| System: Xbox 360, PS3* |  |
| Dev: Namco Bandai | |
| Pub: Namco Bandai | |
| Release: September 11, 2012 | |
| Players: 1-4 | |
| Screen Resolution: 480p-1080p | Alcohol Reference, Crude Humor, Mild Blood, Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Violence |
You can also customize the appearance of every other character in the game as well, decking them out in the right costume to suit your personal tastes. For example, every male in my game can don either a trench coat or a thong. Or both.
Of course, the real meat and potatoes of any fighting game is versus play. As far as the actual game system goes, it's pretty much still Tekken 6 with a tag button. Rage is still there, and you still gain it if the opponent hits you with certain tag combos. You can also spend it to safely tag in if you are in danger.
The biggest change is the ability to play as a single character rather than a two-person team. Single characters have more health and do slightly more damage, but lose all the tag options the game has to offer. The game seems pretty balanced between single and tag play, though pro communities tend to gravitate toward teams more than solos.
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has also made serious strides forward in online play. The netcode is very smooth. While sometimes I had problems finding a match or would come across unfortunate lag spikes in random matches, most of the matches I encountered were playable and easy to get into. It's a big step above Tekken 6, whose three-bar matches were sometimes better than its four-bar matches. Yeah, I don't get it either.
However, the biggest online innovation that Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has to offer is the World Tekken Federation. WTF (I see what they did there) tracks just about every statistic you could possibly want to be tracked. Sure, it tracks your win/loss record and keeps track of your place on the online leaderboards, but it also tracks particulars like average combo damage. You can actually keep track of your own development as a player this way by seeing how you take and deal damage. It's the first of its kind in the fighting game genre and should become a standard for all fighting games from here on out.
Aside from what I have already mentioned, TTT2 has all the other bells and whistles you would expect from a fighting game. That means team play, survival mode, time attack, and so on. It's easily one of the best looking Tekken games ever made, though most models and costumes are just rehashes from previous Tekken installments.
The audio is decent. I was never a big fan of Tekken's electronic beats, but they are well put together here. The voice acting is pretty stellar as well.
Overall, I would call Tekken Tag Tournament 2 a must buy, period. If you are a Tekken fan, you'll drool over the nostalgia and huge roster. If you aren't, then this is definitely the game that will sell you on Tekken. Go out, buy it, and enter the King of the Iron Fist tournament yourself!
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By Angelo M. D'Argenio Contributing Writer Date: September 11, 2012 |
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