Tekken Tag Tournament

for Playstation 2

Distributed by
Sony

Tekken Tag Tournament is the fourth game in the series and it differs in a slight, but welcome manner in that you get two characters to play with per bout. What this means is that you can choose two from a score of characters, with more to appear later on once you've accessed them, then participate in the usual fight to the death, but with the twist that when one of your team is about to throw in the towel, a deft flick of the wrist to the right analogue joystick retires the lame one in return for a game one, so you can pick the one with more energy left. Trouble is, the enemy does this too and the cynical could argue that it just doubles the length of the game without adding a great deal to the original.

Take your pick from the athletic Nina and Michelle, the muscle-bound Jin, the lion-faced King, schoolgirl Xiaoyu, wedgehead Paul and old-timer Heihachi in several different game types. The arcade version pits you against wave after wave of bad guys for you to defeat for those who prefer the classic game, while the Team Battle lets you pick up to eight people and pitch them against the enemy team's eight. Fighters will get knocked out one at a time as they run out of energy and it will literally come down to the last man standing to discover who is the winner.

Time Attack is similar to Arcade, but a scorecard is kept on who completed the game the fastest. Be warned about the cheating you-know-what, going by the name of "Unknown", on the eighth and final level though. I kept smashing the last ounce of strength from his/her/its energy bar but the amount kept creeping back up again and before I could strike the final blow I was knocked out.

The Survival round finds you continuously bashing people up until you lose, with each subsequent round starting with less energy for you because of the previous poundings taken. Finally, the 1-on-1 game allows a straight-forward mode with no tag-team shenanigans.

The graphics are arcade-perfect which is the sort of thing we've been mostly looking forward to and those people complaining about "jaggies" really should go and get a life. How do they spend time looking for these without getting knocked into next week? The sound is nothing new to get worked up about but the game plays like a dream and you find yourself kicking out new moves depending on the random button presses actioned.

When the inevitable sequel appears though, it would be nice to see four players in an all-out punching match for a proper two-on-two experience. For now though, if you have an earlier game and aren't that keen on the Tekken series then this won't change your opinion, but it's a fair place to start for those who haven't partaken before.

Overall: 3½/5

This review was on Freeloader.com before they closed down.

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.