Games Played 04/25/2009

Resident Evil 5 - X-Box 360
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel - PC*

*So far, so good. This is a screenshot of my third Dryad character...
I deleted the first two when I made decision mistakes during the level up process.


RANDOM GAME OF THE DAY:


Tekken 4 (2001)
Developer: Namco Ltd.
Platform: PlayStation 2
Purchase Date: 09/29/2002


Want a winning strategy for Christie? Alternately press the two kick buttons
quickly and repeatedly until your opponent is beaten down to a pulp.

Tekken 4 is my least favorite game in the series because it had the unfortunate luck of being the follow up to the masterpiece Tekken Tag Tournament. Even though this game can be played in 4:3 progressive scan, it doesn't look as good as the interlace-only Tournament. The problem is simply this: The Tekken series has always been a flashy button-masher. The button mashing has always been shallow and the games have been fun because of their powerful looking combos. Tournament was able to provide the needed depths to the series by adding the 2-on-2 gameplay to create a more interesting dynamic and fighting strategy. By going back to 1-on-1 fighting, the series' rigidity becomes apparent again. The only thing new that Tekken 4 adds into the series is the fully realized 3D stages. Unfortunately, they are more beautiful than they are functional because these battlegrounds are so big that it's hard to get the fighters close to the walls and slopes to actually manipulate those environmental objects. What Namco needs to do is totally revise this series' stiff gameplay mechanics just like what they did when they made the sequel to the repetitive combo-fest Soul Edge in the form of the ultra-refined Soul Calibur. The Soul Calibur series is definitely much better than Tekken in every way even though Namco has recently become a bit lazy with that series too.

LIBRARY STATUS: 3 out of 5