| Tekken Tag Tournament Ever since the original Tekken was released it has been widely regarded as the best beat em up ever created, probably because the characters have cool fluidity and the greatest moves fighting fans could ask for, lets face it the Tekken series is a bit different from the Spectrums Ninja Hamster or Atari�s Kung Fu master, the genre has changed as much as your parents fossilise every year. Typical Tekken opening sequence plays off in front of your eyes as it try�s to deliver more snippets of the story no one cares about, you have to admit though that the Tekken series has the best story it contains family quarrels, rivalries and action, but TTT has gone a little off track here, simply because the story does not link up to the rest of the series properly. For example Jin kazama kills his father Kazuya mishima, but how is that possible, because on Tekken 3 Kazuya was already in his grave, I suppose I can forgive the game for that reason and just pretend the 3 games before don�t exist. Namco could of removed the story completely but have actually created a new entertaining story, Jun Kazamas spirit even makes an appearance. The majority of the 3 games characters return with favourites such as Kazuya and Devil back. The comic book dinosaur called Gon does not make an appearance for some reason, neither does Doctor Bosknovitch. Sadly there is only one new character, a female boss at the end of the game called unknown, yes that is her name, she mimics the other characters moves and she has a wolf which mimics everyone of her movements which is weird, she is great for the series, but come on Namco you only gave us one new character for our well earned cash. Each character are unlocked every time you play through the arcade mode, and a mini game will open up called Tekken Bowl, yes its ten pin bowling with Heihachi�s head as the pins, its great fun and is a interesting game in its own right, certainly a better mini game then Tekken 3�s force mode which was sadly quite boring. Tekken is mainly about the match ups between each other in the fighting ring though, and I am glad to say it is typical Tekken head bashing action. TTT actually does play a lot like Tekken3 but it is hidden underneath the heavy gloss of the graphical engine, it has new scenery, music and sound effects and even a couple of new moves but it is still very like Tekken3 if you get yourself deep in to the game. The match up screens have had a nice touch up, but the biggest difference of TTT is the new tagging element which adds a lot of depth to the series, choose two brawlers each and you will see how much tagging actually adds to already a great game. The whole idea is to switch between the characters in the fights, if one of your characters is badly injured or just if you fancy a change of fighting style, some characters can even team up together in tag moves such as Jin and Jun, its all about timing it to perfection and not forgetting smashing your opponents face in. The graphics have been drastically improved, the background scenery is absouloutly jaw dropping, fire torches burn in the dark shadows, people cheer on the fighters, guards patrol around one scene, helicopters hover sweetly, reflections show, beautiful sunsets and snow that looks like snow melting into the white blanket on the ground which actually looks like snow too, I cant tell you how good those graphics are they are just gorgeous its as simple as that, the characters gleam in 128bit shine, take a look at the cyborg characters and you�ll see the amount of detail and accuracy that has gone in to their body work, lighting has also been really used to perfection. The characters even have facial animations but those are nothing compared to the rest of those graphics. Maybe not Tekken 4 but it is worth the purchase even if you own Tekken 3, upgrade to the better version and you won't be disappointed, a great launch title with plenty of depth and fun that�s all there is to say.Chris Wigham 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 |