Tekken 6 Preview

And we wonder why pandas are dying out

Personally, I was more interested in Zafina, a gypsy-like character who uses a strange attack stance where she crawls about on all fours, and Alisa Boskonovitch - a feminine android who’s presumably related to Doctor Boskonovitch. One nice thing about Tekken is that it’s relatively easy to work out moves, since each face button corresponds to one of your four limbs. With a bit of fiddling, I worked out a way to activate a set of chainsaws mounted on Alisa’s arms - allowing me to dash forward on jet-like wings to carve up my opponent.

In gameplay terms, Tekken 6 seems to be occupying the series’ normal middle-ground between arcade fluidity and a more grounded, sim-like demand for strategy. It’s still fairly easy to get into, and battles tend to move at a fair old pace, but there’s always a sense that there’s plenty of tactical depth of offer if you’re fully in-tune with the way your character fights - though clearly this isn’t too easy to measure during a relatively brief playtest. The biggest new addition to the action is something called Rage Mode - essentially a boost that kicks in when a player’s energy bar is almost empty. As soon as your bar drops to a certain level, perhaps the last 10 per cent, it will start to glow red and all your attacks will cause more damage. This may sound like a relatively minor feature, but I was surprised by the difference it brought to a close VS match. Rage Mode allows a good fighter to turn things around just as they’re on the brink of defeat, so you’ve got to be a bit more careful when you’re trying to finish someone off. If you try to just rushdown your opponent, their counter-attack may make you think twice.

In addition to the core tournament mode, Namco-Bandai has also been keen to show off Tekken 6’s campaign mode - a scrolling beat-em-up that has clearly descended from Tekken Force and other similar bonuses in previous titles. It certainly looks more like a fully-fledged game than ever before, with multiple stages and a Final Fight-style map screen that pops up between levels, but at the moment there’s something about it that feels a bit lightweight. While there’s always fun to be had in using Kazuya to plough through a crowd of moronic goons, most of your opponents seem to be little more than fodder for your fists. There are now weapons and items for you to pick up and use, including an enormous chain gun, but these seem to underline the key emphasis of the combat: the threat comes from the sheer number of your enemies, rather than from their ability to kick your ass.

On the upside, the entire campaign mode can be played with a chum, off or online, and if you happen to be lonely you can always get the AI to help you out. Working through the campaign will unlock new items and costumes for accessorising your characters in the main game, but personally I’ll need a bit more time with the mode before I decide if it’s something that I’d really want to do. For me, the core appeal of a fighting game lies with the bread-and-butter scrapping, and while there’s no denying that Namco-Bandai has put more effort into this campaign than in previous scrolling Tekken modes, I’m still not convinced that it’s anything more than a sideshow to the main attraction.

All the same, the main attraction itself should be well worth a look. There are so many characters in Tekken 6 that most people are bound to find one they click with, and if you’ve ever been a fan of the franchise then you’re pretty much guaranteed to enjoy the action this time around. The game looks amazing, but what remains to be seen is whether Namco-Bandai has been a little too relaxed in its efforts to innovate the long-running brand. We’re certainly keen to find out for ourselves, so stay tuned for further impressions later in the year.

TEKKEN 6 is scheduled for release in Europe this autumn for the Xbox 360 and PS3.