The story of Tekken 6 is slim to non existent to laughable — but that’s expected, it’s not a novel, it’s a fighting game, and the story that’s there basically moves your from fight to fight. Nothing special, and it gets the job done. The single player campaign lets you battle all of the available enemies, which means you’ll be fighting a lot of them — the roster is one of the largest in any Tekken game, with all the classic fighters back, including Lei, Paul, Jin and Kazuya. It also includes characters included in Tekken Dark Resurrection, further increasing the roster to a total of 40. However, not many new members have been introduced, not that it makes any difference, since the roster already feels crowded and it’s gonna take you a long time to identify with all of the characters.

The gameplay is very similar to other Tekken games, although it has been somewhat refined, making it just as intricate for the veterans, while being a lot more welcoming to Tekken newbies, and as they say, it’s easy to learn, hard to master. It still features very complex combos for those who are willing to learn them, but the gameplay overall now appeals to a much broader audience. Each arm and leg has a button assigned to them, which means you’ll have to think what arm to throw the punch with, or what leg to kick with, even if you’re a button masher. When two buttons are combined, the result is a more powerful blow, and the more you combine, the better combos you can pull off.

The single player campaign follows the only two new characters, and two of the most boring ones, to be host, where you can fight through side scrolling missions where you can earn quick points, but the mode is quite boring and very badly put together. Besides that, there’s a ton of fun to be had, as you’ll be fighting away enemy after enemy, and you can even earn points to unlock costumes to each character — and each character has quite a few of them.

Besides the single player campaign, Tekken 6 features an Arcade mode, Ghost battles, Survival mode and most importantly, online multiplayer. The online component is great, provided that you have a stable and fast connection, as connections tend to drop. On top of that, load times tend to go on foreeeever. Technically, the game looks as good as it has to look. It’s by no means an Uncharted 2 rival, but it does a decent job at rendering the characters and environments. The rendered cut scenes are great in particular, but we wished that the whole game would look as good. Tekken 6 will most definitely satisfy the fans, and the new refinements will make it more welcoming to new players as well.

The Good:
Great gameplay
Deep roster
Solid multiplayer

The Bad:
Bad story
Long load times
Fighting can get repetitive

Overall score: 8/10

One of the most disappointing things I encountered with Street Fighter IV was the fact that it didn’t feature the beloved car smashing bonus level. Well, with the announcement of Super Street Fighter IV gamers yet again had some car bashing fun to look foward to, if the game was to include it, that is.

Today we have confirmation that the bonus level will infact be included in the new title with the above screen shot showing it off.

Super Street Fighter IV will be out for the Xbox 360 and PS3 on March 23rd, 2010.

via joystiq

If you didn’t know, Tekken 6 made its way onto store shelves shelves on October 27th in North America and October 30th in Europe. But already Namco Bandai is announcing that they have shipped 2.5 million copies of the game.

Of course, this doesn’t exactly showcase the game’s success as these numbers focus on units shipped, not units actually sold. We’ll have to wait until the title has been available for at least a week before we see those numbers.

Anyone planning on picking up Tekken 6 if you haven’t done so already?

via joystiq

We already know that Super Street Fighter IV is on its way but we don’t know much about the game’s story line. Today, Capcom’s Seth Killian sat down with Kotaku to speak about the game’s final boss; Seth.

If you’re played Street Fighter IV on the harder difficulties you’ll know that Seth is no walk in the park, utilizing just about every cheap move in the book. Well, according to Mr. Killian, the Seth in Super Street Fighter IV “will be even cheaper and more irritating”.

Luckily, all of the new characters will be unlocked out of the box so you won’t be fighting Seth over and over again like in the previous title.

Amazon has recently thrown the the limited edition of Tekken 6, which includes a wireless fight stick and art book, up for pre-order at $149.99 for both the Xbox 360 and PS3. If Amazon isn’t your favorite retailer don’t fret as companies such as GameStop have also put the $149.99 bundle up for pre-order.

Tekken 6 will be the franchise’s first major title for the current generation consoles and includes a rather large roster of characters at 42. As for a release date, well, you’ll be seeing both the standalone Tekken 6 along with the above mentioned bundle hit store shelves for the PS3 and 360 on October 27th, 2009.

Of these characters just 3 have been officially confirmed:  T. Hawk, Dee Jay and Juri. Fans of the Street Fighter franchise will recognize T. Hawk and Dee Jay from previous titles while Juri is an all new character.

As for a release date, we’re looking at Spring 2010 for both the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, with no mention of a PC release date.

Read (GameSpot)

Capcom

Of course, as of right now we have nothing more than whats featured on the teaser website which is just a small video including the screenshot shown above. We’re going to assume that this “new warrior” is an all new Street Fighter character to be offered through Xbox Live, the PSN and through Capcom’s official website for the PC.

We’ll keep you posted as more information is made known.

via kotaku

In Wet, you play as Rubi Malone, a dark haired tough chick who’s got an axe to grind with pretty much everyone, and she’s got a series of moves, from kicking and punching, to sliding and, if all fails, you have your good ‘ol guns to save you. The game is non-stop action, the story and dialogue are kept to a minimum, as you’ll be pumping lead into foes pretty much the whole time. As your body count adds up, you earn XP which you can use later. The campaign consists of levels that all have you run and gun though a series of enemies (lots of them) and finally take out the boss. While the mission structures are the same, the different locations, enemies and bosses add some the variety of the game, however, unfortunately it’s not enough.

There is plenty of slow motion in the game, which isn’t like Max Payne or FEAR where it’s limited, in Wet, you’re in slow motion as much as possible, when sliding, when jumping etc. And on top of that, you can tag multiple targets and take them out — all while in slow motion. One of the great things about the game, and which showcases it’s style, are “battle arenas”, where you’ll enter e.g. a market place, which will be cut off and enemies will be pouring at you.

The game is very stylish, presented like a a retro action B-movie, with a film-grain filter (which you can turn off), grind-house like cut scenes and an adequate soundtrack that sets the mood just right.  Even the dialogue feels like it was taken right out of a 70s retro indie flick, meaning it’s not too serious. The whole game doesn’t take it self too seriously, it’s meant to be stylish and fun. But when it comes to the gameplay, underneath hood, there isn’t much. The gameplay is very repetitive and you’ll be doing the same thing over and over again. After an hour or so, it does get tiresome and while there are some sequences to break from the regular run-and-gun action (like car sequences which include even more shooting), it’s not enough and doesn’t quite stand out.

The platforming features in the game — which are used quite a lot — are sub-standard and will leave you frustrated a lot of the time. And while the game is quite stylish, it’s by no means the best looking game out there — it’s a tad better than previous generation consoles could deliver. In all, Wet doesn’t really justify a full retail price, despite it’s style and fun combat, but there just isn’t enough substance. It’s great as a rental or budget title (which it will eventually become).

The Good:
Stylish
Fun combat

The Bad:
Repetitive
Not enough substance
Bland visuals

Overall score: 5/10

In Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao, you assume the role of a kung-fu fighter who battles his way through a myriad of Ninjas and bosses. The whole game has a great feel of 1970’s Bruce Lee kung-fu movies, complete with funny dialogue that has deliberately been dubbed incorrectly, the punch sounds and, of course, classic 1970s Hong Kong music to accompany everything. While Invincible Tiger is a 2D game, it has great 3D backgrounds which add to the mood and setting of the game, and if you happen to have 3D glasses, it’ll even pop out in full 3D mode. It’s also not strictly a 2D scroll game, as you’ll be limited to one “window” or zone at a time, where you have to clear out all enemies before you’re allowed to move on. This is great for focusing action on one place at a time, however, the action in Invincible Tiger can get quite repetitive, which means you can’t just quickly skip places like in most other 2D games by just “running and jumping” to the end; you actually have to finish everything, meaning lots and lots of button mashing.

The combat overall could have been a bit better and more broad, instead, it results to simple button mashing for the most time, with little regard to tactics and actual skills. Granted, this isn’t really the goal of a game like this — kung-fu movies were pretty much the “button mashers” of movies — but we still would have loved to see some more variety in the gameplay. The boss fights however, are quite different and require some skill and strategy to be defeated. The game offers online and offline co-op, which is always recommended for an entertaining arcade game like this, however, keep in mind that you share the lives, so if one of you isn’t as good and keeps dying, it’ll affect both of you.

Technically, the game looks beautiful and the use of 3D backgrounds creates a great atmosphere. The sounds and music could have been directly imported form a 1970’s Hong Kong kunf-fu action movie, which means it’s pretty awesome (if you’re into that kind of thing, of course). The game offers some 4-5 hours of gameplay time, however, most of this time is wasted on the same and repetitive action, which tends to get quite boring after an hour or two. A little more variety would have made wonders for an interesting title like this.

The Good:
Interesting setting
Original
Great 3D backgrounds

The Bad:
Repetitive combat
Controls can be buggy

Overall score: 7/10

Now, if you haven’t already grabbed this fighter, you really don’t have an excuse not to anymore. If you’re going by our Street Fighter IV review, ignore it; that shmuck doesn’t even write here anymore. Do yourself a favor and check it out, it’s well worth the money.

Read (Steam)

“We are very pleased to work with Shanda Games and very optimistic about the prospects of our partnership,” said Mr. Soichiro Hosoya, President of SNK Playmore. “We are honored that the KOF series has always been favored by Chinese game players, and KOF World is a game that we will work closely together with Shanda Games to develop, especially for Chinese players. We look forward to the game’s continued success.”

No word on a date for the Wii version, or specifics on which handheld platforms will be developed for.

Along with the port, THQ also announced that the series will become an annual franchise, meaning a new game for the series will be released every year, with new gameplay features and modes. Hopefully the game will not turn into another Madden.

The story of the game will go up to the end of the Sasuke rescue arc. Sixty playable characters and twenty-four maps will be featured in the game. For any fans who have issues with the English dub, a  Japanese audio will be included. The game is currently under localization by CyberConnect 2.

The download comes in at a whopping 887MB, so it’s definitely loaded with a good amount of content. You can grab the download on Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network. A second DLC package is expected to launch in September, so keep your eyes peeled.

The King of Fighters XII

Well, it looks like the developers have taken note and are planning on releasing a patch to address such issues:

“While not all players experienced these issues, an update for the game will be available tomorrow, Tuesday, July 28th for the PlayStation 3 which should help improve the overall quality and stability of online play for everyone.”

Kotaku reports that the Xbox 360 version will be getting a similar patch at an unannounced date.

The official launch trailer for The King of Fighters XII has been released, straight from Comic-Con. The trailer gives some nice comparisons of the sprite update progression throughout the game’s franchise.

The King of Fighters XII will be hitting stores tomorrow in North America, and August 28th in Europe.

“Tekken 6 and TapouT fans share a deep-rooted passion for the mixed-martial-arts lifestyle,” said Namco Bandai’s Makoto Iwai “This partnership will bring TapouT’s signature style into the world of Tekken, giving new experiences to video game enthusiasts and MMA fans alike.”

Hopefully these shirts won’t look as awful as Ecko’s Halo shirts. The new clothing line will go on sale this September.

Read (PlayStation Lifestyle)

In case you didn’t know, Rag Doll Kung Fu (the PS3 title is Rag Doll Kung Fu — Fists of Plastic), is a rag doll based fighting game where the characters behave like rag dolls, responding realistically to combat by use of physics, something very few other fighting games do. Fists of Plastic isn’t anything like the original game, it’s build on a brand new engine and features all new visuals, and is a PS3 exclusive and a download only title — it can be downloaded for only $10 on PSN.

Those $10 don’t get you much though, as Rag Doll Kung Fu has a rather short single player campaign. Called “challenges”, which vary from surviving for a period of time against an opponent, to using specific attack skills to defeat an enemy. While the challenges are great fun and serve as a way of getting familiar with the game, it doesn’t have a story of any form. Because of the realistic physics, the gameplay is different from other fighting games. In Fists of Plastic, you have to time your attacks and defends, instead of just pressing a button. Players can also use the surroundings to their advantage, climb ledges, rooftops etc., which brings a great depth to the gameplay. However, the challenges can be completed in less than an hour, which leads us to the multiplayer part…

The game offers four player multiplayer, which is great fun, however, the multiplayer portion is strictly offline-only. Also, because of the limited amount of selectable characters and settings, even the multiplayer portion gets boring after a while. It’s great fun… For a moment. Online multiplayer in this game is more wanted than in any other, as the offline modes and multiplayer is simply too shallow.

Technically, the game shines. It looks gorgeous (think Little Big Planet), and its style suits the gameplay perfectly. The music is also inspired by old Kung Fu movies, further creating a memorable atmosphere.

Overall, Rag Doll Kung Fu — Fists of Plastic offers a great visual and unique look, however, it’s very shallow and could really use an online multiplayer mode. The game feels more like a tech demo or actually, just a demo than a real game — despite the $10 price tag.

The Good:
Charming visuals

The Bad:
Shallow
Lack of online multiplayer

Overall score: 5/10

Anyways, today at Comic-Con they had the above controller on display, a Tatsunoko vs Capcom themed Fight Stick. Sure, it may have the same hardware as the Street Fighter IV Fight Stick (you know, the one that was notorious for breaking) with some Tatsunoko vs Capcom artwork slapped on top. But it’s the novelty that counts, right?

No word on pricing or availability but considering Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All Stars is expected to drop for the Wii towards the end of this year, you can probably expect it then.

via Destructoid