Ah, yes. Tekken. Ever since you made 3D Fighting fun back on the first PlayStation, it's been hard to ignore you. Every so often, you come out with a new arcade release that gets ported to console after a few years of listening to your players complain about a slight unbalance, making patch after patch of the arcade version like an astonishingly naive Sisyphus. But you've never stopped being fun! As lame as it was to get knocked back over and over into an aerial combo by Sakura, it was equally as rewarding to thrust Yoshimitsu's katana down her throat and steal Round 5 from a button-mashing drunken frat boy reject at the arcade. So what do you have in store for me in this installment?

Well, it's a fighting game sequel. What's there to expect? We've all been here with Street Fighter 4 and King of Fighters XII and just about every other fighting game to be made this year. Some new characters, better visuals, a small tweak to the gameplay that gets the entire fanbase in a spiteful rage in an attempt for the developer to change it back to "the good 'ol days" in spite of all their hard work. Oh, and a lame single-player campaign that makes an awful attempt to bring plot and two-dimensional characters to the franchise. But what it also brings is fun, lots of fun. The way you've always played it and basically every other fighting game.

Onto the changes: Tekken 6 brings two significant gameplay tweaks to its engine. Firstly, the "rage" system, which increases a character's power once their life bar is low. Not too many people have commented on it, but such a system can make awesome comebacks much more possible with less effort if the other player isn't careful. Secondly, the "bound" system, which has had a lot of people up in flames about it. Basically, during an air combo (and you'll get these in Tekken), each character has a set of moves that smack the opponenet to the floor, make them bounce up, and, if they're quick enough, go back in for another combo. This makes wall juggling a lot easier and can end a match pretty quickly if one gets pushed to a corner.

But there are ways to compensate for that. There are still large environments to avoid getting backed into, a wide variety of characters (40 playable), and ways to get away from a bound combo. Spacing, grabbing, parrying, the whole nine yards of Tekken are still in place and, well, it's still Tekken. Veterans are still going to be carrying the flag and newbies will be able to mash buttons to pull off a few sneak wins until they actually learn how to do some combos and get better at the game with a little practice.

The single player campaign borrows a little from the original Arcade style of fighting and a lot from games like Final Fight and The Bouncer, where it becomes a giant melee with multiple characters as you whittle down their life bars while defending your's and your AI-controlled allies. And sometimes you can use weapons...kind of not what I was expecting to see but also hoping I wouldn't have to either. Tekken has almost always been about martial arts and technique, but once you've introduced guns to the mix, it completely throws off the dynamics of the game. Hopefully Namco won't take a hint and use this as an opportunity to use them in the real game...but you almost never know nowadays.

Normally I would criticize the campaign's plot on the basis that it makes no sense and with quite a few one-dimensional characters it makes it unbearable, but do fighting games need storylines if they're almost always going to be awful? I can't imagine a time where I thought, "Gee, Tekken sure has a great story. I'd like to see more of this world instead of better fighting mechanics!" And neither does anyone I know in any gaming community. It's as if everyone in development teams forgot how horrid Street Fighter's story was and figured that it was inspirational.

There are some neat customization options as well, ranging from clothing to physical appearance to setting what element you like when you go into Rage mode. Lightning is always a fun choice, just to give Heihachi a taste of his own medicine. Some characters can equip side weapons, but these aren't really a part of their core moves and used more for "taunt" attacks in which they may look cool, but only deal a small amount of damage and are virtually useless in a real fight.

Just as with any other fighting game these days, it features online play. And, just as with any other fighting game these days, it's really laggy now but the developers have promised a patch to fix this in the future. Once it's back up, it should be just as fun to play as anything else on the market, and you'll be enjoying online play in no time.

Still, like I've said: It's Tekken. You know how it plays and you know who your favorite character is before you even decided to buy the game. If you've loved any of the predecessors, you're going to love Tekken 6 and so will the friends you played it with, and will no doubt be safe with a purchase. If you're still torn between wanting to pick up another fighter and the one you have now, you can safely give this a rental and decide on a purchase later. If you want to get in on a new fighting game, you can certainly do a lot worse. But in a market where Super Street Fighter 4 is coming out early next year, BlazBlue is still being played in tournaments and online, and other relevant fighting games are not only available but less expensive, it pays to do a little investigating before putting down $60 US. The game is worth it if you love fighters in general, so give it a shot.