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Tap ... tap ... poke ... poke ... PUNCH!
Two games that go kapow and one that just feels like it
 | "TEKKEN 5" offers players a bewildering array of punches, blocks and kicks. |
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Tom Loftus Columnist • E-mail |
The hand boasts 20 different muscles. The new releases below will have gamers using and abusing each and every one of them.
"WarioWare Touched!" encourages players to literally tap, drag, and squiggle their fingers across the touch screen of the Nintendo DS. "TEKKEN 5" offers old school, finger-bleeding button mashing. And the boxing game "Fight Night Round 2" combines violent joystick jabs with softer dabs when working as a ringside cut-man.
“Tekken 5”
While fighting games such as “Mortal Kombat” and the mammary-crazed “Dead or Alive” have made the news for one supposed transgression or another, “Tekken” keeps truckin': quietly earning respect among fighting game aficionados for no-nonsense sequels populated by saucer-eyed Japanese heroines.
What's the plot? In "Tekken 5" cinematic cut-scenes allude to existential rumblings among the participants at the fifth King of the Iron Fist Tournament. But really, who cares.
“Tekken” owes its reputation to its ability to offer a bewildering array of punches, blocks and kicks all the while maintaining an old-fashioned, arcade style of play. Fighting control and movement rests with manipulating the PS2’s controller buttons. Joysticks, in the default controller setup at least, are useless appendages serving as much purpose as the plot.
The game soundtrack is loud, abrasive and purely awful in a way that only arcade game soundtracks can be.
The 25-plus characters, each of whom come with his or her own set of signature moves and fighting styles, are equally over the top.
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Who can resist Christie Monteiro, a Brazilian capoeira expert with a fashion preference for tie-dye? How about the fighting kangaroo, Roger Jr., or maybe Asuka Kazama, the mandatory Japanese waif who prefaces her fight with “Let's get this over with” before kicking your butt.
Settings are not interactive, meaning players can’t bounce the enemy off of a well-placed spike for added damage. But talk about eye candy: Fighters do battle amid cascading waterfalls, a penguin populated ice floe and a softly lit field covered with pussy willows the size of tennis balls.
Big, brash and awash in color and style, “Tekken 5” deserves to be played on the big screen with the speakers cranked.
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