Tekken Tag Tournament 2

(Namco Bandai for Xbox 360)
By Mike Delano

Like all of the best Tekken games, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is packed with content, but whether or not it’s the right content will depend on your tastes.

First, though, something we can all agree on: This is a gorgeous, great-playing game. The large character models are even sharper and bolder than those in Tekken 6, and the backgrounds get an upgrade as well, each bursting with color and feeling like exciting destinations rather than “Nondescript Alley #6.” The tried and true Tekken gameplay is as fun as ever, but it’s largely unchanged from prior installments, and you’ll mostly experience it through the same bog standard modes: Arcade, versus, time attack, survival, etc.

The short “Combot” training storyline is cute, informative, and does give you the unique opportunity to customize a robot with only the attacks you want, but the lack of any truly inspired single player content is disappointing. Tekken 6 had the fascinating campaign mode, BlazBlue had its crazy story mode, and last year’s Mortal Kombat reboot definitely raised the bar for offline fighting game content with its incredible narrative-based single player adventure.

TTT 2 doesn’t have anything like these examples, and it’s all the more frustrating since, as its fantastically wacky ending movies prove, the generation-spanning Tekken mythos is tailor-made for this type of game mode. It’s a bummer, but the polish and playability of the game’s underlying structure still make it a winner, even if we’re left waiting until next time for its creators to fully explore new opportunities in the Tekken universe.
(www.namcobandaigames.com)