Publisher: Namco Bandai
Platform: Arcade, PS3, Xbox 360, PSP, Java ME
EU Release: October 30, 2009
Its been a while since I've had a Tekken game in my grasp. Man, have I been missing out. After finally picking up Tekken 6 yesterday, I've fallen back in love with one of the video game series that accompanied me through my childhood days, everybody knew I was the King of the Iron Fist Tournament! This title is the 8th installment in the Tekken fighting game franchise, and I can say without a doubt, its the best so far, and well worth the two year wait I had to endure.
Tekken 6's storyline follows on from Tekken 5, telling the tale of a power struggle within the Mishima family line and Grandfather, Father and Son are all fighting for control of the Mishima Zaibatsu, and control of each other. They also seem to like throwing each other off cliffs and into volcanoes, pretty messed up family, right? The game has three key game modes, Scenario Campaign, Online Mode and Offline Mode, with each mode having its own sub mode. What does that mean, you may be asking? It means, bags of content! Thank you very much, Namco Bandai. Scenario Campaign gives you two choices; go it all alone like the lone wolf you are, or team up with a friend or a player from around the world to take on the story. Scenario mode starts of with a black and white sketchy animation of events that took place in games 1 through 5. Nice little way to refresh your memory if you've played the others, or to give you a bit of background information if you haven't. I must say though, thank God for the option to skip. While the CGI animated cut scenes are exquisitely designed and generally nice to look at, there are a lot of them, and if you have a short attention span, you will find yourself hitting start constantly just to get into the action.
Scenario Mode, while being a great way to earn money and items for the extensive character roster that the game boasts, it kinda grated on me after a while. Being a side on fighter, that's how all the combo works, side on. With the different view and angles that come along with Scenario Mode, it can be frustrating to try and pull of moves and can leave you being overwhelmed by some enemies. The movement of your characters can be quite strange as well, at times it wasn't as fluid as I wanted it to be. Never the less, Scenario mode on the whole is a great way to spend hours delving into the Tekken story, where Lars is trying to recover after a bout of amnesia, after an explosion as he led his rebel team during a operation . You also get a sidekick in the form of Alisa Bosconovitch. She's cute, pink haired and has built in chainsaws and a jet pack, what's not to like?
Online Mode will have you fighting players from across the world in the form of ranked matches and player matches. As ranked matches implies, you win a fight, you gain experience and your character will rank up, start of at beginner and grind your way to the top, that being Tekken God. Simple. Well, it can be at times. Lag plays a big part in Online fights, so much so that it can sometimes just fall down to luck rather than skill. The fact that you can't level up past '1ST Dan' in Offline Mode was quite irritating, especially being that a solid Internet connection isn't my strong point at times. In player matches rank isn't affected, so you can fight safely in the knowledge that it's just for fun. Unless you lose, then you will most likely rage. You can also view leaderboards and download other people ghost data and replays, which is always fun.
The most in depth content lies within Offline Mode, where you can go old school and try out Arcade Battle, test your stamina as you take on endless opponents in Ghost Battle, hold on for dear life with one health bar in Survival, team up with up to eight players in Team Battle, see how fast you can be in Time Attack, fight the guy next to you in VS Battle and hone your skills in Practise. Now that's a lot of battling to sink your teeth into. Battling aside, there is a huge amount of character customisation available at your combo bruised finger tips, with each character having 2 costumes, (some even have 3) that are fully customisable right down skimpy hot pants. Clothing can be bought with fight money earned through battling or can be picked up across you playing time in Scenario Mode. Everybody loves free stuff!
Graphics wise, Tekken is full of extremely well polished, amazingly designed characters, character animation and battle locations. Seriously, the design team have out done themselves with a graphics engine that runs at 60 frames per second, with the idea to make the game look good in motion, rather when it's static. With inside game graphics as close of possible to the stunning CGI cut scenes, it just makes the gameplay experience that much more realistic, that much more visually captivating, which providers the player with that much more entertainment. The ever present soundtrack follows you throughout the game, not as an annoying creepy stalker, but as an upbeat confidence boost to get your in the right frame of mind, whether that be to battle as the narrator recites 'Ready? Fight!', or when you browsing the main menu and there lies a hauntingly catchy yodel tune (set hidden retreat as your background), the songs do change depending on what you stage you have as your main menu background though.
Along with breakable fight arenas, so much content to keep you brawling for a very long time, and a roster featuring over 30 Tekken favourite and newbies, I can say without out a doubt that Tekken 6 is one the best fighting games that I have played in a long time, and I lie in wait for the title that is surely going to dazzle. That's a extremely hard thing to achieve these days, what with Capcom spooling out fighting game titles like there's no tomorrow and the odd Soul Calibur hanging around as temptation. If you haven't picked up this title yet, and consider yourself a fighting game connoisseur, run to your closest game store now, you will not be disappointed! I picked up my copy for £15 pound, preowned. Even though I had to say farewell to Darksiders and Bayonetta and the feeling in my fingers for a while, all I can say is these three words. So. Worth. It.
Scenario Mode, while being a great way to earn money and items for the extensive character roster that the game boasts, it kinda grated on me after a while. Being a side on fighter, that's how all the combo works, side on. With the different view and angles that come along with Scenario Mode, it can be frustrating to try and pull of moves and can leave you being overwhelmed by some enemies. The movement of your characters can be quite strange as well, at times it wasn't as fluid as I wanted it to be. Never the less, Scenario mode on the whole is a great way to spend hours delving into the Tekken story, where Lars is trying to recover after a bout of amnesia, after an explosion as he led his rebel team during a operation . You also get a sidekick in the form of Alisa Bosconovitch. She's cute, pink haired and has built in chainsaws and a jet pack, what's not to like?
Online Mode will have you fighting players from across the world in the form of ranked matches and player matches. As ranked matches implies, you win a fight, you gain experience and your character will rank up, start of at beginner and grind your way to the top, that being Tekken God. Simple. Well, it can be at times. Lag plays a big part in Online fights, so much so that it can sometimes just fall down to luck rather than skill. The fact that you can't level up past '1ST Dan' in Offline Mode was quite irritating, especially being that a solid Internet connection isn't my strong point at times. In player matches rank isn't affected, so you can fight safely in the knowledge that it's just for fun. Unless you lose, then you will most likely rage. You can also view leaderboards and download other people ghost data and replays, which is always fun.
The most in depth content lies within Offline Mode, where you can go old school and try out Arcade Battle, test your stamina as you take on endless opponents in Ghost Battle, hold on for dear life with one health bar in Survival, team up with up to eight players in Team Battle, see how fast you can be in Time Attack, fight the guy next to you in VS Battle and hone your skills in Practise. Now that's a lot of battling to sink your teeth into. Battling aside, there is a huge amount of character customisation available at your combo bruised finger tips, with each character having 2 costumes, (some even have 3) that are fully customisable right down skimpy hot pants. Clothing can be bought with fight money earned through battling or can be picked up across you playing time in Scenario Mode. Everybody loves free stuff!
Graphics wise, Tekken is full of extremely well polished, amazingly designed characters, character animation and battle locations. Seriously, the design team have out done themselves with a graphics engine that runs at 60 frames per second, with the idea to make the game look good in motion, rather when it's static. With inside game graphics as close of possible to the stunning CGI cut scenes, it just makes the gameplay experience that much more realistic, that much more visually captivating, which providers the player with that much more entertainment. The ever present soundtrack follows you throughout the game, not as an annoying creepy stalker, but as an upbeat confidence boost to get your in the right frame of mind, whether that be to battle as the narrator recites 'Ready? Fight!', or when you browsing the main menu and there lies a hauntingly catchy yodel tune (set hidden retreat as your background), the songs do change depending on what you stage you have as your main menu background though.
Along with breakable fight arenas, so much content to keep you brawling for a very long time, and a roster featuring over 30 Tekken favourite and newbies, I can say without out a doubt that Tekken 6 is one the best fighting games that I have played in a long time, and I lie in wait for the title that is surely going to dazzle. That's a extremely hard thing to achieve these days, what with Capcom spooling out fighting game titles like there's no tomorrow and the odd Soul Calibur hanging around as temptation. If you haven't picked up this title yet, and consider yourself a fighting game connoisseur, run to your closest game store now, you will not be disappointed! I picked up my copy for £15 pound, preowned. Even though I had to say farewell to Darksiders and Bayonetta and the feeling in my fingers for a while, all I can say is these three words. So. Worth. It.
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