Tekken Tag :
If you've stayed away from the Tekken series for a long time, Tekken
Tag is a very warm homecoming, delivering the same solid gameplay that
Tekken fans crave in large doses.
The Tekken series has always stood as a set of console games that went
above and beyond their arcade counterparts. From additional characters
to completely new modes, the series has always tried to add something
that the arcade games lacked. Tekken Tag Tournament, at first glance, is
the most dramatic upgrade over an arcade Tekken game to date. The
graphics have been given a huge boost, similar to the upgrade that
Namco's weapon-based fighter, Soul Calibur, received when it hit the
Dreamcast last year. Plus, new modes have been added. But does the
series capture the same magical feeling that made the previous Tekken
games such smash hits? Most definitely.
Tekken Tag Tournament serves as an upgrade to Tekken 3, adding a few new
moves along the way. Fighters that had appeared in Tekken 2 but were
missing from Tekken 3 have been brought as well, and most of them have lots of new moves to help them with the
powerful Tekken 3 fighters. Finally, the game is now fought in the same
tag-team style as Capcom's versus series of fighters, so you can switch
between two different characters at any time. Much like
EX3 and Dead or Alive 2, you can have up to four players, with each
player controlling a different fighter in the tag battle. However,
unlike most other tag-battle fighters, Tekken Tag
after only one of the two fighters have been defeated, rather than
letting the battle continue as a one-on-two affair. An option that let
you configure this would have been nice. Aside from the standard
tag-battle arcade mode, there is also a one-on-one mode, that makes
Tekken Tag Tournament more like the previous Tekken games, as well as
the standard
battle (though it is now a tag-team battle), time attack, and survival
modes. Unlockable modes include a theater mode, where you can watch all
of the game's endings; a gallery mode, which lets you pause the game at
any time and snap a screenshot of the action that is saved to your
for later viewing; and Tekken bowl mode, a bowling minigame that lets
you hit the lanes and toss glimmer globes at Heihachi-headed bowling
pins. Each character has a different bowling style that affects speed
and control. The character endings, with the exception of the game's
boss, are rendered using the game engine. This presumably saved time
during the game's development. As a result, they're short, mostly
meaningless, and decidedly less than impressive. By comparison, the
prerendered intro and the final boss' prerendered ending are simply
incredible pieces of footage. In Japan, the TV commercial for the game
is simply an abridged version of the game's new intro movie. Very
striking stuff.
Graphically, the game has taken a very large leap, and the arcade
version of the game looks downright ugly by comparison. The characters
are very, very smooth, and the backgrounds are amazing and filled with
lots of movement, from helicopters to crowds of spectators. Some stages
are well lit, showing off some really excellent lens-flare techniques.
There are also some nice little touches, such as grass being crushed
down by falling fighters then slowly springing up afterward. However,
the game suffers from one particular problem that has in fact been seen
throughout the series, but with the power of the PlayStation 2 behind
it, you'd expect it to be a thing of the past. The problem is the same
one that showed up in Street Fighter EX3. While the backdrops of the
fights and the ground on which you fight look great separately, they
don't mesh very well. The result is two different types of scrolling,
making it look as if the battle is occurring on a small, circular
spinning platform surrounded by a nearly stationary background. It's
easy to miss while you're actually playing, but it sticks out like a
sore thumb on watching the game closely. However, the game has been
cleaned up a lot when compared to the Japanese release. The characters
are smooth, the backgrounds and floors appear more refective and
vibrant, and the game just has a significantly more polished look to it.
The game uses much of the same animation and motion-capture data from
Tekken 3. Sure, the characters look pretty incredible, but with the
identical animation quality, even as good as that animation was, the
game looks and feels a little on the stale side. The soundtrack is full
of techno and vocoder robot voices that will either endear you to the
soundtrack or you up the wall
How much you enjoy the game will directly relate to one factor: If you
played so much Tekken 2 and 3 that you couldn't possibly play another
match, Tekken Tag doesn't offer enough new features to draw you back in.
But if you've stayed away from the Tekken series for a long time,
Tekken Tag is a very warm homecoming, delivering the same solid gameplay
that Tekken fans crave in large doses. Still, you won't be able to stop
yourself from wondering what Namco could have done with the game if it
had been designed on the (or comparable arcade hardware) from the start. Guess we'll all have to wait for Tekken 4 to find that out.
Tekken Tag Tournament System Requirements
Processor= 1.0GHz
RAM= 256MB
Graphics= 32MB
Click Here to Download: Tekken Tag Tournament PC Game Link
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