Techtite Game Reviews ---

Downloadable gaming is, in my opinion, only 20 percent of what it could be so far. The Wii has great classic NES games, yet nothing new. The X-Box 360 has free demos on one side, and 20 year old "classics," for $5-$10 each, on the other. Even when they do offer (one or two) new game titles for download, they are just mini-games, at around 50 Megabytes in size. What if a game system had the guts to release a 500+MB game that could be played right from your internal hard drive? Why not? Hmm?

That, on the surface, is the true goodness behind Tekken: Dark Resurrection. What makes this downloadable game such a milestone, in this critic's opinion, is how it breaks dozens of barriers that should never have been there in the first place. For one thing: it's huge. Why have internal storage if you aren't going to use it? For another thing: it's a modern arcade game. While salutes to classic gaming are all well and good, I would love to see more modern (or at least slightly more modern) salutes to the arcades than what we've seen so far. No offense, Q-Bert, though I'd take three or four releases like Tekken DR over a hundred 1980's "classics," any day of the week.

Not that they could give us a "full" DVD size Tekken game as a download. This is "just" a 500MB download, after all. This raises the big question: how can this be a "full" game, given its download size? Well, for the most part they admittedly cut a few corners, though I feel these cut corners are acceptable. For one thing: this is a replica of the arcade game, not the PSP game. That means no single player missions, and more to the point: no single player video finales after those missions. You have arcade mode, and a sort of "gauntlet" mode where you fight for promotions in rank as a fighter, all while earning in-game "money" (more on that, next). Fans of the arcade version should be thrilled. If people expected a full PS3 upgrade of the PSP version, they may be slightly disappointed. Note I said: slightly.

This isn't to say that they trimmed all corners; much like all Tekken titles since Tekken 5, there is "money" earned after each fight, which can be used for extras like new props and costumes. These costume additions don't need to be downloaded, and are already built into the game. If you want to, however, you can use the same credits to buy downloadable content, like conceptual artwork and three videos from the original "story mode" of the PSP game. So far, the only videos available are of the two new characters, Lili and Dragunov, though a third video of classic "Tekken" character Armor King, would seem to imply that more videos are on the way. Even if they are not; the costume accessories are the most fun purchases.

Sure, there is no online multiplayer. The 360/Wii fanboys will always mention that, and I have to be honest: You got me there. In fact; I'd go so far to say that I would've given this game a perfect score if only it had multiplayer. It's affordable. It's a full, modern game title. Yet it doesn't have online playability, and there is its Achilles' heel. It's actually a little frustrating. You can play Pac-Man on the 360 online(!!!), though not Tekken: Dark Resurrection.

In the end, it all comes down to what gamers have been offered online up to this point. In a world where people are being asked to pay $10 to play Super Mario 64 again, and $5 to play Pac-Man again, how much of a "sacrifice" is it to be asked to pay $20 for a current arcade game? This is a sign of the future, and if that future involves 500 Megabyte complete game titles on your hard drive, that future is very bright indeed.

	Final Rating : Large Crater. An affordable price for a full game playable straight from the hard drive. Short of no online multiplayer, this is the best news from the online Playstation Store so far.
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