Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Dances to a Different Tune

With Tekken Tag Tournament 2’s September console launch fast approaching, it seemed possible that game producer Katsuhiro Harada would have already emptied the contents of his closet marked ‘surprise’ and wouldn’t have much else to reveal at Gamescom 2012. Clearly, I underestimated Mr Harada, as there were many more in-depth details about its World Tekken Federation stat tracker to show off, in addition to a whole new mode called Tekken Tunes.

World Tekken Federation (which for the sake of all concerned is best not turned into an acronym) is most simply thought of as the beat ‘em-up equivalent of Call of Duty Elite and Battlefield Premium’s stat tracking services.

“World Tekken Federation is based on Tekken Net, which links the arcade machines in Asia, and we really wanted to incorporate that level of statistical data for console too,” Harada explains. “The presentation style is geared towards the western market who are perhaps more used to FPS’.”

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World Tekken Federation is based on Tekken Net, which links the arcade machines in Asia, and we really wanted to incorporate that level of statistical data for console too.

The online service tracks the stats of all of a player’s online battles and looks to provide not only vanity stats (such as the expected win/loss ratio for each character, favourite tag combinations and overall rank) but also more useful metrics that can be studied to help improve performance.

For example, it’s possible to find out what percentage of throw attempts made by other players are successful against you, helping to highlight whether the throw break technique should be practiced. The average time of rounds won and lost is also tracked, with a short duration for unsuccessful rounds suggesting that while you’re strong on attack your defensive strategies need work.

These areas can then either be practiced in offline mode in the Fight Lab or, as Namco Bandai is hoping, in conjunction with other players. This co-operation will happen either passively: through viewing the World Tekken Federation profiles of top players and watching replays of bouts, or more proactively: with more advanced players helping to coach new players by identifying where their game is falling down and advising which areas should be improved.

Particularly altruistic players can even buddy-up with less skilled players via the World Tekken Federation’s team structure. The creation of a team will enable the stats of each member player to be tracked and fed into an overall team rating, as well as offering a breakdown of how each member contributes to the team’s overall status. Team creation also provides access to a group forum and the opportunity to create a team name and emblem and to set goals for its members. In theory, this could lead to creation of quasi-guilds, with a couple of lead players heading up a team of lesser-skilled, up-and-coming players, each of whom has their own personal stats recorded as well as how great a contribution they are making to the progress of the team.

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It’s great for players to have the freedom to incorporate their own tracks. At the same time the quality of the original soundtrack is very high and I’m confident that players will come to realise that it’s the best music to fight to.

The ultimate goal of World Tekken Federation is to make the game more accessible by using the stats and feedback as a training aid while encouraging progression through the distribution of service-based achievements, which offer an additional carrot to those taking a lot of stick. Of course, it also provides the savants with an awful lot of stats to pore over and they may already be salivating at the notion of compiling such a comprehensive stack of numbers. However, pricing details and any potential additional perks of the service, such as early or free access to DLC, are being held back until the week of Tekken Tag Tournament 2’s launch and so it’s too early for less hardcore players to decide whether the price of admission will be worth the potential benefit that they’ll gain from it.

During the presentation, Harada also introduces the notion of Tekken Tunes. Quite simply a customisable music service, Tekken Tunes not only allows players to assign any of the in-game stage or background music tracks to whichever part of the game they wish, but also to import custom tracks from an external source to replace any of the existing music in the game. Ever wanted to bust digital heads to the soundtrack from The Sound of Music or your one, ill-advised attempt at karaoke? Well, now you can. In addition, long-term Tekken fans will be pleased to hear that music from older titles in the series will be made available via the PS Store and Marketplace to download and replace the new tracks.

“It’s great for players to have the freedom to incorporate their own tracks,” offers sound producer, Kanako Kakino, before adding with a smile, “At the same time the quality of the original soundtrack is very high and I’m confident that players will come to realise that it’s the best music to fight to.”

World Tekken Federation and Tekken Tunes bolster an already burgeoning feature list, including Fight Lab, Combot, numerous customisable options, 2 Vs 2, and 2 Vs 1, and allow Tekken Tag Tournament 2 to offer an embarrassment of riches when it launches on PS3 and 360 next month. Whether this is your first Tekken or your eighth, Harada and co are working hard to ensure that there’ll be something here to help you fight harder, better, faster and stronger.

Stace Harman is a freelance contributor to IGN and is convinced that zombies will one day inherit the Earth. You can follow him on Twitter.

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Rock Band Blitz Review

Music games are dead -- at least as we've known them since 2005. Plastic guitars sit on closet floors around the world, Rock of the Dead 2 is nowhere in sight, and even Activision was like, "OK, we'll stop shoving Guitar Hero down your throat." But Rock Band Blitz proves that not every game revolving around music needs to be banished to the Island of Misfit Toys. With fast, challenging gameplay, the $14.99 download's focus on high scores should get you and your friends list bopping to the music on your hard drive once again.

Rather than plug in all those unloved instruments, Rock Band Blitz takes the franchise's note highways and connects them to your controller. You use the shoulder buttons to cycle through the drum, guitar, bass, mic and keyboard highways, and then tap the D-pad and the A button to play the descending notes. (Rock Band Blitz actually supports a number of control options, so feel free to just use the joysticks or whatever to play.)

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And therein lies the rub: Rock Band Blitz is a pretty hardcore game if you want it to be.

The setup is a lot like PS2's Amplitude, PSP's Rock Band Unplugged and Rock Band 3 on the DS -- if you've never played a music game like this, you're missing out. Playing Rock Band Blitz is fun even if you're cursing yourself for missing a long note you had no business missing. The notes are coming no matter what, so you have to be quick on the trigger and willing to jump around to master every track. When you're on a roll, it's easy to feel like god's gift to gaming.

Even if you suck at rhythm games, you'll get your rock star moment as you can't fail out of Rock Band Blitz. No matter how terrible you're doing, the song keeps going. Your only concern is getting the highest score you can, so you're trying to nail the notes in order to score points and keep each highway's individual multiplier growing.

Multipliers are one of the big tweaks developer Harmonix has brought to the gameplay of Blitz. When you hit the prerequisite number of notes on a given track, you raise its multiplier. However you can only raise it by so many in a given section of a song. Cross a checkpoint, and the max multiplier will increase giving you a new ceiling to shoot for -- but your ceiling only increases as much as your lowest track multiplier.

If it sounds confusing in explanation, you just need to play a song to get the gist. If you have all your highways at 4x except for a 2x microphone track, you're only going to have a max of 5x for the next section of the song because 2x is only one away from the lowest multiplier.

This system is equal parts ZOMG excitement and the frustration of hindsight. I love jumping between my tracks and trying to get everyone to the temporary ceiling, but how many times did I ignore a vocal track for too long only to not have enough notes to get it whipped into shape before the checkpoint? (The answer is: a lot.) To truly succeed in Rock Band Blitz, you need an intimate knowledge of the songs so that you've concurred the minimal keyboard notes before a bass solo takes you to a checkpoint.

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Rock Band Blitz is doing for Elton John songs what Pac-Man Championship Edition DX did for pellets.

And therein lies the rub: Rock Band Blitz is a pretty hardcore game if you want it to be. Yes, there are pretty colors and poppy songs to entertain your roommate with, but when he goes to bed, you can sit there and nitpick your performance to death because the game is all about high scores. Before you even launch into a session, you're presented with a song's leaderboard so that you can see how your friends did. When you're playing the song, a meter on the side shows you how your friends were doing at the exact point you're at. When you're done, you can fire off Score War challenges to online buds.

Rock Band Blitz is doing for Elton John songs what Pac-Man Championship Edition DX did for pellets. No matter how good you're doing, there's some way to milk Rock Band Blitz songs for more points, and that's rather ingenious. The game isn't about making music, it's about making a place for yourself on the leaderboards.

Knowing that, allow power-ups to change everything. As you knock out songs, you're earning Blitz Cred and coins. Blitz Cred is the game's experience system, and as you hit milestones, you unlock power-ups such as double points for bass notes and bomb notes that clear off surrounding highways. Before launching into a jam session, you can equip three power-ups, but each time you use a power-up, it costs you coins.

You might see that I crushed Stephen and the Colberts' "Charlene (I'm Right Behind You)," but when you try it, you can't get close to my score. You'll need to tinker with power-ups to find the combo that gives you the edge. On the flip side, I might see you embarrass me at a beloved Weezer song, but seeing as I'm fresh out of coins, I need to go farm some by playing Boston's catalog. Rock Band Blitz is pretty great at keeping you playing and -- if you dig the formula -- loving every minute of it.

My problem is that I wish Rock Band Blitz called out to be played. You can link the game with your Facebook so that Score Wars are just a click away, but I'd rather a message to my console told me KingTut33 beat me at The Police's "Can't Stand Losing You." When I turn on my video game machine, I want updates about my video games -- not when I'm trying to figure out if those two people from high school are still married. From a single-player perspective, I always loved building a band in Rock Band Unplugged, and that's not in Blitz. That carrot on the end of the stick would've been nice, especially for players without Rock Band-lovin' friends.

I did notice some framerate issues when Rock band Blitz got super-colorful and jampacked with notes, but for the most part the game ran well.

I've mentioned a lot of different bands in this review, but it's important to point out that Rock Band Blitz only comes with 25 songs, and as it's a hodgepodge trying to have something for everyone, the list is all over the place, which I dig but I know some who don't. However, all Rock Band downloadable content is compatible with Rock Band Blitz. So if you're like me and religiously bought tracks for the few years when music games were the bee's knees, you've got a hard drive full of Rock Band Blitz goodies. And if you skipped the music game craze, the Rock Band store is bursting with tunes to make you happy.

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