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 ‘Tekken 5’ is king of fighting games A Review By Glen Osterberger Last month I was scheduled to review a video game and I picked “Champions: Return to Arms” thinking it would be fun and the previews showed a lot of new things. “Return to Arms” was the sequel to “Champions of Norrath” and I had enjoyed that game … to a point. Unfortunately “Return to Arms” has the same problem as the first one — it is far too familiar. It plays like so many games before it and it leads to a somewhat fun but extremely repetitive game. If I had never played the other games or at least had not played them in the last year, I would have had a blast, but there are just too many games that feature the same exact mechanics. That being said, I was sort of glad when the stories ran long and I didn’t have to write the article. There is only so much you can say without feeling like you reviewed the same game twice last year. Thankfully, a game came along to wipe the slate clean — even though it is also a sequel and gets repetitive as well. I make no apologies for being a fan of fighting games and have enjoyed them for years. “Tekken 5” is one game I have enjoyed through the years and one that has held up and changed enough to make it still interesting, even in its tenth year. The graphics in the series have steadily gotten better and better. The original was one of the first 3-D fighters and it was fairly fun but not very pretty to look at. This newest game rivals the best fighting games out there and is simply a pleasure to look at as you punch buttons until your thumbs hurt. The rest of the game is pretty traditional, but this 10th anniversary edition has all of the characters from the previous games and a few new ones to make it more interesting. You basically fight through a tournament to get to the bad guy and get a pretty movie at the end. Very basic, but they do have a “foe” cinematic in the middle of the tournament to give it more depth. There are also various other modes that are fun to play with friends and there is an arcade mode that will allow you to earn money to purchase costume upgrades, etc. It is a fun way to make the characters more “yours,” but it is a bit limited. As far as the game play, I enjoyed the mechanics of “Tekken 4,” which allowed you to have some effect on the environment, such as smashing people into cars and through glass. Many gamers thought it got away from the wide-open Tekken experiences of the past. Namco listened, and now you have only limited wall smashes at the edge of the arenas and the floor makes a good smash when the fighters hit the ground. It does get slightly distracting, though, since there is only one floor smash at a time and it sort of disappears when the next one happens. Overall, the game plays like the Tekken games of the past, but there is enough time between them that it feels fresh again, and with each version they up the graphics and strive to make an even better game. I think that is where the industry sometimes fails. They go for what is hot even more than Hollywood does and get caught in repetitive cycles of games that rarely have innovation. “Tekken 5” doesn’t have much in the way of innovation, but it sure does look a lot better and that has to count for something as well. Plus it is just fun. |
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