

The fighting style in Tekken 6 hasn't changed dramatically. It's a hefty roster, thick with the series' favorites. If you count alternate versions of the same character (specifically, Kuma's second player "outfit" is really Panda), there are over 40 characters to choose from. The six additions to the roster fit pretty well and are fun to learn and fight with. These are the two new "Bloodline Rebellion" fighters that appeared in the second arcade release, but if you've only been following the series via its home releases, then the four fighters from the first Tekken 6 release- Bob, Leo, Miguel, and Zafina-are also new. Alisa Bosconovitch is a pretty Japanese robot girl who can make chainsaws pop out of her arms. The new fighters added to the fray include Lars Alexandersson, a Scandanavian dude with ties to the Mishima bloodline-which means he has excellent hair, obviously.

But just about everything that surrounds the actual fighting part of this fighting game is pretty disappointing, making this one strictly for Tekken fans who have enough local opposition to keep things interesting.

In addition to also appearing on a non-Sony console (!), Tekken 6 has some very sharp fighting that builds onto the existing framework nicely with some cool new moves and characters. These days, it's not quite the trendsetter that it used to be, but the Tekken series keeps trucking along with Tekken 6. It was the moment where you could immediately see arcades becoming less relevant, as the machines hooked up to our TVs were now just as impressive as the stuff you had to drop quarters into to play. Seeing Namco develop home versions of the first few Tekken games that surpassed the arcade games upon which they were based was a magical moment back on the original PlayStation. Tekken was once the bellwether for the coming generation of consoles. You can customize the fighters with all sorts of different parts.
