Tekken 6

The most notable way in which Namco's achieved this is with the new Rage and Bound systems. The Rage concept will be familiar to fans of Samurai Shodown and to a lesser extent Street Fighter IV; once a player is on the verge of defeat - around five per cent health - they'll automatically go into a Rage state where they deal more damage. In my experience Rage rarely changes the outcome, because even a basic combo will often KO an opponent before activation - but fluky Rage comebacks are still possible.

The significance of the Bound system is far harder to judge in a short space of time, as it's intended more for high-level play. In Tekken 5 a player's best strategy was often to launch the opponent into the air, and dish out the most impressive juggle combo they could muster before their opponent touched down and rolled to safety. But in Tekken 6, certain moves have Bound properties, which allow the player to bounce their opponent off the ground in order to continue a combo yet further. The Tekken arcade scene has already developed some brutal Bound combos, and once Tekken goes online, the bar can only be raised.

There's also a new campaign mode, which starts off promisingly, despite the portents of Death by Degrees and other past aberrations, with five short videos, each detailing the story of the main series in a black-and-white calligraphic style. Players are then introduced to new characters Lars Alexandersson and Alisa Bosconovitch, who both featured in the Bloodline Rebellion arcade update. Lars is supposedly the bastard child of Heihachi and works for Jin, whereas Alisa is an android created by series crackpot Dr. Bosconovitch. "3D Streets of Rage with Tekken characters, done on a budget" is perhaps the best way to describe it, although it's nice to see the full fighting engine in place rather than a half-measure.

The campaign aside, Tekken 6 is shaping up to be something special. So far we've only brushed the surface of the offline modes, with the mysteries of Item Moves, Bound Combos, Character Customisation, Ghost Data and Multi-tiered Arenas still to be fully explored. Where Namco can't afford to be complacent is with the netcode: things have really moved on since SoulCalibur IV, and the developer needs to be aiming for Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue levels of lag-reduction. Otherwise, everything is in place, and the sixth King of Iron Fist Tournament is finally ready to declare war on Europe.