Let others have their Madden, NBA or Bigs franchises. Tekken games are my sport.

Ever since Tekken 3 in college, I’ve spent hours in the various games’ Practice Modes, working out my own ways to link moves together. That hasn’t changed much over the years. It’s happened that Lei Wu-Long’s become my main guy. My Tiger Woods, my Michael Jordan, if you will.
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Fry It or no, I’m going to be playing Tekken 6.

I’ve played it since college and it’s too late to back out now. Elsewhere, I’ve compared fighting franchise loyalties to allegiance to a political party. Getting me on KOF or Street Fighter would be akin to asking a Republican congressman to sign off on health care reform. The last Tekken game would blurt out the phrase in this post’s title when the character select screen opened up and it’s always stuck with me. It’s always been a bit weird to have a super-friendly announcer welcome you to a brutal bare-knuckle fighting tournament, but that’s the least bizarre thing about Tekken. Anyhoo, I’m planning on using these “Welcome to the King of Iron Fist!” posts to be an informal journal of my progress in all things Tekken 6.

Tekken 6 Diary: 11-6-09, 1:15 am

Fight Record: 30-10 right now.
Rank: 1st kyu

Every first Friday of the month, John Teti hosts a stand-up comedy showcase called John Teti’s Nite of Laffs. Myself and several other Crispy folks were in attendance and much hilarity was on display. After that, Teti and I enjoyed some ramen at Menkui-Tei in NYC’s East Village, where he told me the correct way to say fried chicken in Japanese. John didn’t feel like drinking alone so I ordered a small bottle of sake. I pretty much drank the entire thing by myself and was well tipsy by the time I got home. Despite the fact that it was after midnight, I decided to fire up the PS3 for a few quick Tekken bouts. Right now, I’m choosing not to play with voice chat. I’m letting Lei Wu Long’s fists do all the talking. I probably would’ve slurred my words anyway. More...

Games on the iPhone are a wonder to behold and sometimes, even a joy to play. The iPhone’s pretty much single-handedly resurrected mobile gaming into a category worth caring about and all of the major players in the industry recognize that. During their last product event, Apple specifically called out Sony’s PSP and Nintendo’s DS handhelds while touting the iPod Touch as a superior experience. Traditionally, Apple hasn’t made many waves in the gaming space. But, after engineering a sea change in handheld gaming with more than 20,000 games on the App Store, one might understand the reason for their gloating.

But it’s not all rainbows and unicorns in Apple-land.  I met with Apple representatives about a week ago as they showed the latest iteration of the iPod product line. After getting the lowdown about the shiny newness, I offered up two of my biggest gripes about games content on the App Store.

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When it released in the U.S. in 2005, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney became a hit on the Nintendo DS. The quirky characters and tense courtroom scenarios won over a good-sized chunk of people. Sue Hong wasn't one of those people, though. Though she owns a DS, Hong was too busy earning her keep as a lawyer after passing the New York and New Jersey bar exams in 2002.

She's not a criminal attorney like Phoenix Wright, but Hong does log a fair amount of time in the courtroom. I gave Hong a cart of the first Phoenix Wright game and, after she played it for about a week, asked her how it measured up to her own legal experiences.
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We’ll finally get to see whose berserker rage is more fearsome: Donald Duck or Wolverine. And, can it be long before we see a family feud with the Incredibles meeting the Fantastic Four? Early this morning, Disney Entertainment issued a press released detailing heir acquisition of Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion dollars. It’s the kind of mega-conglomerate corporate merger that hasn’t been seen in the last decade, made all the more unique given the current economic climate.

During an investor call earlier today, Disney execs called out their company’s strength at marketing and distribution combined with Marvel’s “treasure trove of content.” They also name-checked Pixar in terms of how acquiring the animation studio contributed to their overall technological strength. They see Marvel in the same way, as an acquisition that could benefit both comapnies. Disney also cited respect for Marvel’s already existing video game deals, chacaterizing them as smart licensing agreements with some of the best video game manufacturers. They also said that they’d honor existing licensing deals in film and other media, with the option to re-negotiate as the deals expire.

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Folks seem to love Arkham Asylum. (I certainly did.) So there’s much Twitter-ing and discussion about the game. If you’ve roamed around the web, other people will direct you to read Grant Morrison’s classic graphic novel Batman: Arkham Asylum–A Serious House on Serious Earth. I say *pfah* to that.

There’s nothing wrong per se with Morrison’s super-deconstructed Jungian take on Batman and his rogues. With Dave McKean’s art driving the storytelling, it certainly delivers a sense of the sort of madness Batman must grapple with to emerge victorious. But the game it shares a name with doesn’t draw much from that vibe, with the notable exception of the Arkham lineage itself being cursed.

For my money, there are other comics that the game owes a greater debt to in terms of its sensibilities. [Editor's note: Spoilers ahead!]

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One of the reasons Crispy Gamer's one of the best game journalism sites on the internet is because we've got kick-ass editors. (Take your bows, Ryan & Elise.) They keep us on track and honest, as well as doing the demanding job of trimming the fat from our articles. 

But, fat still tastes good, right? With that in mind, I wanted to share a bit that got snipped from my column about District 9:

Aside from Halo, District 9 also reminded me of Insomniac’s Resistance series on the PS3, in the way that both Wikus van der Merwe and Nathan Hale are losing their humanity to alien infections. As he became more and more alien, Wikus’s plight reminded me of one of my favorite background moments from Resistance 2. Working your way through an eerily quiet suburban home, you come across the bodies of a father and son who presumably killed themselves at the horror of what they’ve become. They lie close to each other, the son nestled in the crook of his father’s arm, with pills spilling from an open bottle. That moment from Resistance 2 (a game that, mind you, I liked but felt weirdly underwhelmed by) stayed with me because it drove home the stakes of the fight. It's another thing I wish games could do more effectively. 

So many games concern themselves with war but you never see how the effects of a casualty create their own ripples in the gameworld. I'm not sure if we'll get another Resistance game, but, if we do, I hope they expand on those kinds of moments I cited above. I think that motif in District 9 is what makes it so successful.

Fight Night Round 4 came out more than a month ago. By all rights, I should've moved on. When I mentioned that I was still playing it to Scott Jones (who penned our review), he exclaimed, "You're still on that?!" I can understand his surprise, though.

You never get to linger when you're a reviewer. I probably have replayed a game in more than two years, because I always need to be on to the next thing. Even during the slow periods like the one we're just coming out of, downloadable games like Shadow Complex. So, why am I still indulging in a game that I admittedly only have begrudging respect for? Why am I still putting time into a game where poor menu layouts, useless e-mail messages and annoying training mini-games sap my enthusiasm before my avatar even gets in the ring?(Don't even get me started on the way the counter-punch is way over-valued...)

This is why.

(And, yes, Big George was already on his way down as I'm landing this punch. I love the post-knockout abuse.)

vs Foreman 2 (small).m4v (3.11 mb)

And this, too, is why.

vs. Tyson (small).m4v (1.82 mb)  

Because once I get in the ring, the experience is addictive. There's a mix of wish fulfillment and stress release the game gives me that I can't find in any other title right now. And Fight Night makes me feel guilty, too. It's a flawed game and, let's face it, my reasons for staying with it are embarrassing cliches. But, I'll probably be whaling on Joe Frazier tomorrow night. And, like my mom used to say when she made me take off my own belt so she could whup me, it does hurt me more than it hurts him.

As promised, I played the Batman: Arkham Asylum demo over the weekend.  Lots of you Crispy readers probably did the same. For my part, I loved what I played and can’t wait to get a full build in my hands.  

But, man… was the demo ever skimpy! It took longer to download than it did to play!

I cleared out some older demos to make room for the Bat-demo. Doing that got me thinking about the same issue I always have with demos: How much is a satisfying chunk?

It’s idle speculation, but I think I’ve been covering the business long enough to know that demos are almost always produced under duress. The console manufacturer wants something to feed their marketplace pipeline, potential consumers want hands-on access to a game they’re not sure they’re going to buy and the publisher wants something to tempt the consumer with. So, there you have a developer–already beleaguered  and working 20-hour days trying to finish the whole game–under pressure to task people to create a demo.  Let’s not forget that demos aren’t revenue generators. So, it’s no wonder that the sizes and shapes of demos vary so widely.

Going back over those old demos made me think about why I liked certain ones and the elements that make a demo feel satisfying. What do I think I want?

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Fat Princess just launched last week; you can read my review of the latest PSN game here. Elsewhere on the interwebs, complaints have been floating about the connectivity issues plaguing people who are trying to play Titan Studios’ maiden effort. If it feels like déjà vu, it’s because much the same thing happened with Battlefield 1943 just last month. Sure, the bugs for each game are already fixed or will be eliminated soon, but will launches like these just be the reality of digitally distributed games?

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