By Adrian Pascua / Staff Writer

(Games Press)

By Adrian Pascua / Staff Writer

Don’t judge this game by the cover or you might get someone’s exploding head. The name “Tekken” has been one of Namco’s driving forces in the world of 3-D fighting games.

“Tekken 6” is a solid game offering over 40 characters to choose from with over a thousand moves. The background can be used to allow players to extend combinations in order to beat their opponents into a bloody mess on the ground. For hardcore fans, this means if a player is the kind who mashes the buttons together hoping to hit a combination, it will work.

Although, mashing buttons together will probably make a player predictable and have other “Tekken” players laugh while watching the “button masher” get wailed on by their opponent. Also, players will be given slight opportunities to use devastating counter moves that can do enough damage to either make or break a round, this can also be humiliating if done in repetition.

The graphics are something to applaude since each environment alone is made to look unique, smooth and just plain gorgeous. Each battlefield has depth making it easy to tell where you are.

Each character’s different facial features, ages, and body types are beautifully crafted and well done.

The female characters, for some reason, wear extremely form fitting and at times short or shiny clothing…don’t ask, just play. It’s nothing short of amazing, the creators could get each move unique to every character and make it look so good.

So you don’t like the way your character looks? Just go ahead and change it.

 “Tekken 6” has the option of customizing a character to your liking. Players can change everything from a character’s hair to their clothing. Another customizable option is the addition of special weapons that are unique to each character and range from guns to a fish (yes, a fish is actually a better weapon than you think).

Although “Tekken 6” was released almost a year ago in arcades it was extremely rare if an arcade actually had the game.  The closest found machine, up until recently, was in the city of Walnut. So thanks to the release of “Tekken 6” to the Playstation 3 and X-box 360 consoles, you don’t need to drive to Walnut.

Save yourself the time and gas money and play with anybody in the world at any given time, online. That’s right “Tekken 6” is an online fighting game.

This revolutionary new idea of a fighting game online comes with a few bugs which seem to devalue the game that was supposed to be one of the best fighting games of the year.
One bug, is finding someone online who is willing to play.

The problem is if you’re so godly, no one may be willing to take the beating you can dish out.

Plus the host of the room can kick you out if he or she wanted to and because your win-loss record can be viewed by the host, it may hinder you. Even if a player online does decide to play, they can still drop you if they feel your level surpasses their own.

The next problem is connectivity; before a match a player can see how good their opponent’s connection is. This prevents lag time so a player can input their commands and take action immediately.

In a lot of cases, even if the connection icon shows up as good, playing will still create lag time during the game for both players. As a matter of fact, while still in the lobby waiting to start a game it’s not uncommon to watch the connection icon keep changing colors from good to bad.

The delay will often cause players on both sides to miss blocks and delay timing for counter attacks. Call me old fashion, but it’s my belief that if a game is meant to be played online, then it shouldn’t suck to play online.

All in all, “Tekken 6” is a really good fighting game.

Good graphics, tons of characters to use, lots of moves that link into devastating combinations  players can use to their imagination.  If only the online play was as good as the rest of the game, this game would have my vote for fighting game of the year, hands down.