chance to reverse, can go a long way.

Easy to pick up and play, with handy optional touch screen controls making pulling off lengthy combos as easy as touching an icon, Dead or Alive: Dimensions goes to great lengths to make itself easily accessible for even the newest players. Simple tutorials explain every aspect of fighting, quickly bringing you up to speed on combos, reversals, and every other aspect of a battle. It's a heck of a lot of fun, too. With a wide range of single player modes, and hundreds of unlockables, this one will keep you, or your child going for a while.

As a beat 'em up, you may expect Dead or Alive: Dimensions to be full of blood, guts, and gore - but in fact, the majority of the violence comes from the cutscenes. In one cutscene, you see a ninja slice at someone with a sword, while blood splatters the screen, while in another, one of the game's female ninjas, Ayane, seems to be considering committing suicide, and points a blade towards her throat. You also hear the word "bastard" in another. That said, these three incidents are the exceptions, not the rule.

In terms of the actual game itself, there's no blood or gore, but, as a fighting game, there is understandably violence. It's similar to the sort of thing you'd see in an action film, as you can kick/punch/throw your opponent through windows, or off buildings, only for them to get straight back up and start fighting as though nothing's happened (unless the fall takes off the last bit of their health, in which case you win). Either way, while it's certainly violent, it's not overly, or excessively violent, and certainly seems no more so than the WWE.

The other thing parents may want to bear in mind is the scantily clad, and rather top heavy females in the game. While some of the male fighters have their shirts off, the females in the game are mostly attempting to burst out of their tops, and some of the costumes you can unlock are a bit skimpy, such as thong leotards, and the like.

Sadly, there's no single card download play here, meaning any multiplayer your child wants to play will have to be either online, or against someone in the same room who also has a 3DS and a copy of the game. The game does have some SpotPass and StreetPass features - should you come into anyone who owns the game via StreetPass, you'll receive a Throwdown Challenge, which is effectively a specially tuned AI opponent, whose fighting style is based on the person you got the challenge from. Over SpotPass, meanwhile, the game will download a new costume every day for the first 32 days of sale (there's a second round a month later for those who missed out the first time), along with a special Throwdown Challenge each week from one of the developers of the game.

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Nintendo 3DS