Tekken: Dark Resurrection (PSP)

The vast scale of Tekken: Dark Resurrection is so grand that it will take you a while before you’ve even thoroughly checked out all the modes and goodies that the game has to offer. Plus there’s the excellent Game Sharing system that allows you to have a Versus match with a mate (who should, of course, have another PSP) without him buying another copy of the game. There’s also Adhoc Multiplayer mode, in case your buddy does decide to pick a copy of the game, which give’s you access to a lot more game modes than in Game Sharing. Sorely missed is the Infrastructure mode, so there’s no WiFi-based internet play. This is kind of a downer as there’s no greater feeling than kicking someone’s ass from across the world.

What you can, however, do is record a Ghost image of yourself fighting and upload it for other players across the world to face off against you. You can also download someone else’s Ghost image to see how well you fare against international talent. It may not compensate the lack of online play, but it does give you an excellent new mode to keep the gameplay fresh.

Tekken: Dark Resurrection also happens to be one of the most visually gratifying games on the PSP. Right from the pre-rendered opening clip to the in-game graphics, everything about it feels well polished. It pushes the PSP hardware to give you good looking characters, animated 3D levels, extras, all at excellent framerates with low load times. All the sounds you heard in the arcade version are present here with all the same crispness. Nothing in this version of the game seems like a compromise, which is what makes it so amazing.

As I mentioned earlier, fighting game fan or not, there’s something in this one for everybody. If you’ve played through Tekken 5, when it came out on the PS2, chances are that you will still enjoy this one. It’s got enough new content (and Tekken Bowling) to keep you at it for a very long time.

The bottom-line is — The PSP has finally found it’s killer app in Tekken: Dark Resurrection.