Video Game Vintage Title: Tekken 6

Tekken 6

Tekken 6 is a fighting game developed and published by Namco Bandai. It is the seventh main installment in the Tekken franchise. It was released in Japanese arcades on November 26, 2007 as the first game running on the PlayStation 3-based System 357 arcade board. The game received an update, subtitled Bloodline Rebellion, a year later. A home version based on the update was released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on October 27, 2009 and for PlayStation Portable on November 24, 2009. This game can be digitally download via PlayStation Store to play on PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita. It is the first Tekken game to include multi-tiered stages and bound system. The game received generally positive reviews, especially the PSP version, which got an 82.60% from GameRankings and 82/100 from Metacritic.

Tekken 6 Plot

Following Jin Kazama's victory against his great-grandfather, Jinpachi Mishima in the previous tournament, he has risen as the new head of Mishima Zaibatsu. Mirroring his father's previous leadership, Jin uses the company's resources to become a global superpower, severs the national's ties and openly declares war against all nations over the following year. This action plunges the world into an extremely chaotic spiral, with a huge-scale civil war erupting around the globe and even amidst the space colonies orbiting the planet. Meanwhile, his father, Kazuya Mishima has risen as the leader of Mishima Zaibatsu's rival company, G Corporation, following his assassinations of the company's high officials for his attempted murder beforehand. Kazuya views Jin's actions to be a nuisance in his own plans and becomes the only one who can directly oppose Jin's control. He places a bounty on Jin's head for anyone who can capture him. Jin then announces the sixth King of Iron Fist Tournament, sparking many people into entering the tournament to capture him.

As the war continues to erupt, the field leader of Mishima Zaibatsu's Tekken Force, Lars Alexandersson has rebelled from the army alongside several of his soldiers. However, Lars is rendered amnesiac during one such attack and must spend some time to recover his memories. Accompanied by an android named Alisa Bosconovitch, Lars ventures throughout the world, avoiding the Mishima Zaibatsu's manhunt on him while also trying to recover his memories. It is eventually revealed that Lars is actually the illegitimate son of Heihachi Mishima, who has gone into hiding ever since his supposed demise since the last tournament and has been trying to take the Mishima Zaibatsu from Jin's hands. After coming into contact with several allies, including his adopted brother, Lee Chaolan, Lars confronts the G Corporation and Mishima Zaibatsu's headquarters, where Jin in the latter's visit reveals that he had sent Alisa to spy on Lars' actions all along. Disabling Alisa's safe mode, Lars is forced to confront his former teammate, who leaves with Jin to Egypt. Helped by one his allies, Raven, Lars goes to Egypt, meeting an astrologist, Zafina, who provides them with information about Azazel, the ultimate evil bounded in an ancient temple. After another rematch with his half-brother, Kazuya, Lars confronts Azazel himself and later Jin, who admits that the reason for him launching the war is to awaken Azazel, as he can only have a physical form through negative energies of the world. Revealing that Azazel can only be destroyed by someone with the Devil Gene, Jin confronts and punches the revived Azazel, sending them both plummeting to the desert. Lars is reunited with a now-safe Alisa, who has been fixed by Lee since her previous destruction and goes on another mission, while Raven unearths Jin's body in the desert, noting that he still has the Devil mark in his arm.

Tekken 6 Gameplay

Tekken 6 features bigger stages with more interactivity than its predecessors, such as walls or floors that can be broken to reveal new fighting areas. The character customization feature has been enhanced, and certain items have implications in some aspects of gameplay.

A new "rage" system has been added, giving characters more damage per hit when their vitality is below a certain point. Once activated, a reddish energy aura appears around the character, and their health bar starts to flicker in red. The rage aura can be customized with different colors and effects to appear like fire, electricity, ice, among others. Another gameplay feature added is the "bound" system. Every character has several moves that, when used on an opponent that is currently midair in a juggle combo, will cause the opponent to be smashed hard into the ground, bouncing them off the floor in a stunned state and leaving them vulnerable to another combo or additional attack. As of the Bloodline Rebellion update, successfully parrying a low attack will also put a character into a bound state.

The console versions (excluding the PSP version) also include an extra mode entitled "Scenario Campaign" which bears similarities with the "Tekken Force" and "Devil Within" modes from previous installments. In this mode, the player can move freely in an environment similar to that of a third-person role-playing game. Players can also pick up weapons such as poles and gatling guns, along with lootable items, money, and power-ups which can be found inside crates that are scattered all throughout the playing environment. Players can move freely between fights, but when a group of enemies are encountered, the gameplay switches to the traditional, two-dimensional Tekken style. This mode originally only had single player offline. Namco released a patch on January 18, 2010 that allows online Co-op mode for Scenario Campaign.

Both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game include an online versus multiplayer mode over PlayStation Network and Xbox Live respectively. It includes Ranked Matches mode, where the player can promote their character to a higher ranking, and Player Matches mode, where the player's fights aren't ranked and they can invite friends to have matches with them.

The game uses a proprietary graphics engine running at 60 frames per second as well as a dynamic physics engine named Octave Engine which allows water to behave accordingly to how characters move. The graphics engine has been designed with focus on character-animation to make movements look more smooth and realistic which led to many animations being remade to either reflect the impact and damage caused or to create new possibilities in gameplay. The developers considered animation specifically important for a fighting game and wanted to make the game "look good in motion" whereas previous installments had been designed to "look good on still-shots". Since Bloodline Rebellion, the game supports dynamic full-body motion blur, making Tekken 6 the first fighting game to do so.

Reception
Critical response to Tekken 6 among reviewers has been generally favorable. IGN stated that "While Tekken is not for everybody, Tekken 6 should appeal to a fairly wide variety of fighting game fans.", rating it at 8.8. IGN Australia awarded the game a score of 9.0/10, and GameSpot awarded it an 8.5/10. Play UK gave Tekken 6 a 94 stating it as "an intense, tactical and utterly brilliant fighting game, perfect for anyone with even a fleeting interest in the genre".

Tekken 6 has nonetheless garnered some criticism for the excessive load times of the PlayStation 3 version when run without install. and its previously laggy online multiplayer component. The lag in multiplayer, however, has been improved via patch by Namco Bandai Games. The game's Scenario Campaign mode was subject to criticism as well; IGN regarded the Scenario Campaign as a disappointment, citing bland environments and repetitive enemies.

The PSP version received positive reviews. IGN gave the PSP port an 8.5, stating that the portable version had improved greatly upon loading times when compared to its console versions. They ended their review stating that "if you already own Tekken 6 for consoles, the PSP version is just more of the same. Then again, it is an excellent port and will give you plenty of time to practice while on the road, so it just might be worth that extra investment."

During its first week, the PlayStation 3 version of Tekken 6 sold 103,000 units in Japan. According to Media Create, this made this the fastest selling fighter until August 2012 when the record was broken by the PS3 port of Persona 4 Arena' with 180,000 units. As of May 2011, Tekken 6 has sold more than 3.5 million copies worldwide.