Tekken on the system

Tekken 6 is just that: The sixth iteration of the franchise. By now, you should know full well if it's worth your money or not.

For long time fans like me, the complaints have nothing to do with the fighting, which is where it must excel. They instead reside in things that, I'll admit, I never thought I'd have a problem with. For instance, you don't have your normal menu. You have "Online mode" and "Offline mode", which isn't exactly self-explanatory. Then you go into Offline mode only to find your cursor highlighting the Scenario campaign. The long version: You get to watch a bunch of Story mode schlock, complete with Metal Gear length cutscenes, and then you get to play a side-scrolling beat-em up version of a fairly technical fighter.

The short version: I hope you liked The Bouncer, motherfucker, because you're going to play it again.

And the reason you'll play it again is because you will wish to unlock things, which simply doesn't happen at a very fast rate- this is actually the fastest mode to do it in. Even stranger, if you want to unlock an ending, this is where you do it. Not through arcade mode, or even through the store. Here, and only here, by fighting in the "Arena". Oh, and you can only use people you've already unlocked in the Scenario campaign. It's actually somewhat humorous to leave the arcade mode, with its huge brigade of characters to head into a mode where you have two.

Speaking of characters, there is a robust character customization in place, even allowing some cosplaying to go on. This is important to people like me, who actually think KOF characters aren't in enough (good) games. However, this process is kneecapped by the pittance of cash your fighter is paid for victory: I've but in a fair amount of hours, and, god willing, by the end of this month I might be able to afford a new shirt for Asuka. The wide canyon between how much money you get and how much things cost puts fucking minibars to shame, except for certain accessories, which is my way of saying you'll be able to afford a sword long before you can get your character a hair cut.

So, yeah, the fighting game's intact, and the online's alright, but I'd be lying if I didn't wonder what sort of bizarre experiments were going on at Namco.

Tony Hawk:Ride (more like Deride)

Watch that .gif a few times. Take it in.

Got it? Good.

Now, let me make a few notes about it.

1. This is not a hacked version, nor are there any cheat codes being applied. This is the retail, otherwise untouched, finished product.

2. As far as I know, TH:TR does not feature a level design like Strider's, where gravity switches on you throughout a level.

3. This ill-programmed shovelware bomb sets you back a cool $120, though it does provide you with a board that also wasn't programmed well.

It's been a hard time for the THPS series, which happens when you take a game about skateboarding and indie bands and exchange it for Top 40 radio and riding in grocery carts. Oh, and you fail to innovate throughout 4 or 5 sequels. This being the age of the gimmick, be it plastic instruments, motion controls or ridiculous pack-ins, they decided to technically add all three and do none of them well. Which would be fine if that was step 2- then I could merely write it off as "meh, shovelware". And it would be harmless, as it would be just another Tony Hawk game.

Unfortunately, everything about this game points to the heads at Activision getting the market concept down - Here's a game with a REAL(tm) Skateboard Controller! - and then slacking on the game side of things. There's not an ether on this planet strong enough to get me to believe they ran QA on this atrocity. This has been a really unfortunate side effect of the motion control/instrument side of the gaming industry, and indeed the mainstream popularity of it: mediocrity is acceptable, since hey, we're getting new customers who have no problem with the controller not working properly or the game being shit. I think the best review I've seen is a youtube video where a soccer mom says "for somebody who can barely walk a straight line, this is great!" Not high praise to be lumped in with an activity reserved for field sobriety tests.

And good news: there's already a plan for the sequel. That's okay, I'll be over here working on my Survival Arts skills. Let me know when you can get quality even similar to that of Top Skater, an arcade game that came out 12 years ago.