Tekken 5, Worth Your Time?

I have played a lot of video games in my day, but not till just recently had I ever played one of the Tekken games. Well, let me take that back, I think I played the first Tekken game back in the arcades many moons ago. Never the less, I had never played one at home and never played one after that. So when I heard that Tekken 5 came out it was about time to give the game a chance. You see I was raised with Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. When I was growing up, if you played anything else you were a “traitor” to your favorite game. Now that phase of gaming history is over I can give a fair review of Tekken 5, without the worry of a lynch mob coming to beat me with a sack of oranges.

The first thing you’ll notice about Tekken 5 after putting it into your PlayStation 2 is it is pretty. I has to be one of the best, if not the best looking PlayStation 2 game to come around in a while. PlayStation 2 games are just not suppose to be this pretty! It is a good thing though, don’t get me wrong. The fighting game formula is simple, have an arcade mode, fight, fight some more, fight the boss, you win! Tekken 5 does have some nice new features though not seen in many fighting games.

You can customize your favorite fighter by adding new additions to their costume or changing the colors on their costume. They have also added an adventure title to the mix as well. When you choose to play, “Devil Within” you start a whole new 3rd person game where you learn more about the character’s, Jin’s, past. It reminds me of what Mortal Kombat Deception had with it’s Konquest mode, except there is a lot less free roaming and a lot more fighting involved.

Another nice feature is the story mode. In it, you pick your fighter to go through the game with and every so often you are rewarded with different cut scenes and more, really making you feel like you are in the action. The game tries it’s hardest to fill in the missing points of each of the story lines and does so very well.

Oh and let us not forget that you can also play Tekken, Tekken 2 and Tekken 3! The first Tekken is a little dated, but Tekken 2 and Tekken 3 are still very playable games. These look to be exact arcade ports over to the PS2, and anything that was suppose to be unlocked is unlocked when you start.

All and all, I’d give Tekken 5 a ten star review. It does everything a fighting game should do, and doesn’t waste my time at all. There are so many different things you can do, it should keep any fighting fan busy for a very long time.