An excellent fighting game with tons of replay value

Tekken has long been my favorite fighting series. I liked Mortal Kombat and its over the top violence when it hit the arcade, and Street Fighter II and its various forms certainly devoured a lot of my quarters over the years (though the Street Fighter: The Movie game for my Playstation may never be forgiven), and the Dead or Alive series have certainly had a great combat engine as well.

For one reason or another however, it is the Tekken series I have purchased and played with every release over the years, and so when I saw the Dark Resurrection game for my PSP, I had to give it a shot.

Graphics: These are quite impressive, with Tekken's typical smooth animations for combat, detailed and vibrant backgrounds and well-detailed character models. Of course some of the luster is lost on the small screen when you are used to seeing the game in an arcade cabinet or on a full sized television screen, but if you are a fan of the high-quality PSP screen, then Tekken certainly delivers one of the prettier games you can play on it.

Sounds and music: Tekken always seemed to have a bit more variety to its sound track than many of the other fighting games, and while it does get somewhat repetitive over time, it never seemed as bad as many of its fighting brethren. The music for the various stages is top-notch, and many of the fighting tunes are quite catchy in my opinion.

Game play: The characters in Tekken handle better in my mind than most other fighting games. Perhaps the moves are more forgiving than say, Street Fighter. That said, combat on the PSP is still not ideal at times. The controller does not feel as fluid as an actual console ones, and I will admit that most of the time I prefer role-playing or strategy games on my PSP over high action games. Still, Tekken holds up better than most in my opinion.

Intangibles: Tons of characters, a few genuinely interesting storylines and plenty of replay value certainly help Tekken's cause. Lots of modes, money to customize your characters and the sound test all add depth to the experience as well (though again the PSP's weak speaker system does not take full advantage of the game's excellent sound track).

Overall: Considering that this game can be purchased new now for around $20, it is an excellent value (better than the downloadable version for the ps3 in my opinion, which does not have the extra modes from what I have read). I was also able to play my co-worker with only one of us owning a copy, and doing some nice head-to-head combat that way. I am still waiting for the next version of the series to come out for the Playstation 3 - but in the meantime this is an excellent way to go. A solid 5 out of 5 stars from me