 Review By: Nick Arvites |
Developer: | Namco Bandai |
| Publisher: | Namco Bandai | |
| Genre: | Fighting | |
| ESRB: | Teen | |
| # Of Players: | 1-2 | |
| Online Play: | Yes | |
| Accessories: | Xbox Live (online play, leaderboards) |
To a generation of fighting gamers, the Tekken series has been one of the best in the genre. Like the prior installments in the series, Tekken 6 features a cast of characters that are gathered together to fight in a tournament to determine a champion. The home console version of Tekken 6 is a direct port of the arcade version of Tekken 6 and includes the new characters introduced in Bloodline Rebellion. There are 40 playable characters in Tekken 6; eight of which are new. I’m not really a die-hard Tekken fan, which is sort of strange since I do enjoy fighters. I just always wound up ignoring it for Virtua Fighter, Dead or Alive, or Soul Calibur. I have played prior Tekken games, and I know enough about some of the characters to feel at home in Tekken 6 without spending too much time in the offline training mode.
The main offline feature is the Scenario Campaign mode. This mode’s intent is to flesh out the Tekken 6 storyline and provide some depth to the characters and background. This mode follows two of the new characters—Lars and Alisa—as they try to, well, that’s just it. I’m not exactly sure what was going on. The mode starts with a recap of Tekken 1-5 via narrated cut scene. This process took a little more time than it should have, and I zoned out somewhere around Tekken 3. I finally wind up in the present age, and then I’m treated with a ratio of cut scene to action that puts the Metal Gear series to shame. By the time I finally get into a “real stage,” I had already spent about 20 minutes watching cut scenes and was already bored out of my mind. Lars is rebelling against the corporations that rule the world, and gets amnesia. He then travels around with an android, eventually gets his memory back, and beats the tar out of everyone in the Tekken universe. The cut scenes are well done, the voices aren’t bad, but the overarching Tekken plot is just absurd. I’m not really sure who I’m attacking, why I’m attacking them, and why I should care. Let’s face it, fighting games really shouldn’t have much more than a shoestring plot to begin with. Almost all of them blatantly rip off Enter the Dragon (IE: some super-criminal holds a martial arts tournament every so often; the roster meets in the tournament). After playing through the entire Scenario Campaign mode, I’m just as clueless as I was at the beginning.
The Scenario Campaign mode shifts from a standard fighting setup to a classic brawler game. I see what they were trying to do with this mode. It brings back memories of Final Fight, Double Dragon, or any of the other numerous side-scroller beat-em-ups in the world. However, this mode just didn’t really do it for me. Your character can perform all of his moves in this mode, though the timing is harder. The camera borders on broken, and the targeting doesn’t work at all. The AI is kind of dumb, and your health is linked to items. Instead of being fun, this mode feels like a grinding chore. You’re constantly looking for better gear (especially anything that boosts health), and the difficulty isn’t bad at all below hard. Each stage has you following a path, beating the snot out of everyone you meet. At the end of the path is an area that resembles one of the background stages from the real game, and you encounter a boss (who is another character from the game). Inside this mode, you can access the Tournament of the Iron Fist with characters you’ve beaten. These characters can fight in a traditional Tekken tournament, albeit shorter. You can unlock character endings in this section.
The biggest disappointment for the Scenario Campaign is that it lacks a co-op mode. If this mode had a co-op mode (offline AND online), it would at least have some saving grace. As it stands, it gets extremely monotonous and downright boring. There’s only one unique story (Lars), and no real incentive to play through the campaign a second time except for achievement cleanup. Co-op mode would have made an otherwise bland and boring mode extremely fun and fill it with replay value. Its extremely frustrating because I see the intent with the mode, and I see that it works at points, but it lacked enough to give it true replay value.
Posted: 2010-01-04 19:05:40 PST