MSXbox found itself in London this week, but this time, in a more familiar, central and public setting (Westminster) to take a look at some of Namco Bandai's forthcoming titles.
So, what was exactly present at this event? Well, what we knew was going to be at the event previously was a variety of the now very common sequel category. And some of these had been three new Dragon Ball Z titles spread across four platforms, a good old JRPG sequel called Magna Carta 2, the next in the series in Dead to Rights called Dead to Rights: Retribution, and probably the most well known, and certainly the game that was emphasised throughout the evening, was Tekken 6. MSXbox’s hands on was fairly limited unfortunately, and we only got to play Tekken 6 and experience 2nd hand play of Dead to Rights: Retribution, both of which were fairly decent, one of the games’ is enjoyable but as expected, and the other is surprisingly interesting.
The game that we did get a lengthy hands-on taste of had to have been Tekken 6, not being a huge fighting game fan but being well known to the originals, this game definitely brought back some button mashing memories; which may seem like a bad thing, and surprisingly it kind of was and wasn’t all at the same time.
Tekken 6 has in theory been out quite a while now, at least in arcade form over in Japan, but with that knowledge alone it was only a matter of time as to when we would see our long awaited Tekken sequel come to our current generation machines, and here they were being played at the Namco Station.
This isn’t just a straight port however, not only are Namco Bandai bringing all the new characters found in Tekken 6’s arcade edition, but they’re also bringing across all the new modes and characters found in the arcade version of Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion, along with enhancing the graphics engine. And to top all of this off, its multi platform, the first time we’re going to see this epic giant of a series on the Xbox, and at the peak of its worth.
A fighting game isn’t a fighting game without their fighters, and Tekken isn’t any different. You will find the good ol’break dancing legend Eddy Gordo, the Tiger headed wrestling champ, King, and the Bruce Lee resembling “Fighting Chef”, Marshall Lee. Also some new very variant characters join the mix; the unusual Bob being one, and a jetpack inhabited cyborg called Alisa Bosconovitch being another. I got to play as a couple of them, and got my butt kicked as opposed to my more familiar selections, so there’s definitely a difference in control and combo sequencing.
The overly familiar combat mechanics and the visual style of the game brought some very humble nostalgia to the experience, and it was in the good sense also. However, some people will be disappointed that the game shares so many characteristics of previous instalments.
This doesn’t mean that there were no improvements to Tekken 6 at all; on the contrary, there were some features that were welcomed. For example, you can customise each of a total set of 40 characters from several elements of each character, meaning, not just re-skins but hairstyles and separate clothing elements. Those will be earned throughout the course of the game. There also more destructible elements that provides a purpose to fights this time around, you can knock opponents through walls or through floors to open up larger areas making the before fight space up to twice the size. And – although we didn’t get to play them – the co-op element of the game isn’t just a ‘tag’ on, now with the ability of offline and online co-op play, the Streets of Rage ‘stylesque’ involvements of these have been made even more like Streets of Rage with the interactive environments and quite involving weapon pickup portions of the multiplayer.
Lastly, this may not be anything new to a fighting based title – but instead new to the Tekken series – when your player character is limited on health you initiate a ‘Rage’ mode where the health bar flashes red, and your character is supposed to go into frenzy with red flared attacks and fulfilling enhanced damage modifiers to all your moves.
As an overview though, Tekken 6 looks like to be a larger step up from Tekken 5 - and preceding titles before it - but a step up in the same direction. This probably is a preference that can go either way, pleasing the original hardcore fans of the series, but the people who were never before interested originally will most likely not interested this time around either.
Tekken 6 doesn’t have an explicit release date available yet, but it will definitely be seeing light of day nearing the end of the year.
Preview By: Lee Burton
|
|
