This game excels at what matters most... the fighting.
As you may have read the graphics in this game aren't the most amazing thing we have ever seen before. But they are more then acceptable in my opinion and probably the best in the series so far. The character models look great and the backgrounds are all awesome.
Sound - 8.5
To me the music and sound effects in a video game are very important as I always say and Tekken's audio is spot on as usual. There are a lot of cool songs to go with some of these stages and the sound effects are great. However there are some stage themes that aren't really my style but that has always been the case with Tekken. They like to mix up it up and that's fine. Some stages have very intense music that gets you pumped up, and some others are more playful and match the theme of the stage they are paired with. If your like me and love some great heart pumping music while you play do what I did and compile a nice play list of songs that go well with fighting games. I put together a track listing of over 1000 songs specifically for fighting games and it really gets me immersed in the action.
Gameplay - 9.5
When it comes to fighting Tekken has been and still is one of the best looking and most fluent fighting games of all time. Moves are flashy and at times very very impressive which is something I really care about. I have had many online fights where my opponent and I would be sidestepping and evading and parrying each others moves back and fourth on and on with some very exciting moments indeed. There are some really devastating powerful attacks some of these characters pull off that need to be seen to be believed. And the combination's of moves you can put together at times feels limitless. Honestly I would have givin this game a 10 for game play but there are some quirks I will admit. The campaign scenario mode is abit clunky and at times annoying. The controls for this mode feel a little tacked on and take awhile to get used too. Even when you feel you have grasped the concept of this slightly different fighting system it still feels like I cant pull off the things I want to all the time and with ease. The reason for this is because you cannot crouch unless you are engaged (locked on) to an opponent. Many moves require you to be crouching or rising from a crouched position to execute other moves and it just requires a little more thinking I guess you could say. But all in all the campaign scenario mode is fun enough to play for hours on end and there's a heafty amount of storyline cut scenes to watch if you care about the storyline of Tekken which I myself do. And there's a lot of different attire you can win in this mode to dress up your favorite characters. The best part is how many different items of clothing there really are in the game and that you can take your custom looking character into online matches to show to the world.
Multiplayer - 8.0
Unfortunately as much as I hate to admit it the multiplayer does suffer from one little problem... lag. But don't be too worried its not that bad. When I first got this game and read reviews on how laggy the online was I was very worried. Of course for me one of the most important aspects of a fighting game these days is beating people down online in "far matches" with little to no lag. So heres what you can expect from Tekken online. Some matches are laggy, other matches are perfect and then you have some matches that start perfect and then slow substantially or vice verse. But you can get some great matches in and some very competitive game play here. If you are a patient and understanding person such as myself then the occasional lag spikes are acceptable. The most important thing is that more often then not you can fight a 5 round fight at normal speeds which to me is more than enough reason to spend hours and hours online perfecting my characters. However if you are looking to play ranked matches and expect to never lose a match because you're just that good well theres no avoiding it you WILL run into lag issues and at that point its anybody's ball game. So you may get some losses you shouldn't which is why I wont be taking ranked matches so seriously... hey what can you do. But what I will take seriously is a nice player vs player match that isn't lagging. If I loose a 5 round match without lag then I will get a little mad at myself, but when the game lags at times it really can be a coin toss depending on the characters selected. So the key is to not get so upset / annoyed when the game lags on occasion as that's just how it is. I should note that my router is an older linksys and my NAT is not set to OPEN. So im sure new routers and players with their NAT set to OPEN will have less lag then I am experiencing. One other important thing I like is that you can do a quick match and be instantly thrown into a fight with a pre selected character. That way your opponent can't match up what he thinks is his best character against the one you presented which is really good. And then there's the non ranked lobby mode which is an awesome addition. A total of 4 people can sit in a lobby and watch fights as they wait their turn. So you can study your opponent a little bit and prepare to give him a real run for his money. Also if you're like me and like an audience as you trash your opponents this is def the place to be. I could go into more but just know this... the multiplayer is a lot of fun and very acceptable.
Games Overall Score - 10
Additional Notes - I could go on and on about this game but I think I've covered enough for you to make a decision. I noticed this game hasn't been getting all the attention it deserves so I figured i would try to do an in depth review of it. If you are thirsty for an awesome new fighting game that you will play for god only knows how long then you will be missing out on a lot if you don't grab this title.
XBOX LIVE GAMERTAG = Genacyde