Tekken 6

Turns out that Tekken's big new idea for online play is rather underwhelming: you can customise your outfit and fight with it on. [Dec 2009, p.103]

It's Tekken with better graphics, again. And yet it's still hard to dislike a fighter this good.

Stuffed to the point that it starts to feel like an incoherent mess. [Dec 2009, p.100]

Had Namco spent a bit less time on the forgettable Scenario Campaign and more on sorting out the netcode, however, this could have gone higher. A miracle patch would be very helpful.

Does your fighting game have to have serviceable online play? If not, you got yourself a winner here.

Tekken 6 may not be surprising to those who already know the previous games very well. It may even be considered just another game in the series, but fulfilling the needs of getting in the way of other fighting games.

Tekken 6 is like the previous games, only with some badly thought-out new ideas. If you play Tekken 6 for the old, familiar modes, you’ll have the most complete and balanced game in the series. If you try out anything else, like the not so clever scenario-campaign, be prepared to be disappointed. The online-mode also has terrible lag at the moment of writing.

Tekken 6 is another solid continuation of the Tekken series; however it does little to advance the series like other fighting games have done.

In spite of these concerns, we don't want to come off as overly harsh: Tekken 6 is still a solid fighter and an improvement on its predecessor. [Holiday 2009, p.76]

The Tekken series has aged surprisingly well in it's core, with quicker gameplay and an impressive roster. But time has taken it's toll, and it does feel a little old. Also, the campaign mode is nothing short of awful.

Tekken has never been a series for everyone. But for those with a penchant for challenging fighters, as well as a decent TV and online setup, Tekken 6 has the potential to become your ideal multiplayer game.

Outdated visuals, sloppy innovations, dead multiplayer… no, that’s not the way to continue a great series.

Without a completely robust online mode and a decent but not remarkable improvement in graphics, Tekken 6 doesn’t take full advantage of being on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Both the Scenario Campaign and the final boss encourage players to dumb down their game with cheap moves in what should be a technical fighter. But otherwise, Tekken 6 still retains the same high-quality fighting engine, with an incredible and distinct character roster, that fans expect from the series, and collecting items in Scenario Campaign can be addicting.

The Arcade mode and local 2P action is great, just what I expected from the game, and while the visuals could do with a little sprucing up in comparison to the arcade stuff I've seen, it's not that awful. Not quite as stylized as recent console fighters, but not bad enough that it put me off of having fun with the game. However, if you're going in for story/scenario mode and online play, neither is worth picking the game up for at the moment.

There is a very specific audience for Tekken 6 that will eat it up. Everyone else will see it as more of the same, but with a garbage new game mode and long load times.

The awkward campaign mode would be completely forgettable if Tekken 6 worked better online. But with it ranging from "almost acceptable" to "pre-patch King of Fighters XII" in connection quality, it's hard to recommend to anyone who doesn't already have a local crew of Tekken fiends at their disposal.