|
Friday 8 February, 2008
GAMEPLAY
Aww, yeah! Now that's what I'm talkin' about!
After getting accustomed to the rules of the game, I notice that I'm able to play it much more naturally. Combos come easy, juggling is second nature, one-hit-kills are a piece of cake (we';l get to that later). It's not hard to see why this game caused such a commotion in the late nineties.
There are just so many possibilities, so many factors you need to take into account. To do well at this, you have to devote your life to it. I was forced to play on easy mode, as I wasn't as used to Tekken 3's interface as I was Tekken 5, but even on easy, the computer offered a challenge. On that difficulty setting, getting the timing down isn't as important as the harder difficulties, but the fights are still very intense.
DESIGN
Tekken is the pinnacle of 3-D fighting games for infinite reasons. Here's a few I noticed while playing.
"Hellz yeah!" sense of achievement. It's important to make sure you're picking the right difficulty. Too easy and you'll be bored, too hard and you'll want to throw the controller at your roommate/houshold pet/self. So when you find a challenge that's just right, you're inroduced to a whole new spectrum of awesome. You feel great beating the heck out of someone and achieving the "perfect" victory, and when you're faced with a tough opponent that you can't seem to beat...but then you finally do...THAT's "hellz yeah!" Good developers, way to keep me reeled in.
Heart attack inducing intensity. Punches and kicks fly like bullets and hurt like 'em, too. At times you're caught in a stalemate with your opponent with the two of you blocking and dodging each other's attacks. This leads to heavy anticipation. "Who's gonna land the next hit?!" you ask as you pound your sweat drenched controller, until BOOM! You hit him! WHOO!!! I am the man!.........Then you die with one hit in the next frame.
What? What do you mean? Let's get to those one-hit-kills I was talking about.
Tekken's attack damage was toned way down in later iterations of ther series, so it came to me as a huge surprise when a punch that only took away 10% of my opponent's health bar in Tekken 5 suddenly had my enemy at half strength. "Whoa, WTF?" was all I could say as I, winning with full health and my oppenent an inch away from death, suddenly was brought to the same status as the other guy in one second. LITERALLY...one second...
So, once I realized that the damage was ramped up from what I was used to, I decided to test the strongest attack I'd ever seen in a Tekken game: Paul Phoenix's charge-up punch (Away + LP+RP). "PERFECT" is all I hear as my opponent falls...one hit...less than five seconds...bad developers, now I want to do that every single match...and I almost did.
In conlusion: THIS GAME EFFIN' ROCKS. The characters are colorful and appealing. The gameplay's fast, responsive, addicting, and SUPER-deep. I love it. We're getting married this Spring...
|
