Although this was made by the creators of Soul Calibur and Tekken, this game is more like Power Stone meets Def Jam Vendetta than either of those two titles. You play as Brad Hawk, an out-of-town mercenary recruited to help stop a gang war. You’ll play through over 90 levels and recruit new fighters to your cause. This game boasts a line up of over 60 characters (among them Paul and Law from Tekken), many of which are unlockable. Multiplayer modes for up to four players help up the replay value. Although it’s simplified compared to Tekken, the fighting engine is actually deeper than most brawlers. You can perform counters, weapon strilkes, and even team up with another fighter to preform an assist. This may not be the deepest fighter you’ve played, but it’s definently fun to play, especially when you have friends over.

Like I promised, I’m giving you two of each of my articles this week. I’ll add $20 Game of the Week later this weekend, but for now, enjoy these two Lost Classics. One of which is a perfect example of licencing gone wrong while the other is one of the most underrated fighting games of the 16-bit era.
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Back up in your ass with the Dark Ressurection!

Game Watch has a couple dozen stills of the Namco fighter thats already landed on PS2 and PSP. This latest installment will allow you to play as final boss Jinpachi Mishima, who will be fun to use for all of 5 minutes until you remember he’s comically overpowered and not suitable for versus play.

The high resolution screen shots reveal little as the game is still more or less the same Tekken 5 that came out 2 years ago. Character models do not look improved. This will matter little to the player, as a new platform with the promise of a high response time and no onscreen lag is all any serious fan would ask for before moving on to Tekken 6.

Before Resident Evil and Silent Hill made us scared of the dark, Namco’s Splatterhouse was the main cause of our sleepless nights. The TG-16 version of the original was one of the first games to receive a warning label, and for good reason.

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Sorry I’m late this week fans.  I had a few job interviews and whatnot, but here I am.  This week’s $20 GOTW celebrates America’s love affair with 80’s action movies.  You know, the kind with one man against a crime syndicate, shooting up a whole bunch of $!#t.  Dead to rights was a game that came out in the second year of the Xbox’s life cycle.  What’s surprising about it is that it was made by Namco, an Japanese company.  At the time, they had Americanized action down pat.  It would be released on PS2, Gamecube, and PC several months later with new features such as the ability to bypass some of the more annoying minigames.  You play as Jack Slate, a former cop out to clear his name and avenge his father’s death.  Your quest for revenge takes you throughout Grant City’s slums all the way to the top of it’s criminal empire, as crooked cops, businessmen, foreign white slavers (yes you read that right), and even the mayor are wrapped up in the conspiracy.  It implimented the popular “bullet time” gameplay device, something which would be whored out in several other games.  Also of note were the cool disarm moves, where with a button combination and quick reflexes, you could disarm an opponent and kill him with his own weapon.  Your canine friend Shadow also helps out in some of these sequences, hitting up an opponent and taking his weapon for you to use.  As mentioned before the game uses several minigames to keep the action from getting stale.  These minigames involve disarming bombs, participating in boxing matches, and even a gallery-shooting level.  It was followed up with a rather dissappointing sequel last year, and a planned spinoff, “Grant City Anti-Crime”, was cancelled altogether.  Even so, if you love all out balls-to-the wall shooting, you can’t go wrong with this.  It may not reinvent the wheel, but damn if it ain’t fun.

From now on, instead of writing 2 different columns each week, my $20 GOTY and Buried Treasures sections will be combined into 1 big juicy post. This will ensure that you don’t miss anything, especially from the other writers. Also, this is important becuase this week will be extra big. You’ll know why as soon as you finish reading this sentence.

It’s the day after labor day, and while other news sites might chill out after the holidays, I double up! That means you get 2 articles this week. Oh waitaminute, it’s been 1 year since I started doing the $20 GOTY, so that means I gotta add in 1 more to celebrate. Two of these games you may have seen before, becuase they got lost when we switched to word press and they were so dope, I needed an excuse to look at them again. Besides, it will be a first time a lot of you will be seeing them anyhow, especially if you’re reading this on Area 4:51. So without further ado, come ride with me [to the bargin bin at your local gamestop]. [Read the rest of this entry…]

1UP’s Jenn Frank reports on the launch party for the new PSP exclusive Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection. Held at Sony’s Metreon center in San Fransisco, PSP toting fans weren’t as prevalent as hardcore arcade competition players. She’s rather amazed that arcade fighters have such a devoted following, and talks about the community as if it were some kind of fringe thing.

I’m not exactly new to this scene(see: Chicago), but I’m weirded out that a games journalist could be barely aware of the fighter community. Fighters like Tekken would fall off the face of the earth without the annual, monthly and even weekly events fans organize. I mean, you can’t play against the computer for very long before getting bored, and your non fighting game friends stop playing if you beat them enough times. Thats why these competitive events exist.

You get to like a game and you’ve gotta find people who will play with you, even if they’re not always friends. And the more specific your taste, the harder it is to get a game going. Running with Soul Calibur and Tekken players doesn’t mean they’ll play Virtua Fighter or Street Fighter III. And while DOA, Mortal Kombat, and Street Fighter have all migrated online in the past few years, the split second timing required for fighters has kept a lot of them off Xbox Live or other services. Who can blame them? Maybe as broadband speeds increase over the years this will change, but for right now, the only way to fight real fighting game fans is at events.

Some get kittens, some learn sign languane, and some get to play Ms Pac-Man.