Tekken 6

The king of iron fist tournament is back in all of its arcade fighting glory. Yes that’s right fighting fans Tekken 6 is finally here, Tekken continues with its one-on-one battles, tag team battles, arcade mode and what amazes me with this latest title is that it has the biggest roster yet as well as the environments and gameplay look excellent as you fight in them. In my opinion fighting fans are going to love Tekken 6 as I do and being a long time fan of the franchise.

This game has great controls which work really well and it plays out the same on both consoles. Tekken 6 appeals to a wide variety of fighting fans which anyone can pick up and play. The main game mode in Tekken 6 is the Scenario Mode, I found myself really enjoying this Mode because as you first start it goes through a cut-scene which shows you the events which happened in all of the previous Tekken games and who was the champion of the iron fist tournament and I really got into the story once I figured out what was actually happening. Fair enough it might be in Japanese so we can’t understand a word they are saying but we can just as easily put subtitles on in the options menu, the cut-scenes are in black and white comic book form which looks cool but I would have preferred it to be something in 3D. This mode doesn’t feel as good as the arcade mode and online modes but it is still fun to play through.

The real traditional fighting modes are the offline modes and online multiplayer. These modes will use the standard Tekken fighting mechanics and engine as you fight through stages in Arcade Mode which you will come across the king of iron fist tournament Jin and do battle with them as well as fight a really big robot which I was thinking “what the f*ck has this got to do with the series” the boss in the arcade mode is “Azazel” who was inTekken 5 for the PSP if you haven’t already played Tekken 5 it will be new to you like it was to me.

Within the offline mode there is Arcade, Ghost Battle, Time Trial, Survival and Practice modes. Arcade is the traditional fighting mode which you will work your way up stages fighting other Tekken fighters. I went through Ghost Battles to get the “defeat 30 Ghosts Achievement” which I’ll admit after I finished the first 15 stages I started to get bored playing it but I still kept going because as you continue doing the stages the AI gets harder and more challenging and I think the Ghost opponents you play against are other players ghosts saved when fighting online. When you complete a stage and K.O your opponent you can use the D-Pad to select you’re next fighting to play against out of a list of three and each ghost has their own rank. Survival mode is where you will need to try and survive against different fighters on only one bar of health. Practice mode is where you will learn new moves and get to know the ropes of the game which this will be really good for new comers of the series.

Each of the fighting modes will earn you cash to use to purchase customization items for characters and a lot of customization items available are costumes from the previous Tekken games. An example of this is that I have purchased Law’s yellow suit from Tekken 3. Items and costumes are really expensive to buy but then again you can easily earn a lot of money by doing… anything.

Now let’s move on to the main aspect of Tekken 6 which is also the main part of most next gen games and that is the online play. This game is packed with multiplayer mayhem and even the single player offline mode has online leader boards. You have a ranking system which you will go up ranks as you win matches and you also have a stats bar which tells you how many you have won and lost. Online multiplayer has the one-on-one classic mode as well as the team battle option and you can also play local matches with a friend. Team Battles was also included in previous games which is where you choose up to eight characters either against a friend or computer. Players have the option to play in ranked or unranked matches which fans of fighting games will know the difference between the two.

Me and Kaptin Orsum has sat down and had a good play through of the online multiplayer and there is no lags or match interruptions it all plays out really well. The load times when you are connecting and syncing for an online match can sometimes take ages and this can get frustrating as I decided to back out of it and continue my Scenario mode because the syncing was taking far too long. A problem on the PS3 version is that as you install the game to your hard drive it takes up more than 4GB, saying that I am glad I bought it for the Xbox 360 and this makes it all that better because me and Kaptin Orsum go head-to-head online which in my experience he has lost his touch in the Tekken series due to old age. This game is quite lengthy and will take a while to learn all the different character moves and unlock all the rewards and customizations.