Tekken 5

         Tekken in the late 90's was one of the main reason s for owning a Playstation. Back then, it slam-banged the StreetFighter machines as the undisputed aracde champion. After a while, gamers demanded more grit, more action - a game that went beyond plain kicking and fighting. And while everyone was looking for a new fighting game, Mortal Kombt and Soul Calibur took it as a cue and developed imaginative characters and environments with addition of flashy effects.

        In 2005 (Wow, that was 8 yrs. ago), Tekken 5 seems to be dead-set on showing once again who's boss in the arcades and on PS2 (before). The game starts out with Heichachi Mishima's assassination. The whole two minutes or so is breathtakingly beautiful. After all, this has happened before: a wonderful intro followed by lousy in-game graphics.

         Thankfully, you'll find the same pretty graphics in the game. The characters roster in Tekken 5 contains a great hodge-podge of all the unforgettable characters of the series. Mainstays like Kazuya, Paul, Law, Yoshimitsu, King, Nina, Bryan, Lei, Hwoarang, Bruce, Baek, Lee, Anna and Xiaoyu are all present. Three new characters are also introduced: Raven, a Blade dead ringer who can occasionally teleport; Asuka, the japanese schoolgirl who is Jin's cousin; and Feng, the typical evil guy. While the new characters fit into the game and are not completely out of place, the old characters are given fresh moves so they can keep up with the competition. Handling nina for instance, feels different as she has "learned"several new combos.
      
       The story mode takes you through a series of fights. You can now also customize your character in Tekken 5. As you win fights, you'll earn currency to purchase stuff for your character. Some of the outits can be customized and sometimes you have the option to entirely change them altogether.You can buy accessories such as shades, boots, necklaces, or even a frying pan.

    
         What's so great about this game is that Namco took the time to polish the fighting system and graphics form Tekken 4 and retained what was good about it. Steve, Marduk and Christie. The seemingly-claustrophobic walls are now gone, and awkward moves are replaced with smooth and natural fight choreography. All of a sudden, Tekken 5 looks tougher because getting hit seems to be more painful. Everyone moves like they're out to kill. even the most basic jab looks like it can send you into a coma. When you hit the floor, ground fragments fly off, and cracks form on the surface. The characters movements are fluid and extremely smooth. Even if you've already seen these moves before, they look so much more graceful this time. The graphics are outstanding and at some point will make you think twice if you are really playing on the PS2 (way way back before PS3) and not watchin some pre-renderred CG Flick. The backgrounds are wildly imaginative and small details such as onlookers, cotton wisps, and temple on fire are perfectly rendered.

        An extended bonus is a trip down memory lane which gives you full access to the earlier aracde versions of the game such as Tekken, Tekken 2, Tekken 3.