Tekken 5 E3 trailer
The death of Heihachi, three new characters, improved visuals (whodathunk) and all the rest. It's due out on PS2 in 2005.
"Heihachi Mishima... is dead." And not just dead! Blown into tiny little pieces by a robotic, self-destructing Jack, whose face pops open just seconds into the Tekken 5 trailer to reveal a bomb timer in an advanced state of countdown. We don't know exactly what it is that Heihachi mumbles a few moments before an aerial shot of a mushroom cloud illustrates his demise, but we're guessing it's "Crap!"
Oh well - perhaps someone else can shed some light on it. Namco now has its complete E3 Tekken 5 trailer available to stream directly from its website, giving us a chance to see close to four minutes of the firm's latest beat-'em-up and introduce ourselves to new characters Raven, Asuka Kazama and Feng Wei at a leisurely pace.
Those three will join the likes of Nina Williams, Christie Monteiro, Yoshimitsu et al in a character roster described as the largest ever, strutting around in a game engine that Namco claims is its most advanced, even "revolutionary" to date. It certainly does a handsome job thrusting some delicate effects into the maelstrom, whether it's flowers dancing in the moonlight, blossom wafting through the air or simply the sun bathing scaffold in an amber glow. And of course there's lots of fire, flying kicks and swinging people into concrete walls.
The trailer also highlights the improved level of character detail over Tekken 4 - focusing on each of the new characters individually before briefing skimming over each existing combatant. Of the three newcomers, Asuka Kazama (supposedly Jin's sister) is bound to catch most people's attention thanks to her combination of hotpants and a tight top (or traditional Japanese robes, but we somehow doubt those will make it onto any magazine covers), whereas Raven is a bit of a Blade look-alike and Feng Wei is a kung fu master with some bone-snapping sound effects.
Well worth watching, in all, assuming we're all Tekken fans. The trailer concludes just as fierily as it began, proclaiming that the game will be released in the arcades this year, and on console (in this case PS2) during 2005, a release target confirmed in Namco's recent financial statement.