Tekken 6 = Tech-Un

Tech-Un isn't Spanglish for Tech-One. When I wrote that I meant that the majority of Tekken 6 and the tech around which it is built, is a shambling corpse of a video game. The core of the game, you know the part where you fight, is phenomenal. But all the other shit they've heaped on is just painful. Also the user interface is like something out of a CPA's nightmare: full of misleading titles, poorly worded descriptions, and probably some false tax information.

Now let me temper that word steel by saying first off that I am a huge fan of the Tekken series. How can you not love a series where the "main" character is thrown of a cliff by his father as a five year old, then takes revenge by throwing his father off the same cliff? And then his dad throws him in a volcano! Awesome! But all that amazing leads up to the disappointing sixth installment.

So in order to keep my vitriol to a controlled minimum I'm going to treat Tekken 6 as if it were three games.

Scenario Campaign
Do you remember the the beat-em-up style Tekken Force mode from Tekken 3? Remember how it kinda sucked? It's pretty much the same this time around. It was always fairly easy to dismiss in its past incarnations because it was a side diversion, separated from the main game. Now however its the main storyline. Yup the only way to unlock the super cool CGI movies specific to each fighter (Oh brother are they good too) is to play through the Scenario Campaign, unlock the fighter, and then beat the Arena with them. GUH. If that weren't bad enough the vast majority of the trophies offered are related to the stupid campaign. And the whole thing is ultra repetitive, hard to control, and devoid of fun. But at least after you beat up a bunch of dudes you get to watch super slow no action cut scenes with lots of dialog about shit you already know. And then you get to beat up a bunch more dudes.

Online Mode
Don't even bother playing this unless you absolutely have to have the trophies. It's like playing Tekken, but without the illusion of control. If you try a complicated combo then maybe, just maybe, at some later time, your on screen character will throw a punch. This mode is so bad the only time I've managed to win is by closing my eyes and pushing buttons randomly. That means that I actually had more fun and achieved greater results by pretending to play a better game. If that's not some future technology I don't know what is.

Offline Mode
Praise the gods, or something, because this is what Tekken was meant to be. This is where you get to the part where you fight other players, one on one, in the style of a fighting game. And it's awesome. It's just like the last three Tekkens in the mechanical sense with the addition of the rage system, which gives the player a boost in strength when their life bar gets low. Rage aside I've always thought that Tekken controls like a dream, so it's nice to go back to something comfortable. Aesthetically it's leagues (as in distance, not baseball) beyond other fighting games I've seen. Everything runs at 60 frames per second which when combined with the high character detail looks gorgeous. Maybe I'm the only one that thinks so but it fills a visual niche that I particularly enjoy. There are also, as far as I know, 46 characters to play with,and most have their own specific fighting style. Two out of every three of those characters are also bitch crackers insane. And I glory in that insanity. It's in everyone's best interest to just pretend that this mode is the entirety of the game.

So to wrap it up Tekken 6 has a core of rich nougat goodness surrounded by a thick casing of coconut shavings and poop. Do I feel a little duped for paying for a spoonful of fighting game and a shovelful of insolvent lunacy? Without a doubt. Will I continue to wade through crap to get to awesome? Yessir.