The Look: (9/10) The graphics in Dead or Alive 2 are awesome. The characters are depicted in great detail. Facial expressions look almost real, the embroidered patterns in the clothes are easily visible and almost everything else about the characters' movements and clothes flows realistically. This makes the game tremendously appealing and helps overcome the game's biggest flaw, the jiggle wiggle peek-a-boo factor built into the game

Kasumi in DOA2 is portrayed as a very pretty, young athletic Japanese woman. She has at least four outfits in Dead or Alive2.

Kasumi's first outfit consists of a stylized blue martial arts outfit with white trim and a matching brief. Kasumi's clan symbol is emblazoned on the back. Below the waist, this outfit tapers off to a loincloth-type arrangement that leaves the sides of her legs exposed. Kasumi also wears boots and white thigh high stockings with this outfit. Kasumi, like the male members of her clan also wears both shin guards and forearm guards which helps with both blocking enemy attacks and emphasizing the impact of her strikes.

While Kasumi's outfit may seem to be what a modern day female ninja may wear when she goes to fight, this outfit leaves a lot of skin exposed lacks protection. However, at least Kasumi is smart enough to wear forearm and shin guards with this outfit for protection/blocking.

(Note: This character and this outfit is extremely popular for Cosplayers in Japan. During a trip to Japan I saw many female Japanese Cosplayers model this outfit when I attended a Japanese anime/manga convention. I have also seen many pictures of female Japanese Cosplayers who model this outfit on their web sites. BTW: A Cosplayer is an anime or manga fan who dresses up as their favorite anime/manga or computer game character while attending an anime or manga convention.)

Kasumi's second outfit is white with pink trim and is basically a simple reversal of the first outfit in style except it emphasizes her assets a little more. This second outfit also suffers from the same advantages and disadvantages as the first outfit. However, Kasumi does wear her forearm and shin guards with this outfit as well.

Kasumi's third outfit is red and should probably be entitled "Evil Kasumi" for plot line reasons. This outfit appears to be a one-piece jumpsuit that "Evil Kasumi" wears with a set of boots. As a complement to this outfit, "Evil Kasumi" also wears brown leather shin and forearm guards. The "Evil Kasumi" outfit is probably the most practical fighting outfit of all of Kasumi's outfits since it leaves little exposed and offers a degree of protection.

Kasumi's fourth outfit is the traditional blue Japanese schoolgirl sailor suit uniform. While this uniform really doesn't "fit" as tournament outfit, it does "match" the fact that Kasumi's bitter rival Ayane also has a school uniform outfit included in the game. Probably the one of the reasons for inclusion of school outfits for Kasumi and Ayane was to permit the player to have a "school yard brawl" between these two rivals.

All of the above outfits have their advantages and disadvantages in regard to their fighting usefulness. However, considering that the game avatars are stylized/idealized characters, most of them are somewhat acceptable given the context of the game. Nonetheless, this fact doesn't excuse one of the games main shortcomings, the mishandling of its female characters.

Articles on WomenGamers.Com solely reflect the experiences and perspectives of the author(s). Feel free to agree or disagree in the accompanying forum thread.