E3 06: Tekken: Dark Resurrection Preshow Hands-On

The PlayStation Portable has had its fair share of fighters since its release, but the 3D fighting genre hasn't seen much representation in the US (though there have been a few 3D brawlers released in Japan). This situation is about to be rectified in a big way with Namco's upcoming Tekken: Dark Resurrection, a portable conversion of its recent arcade expansion of Tekken 5. Though the game is slated to boast a wealth of features in keeping with Namco's peerless track record of past Tekken console ports, we've been curious to see just how the handheld conversion would shape up. We finally had the chance to get our hands on a work-in-progress version of the game and were quite impressed by the magic Namco is working on the portable system.

For those who haven't followed the Tekken series in the arcades, Tekken: Dark Resurrection is the newest entry in the series and offers an expansion of Tekken 5. The game features two new characters, new items to customize your fighters with, and revamped stages. We're told that the new characters include a Russian soldier and a young female socialite. The third "new character" is Armor King, who's returned from the dead, as is referred to in the game's subtitle.

The list of playable modes covered fairly standard territory, but some new PSP-exclusive modes have been added to the mix. Quick play lets you jump into a quick bout against the artificial intelligence. Story mode is a narrative-focused run through the game using one character that will yield an ending cinematic. Arcade is your basic series of battles that culminate in a confrontation with the game's end boss. Network is a new PSP-exclusive mode that supports the system's Wi-Fi capabilities for an ad hoc battle against a friend. Tekken Dojo is another new mode where you can hone your fighting skills. Attack is a collection of two submodes, survival and time attack, that challenge you to show off your skills by facing a slew of foes. Bonus games will contain an assortment of minigames that, from the sound of it, are being selected from those seen in the previous console versions of Tekken. Finally, the theatre mode will let you check out any of the cinematics you've unlocked; all of the characters here have CGI endings taken from Tekken 5. One of the most intriguing new features is the ability to record and upload ghost data of your brawling to the Net for others to download, allowing for virtual matches that could be pretty cool.

The version of the game we played was fairly limited in terms of what we could try. Although most of the roster was playable, there were a limited number of stages in the game and the only mode available was the arcade. Despite that, the demo let us get a feel for how the game is coming together. Control in the game maps out well to the PSP; it feels good and responsive, though it seemed just a hair off. We expect it will take some getting used to for anyone who plays their fighting games with an iron grip on their controller. Beyond that, the game is about as responsive as we could hope for.

In terms of its visuals, Tekken: Dark Resurrection looks remarkably close to its arcade cousin. Though the PSP isn't in the same league as the PlayStation 2 or proper arcade hardware, the portable system acquits itself very well. The large characters are made up of a generous amount of polygons and come close to matching the stunning arcade visuals. While they're not an exact re-creation, they're close enough and raise the bar for visual quality on the PSP. The stage we played was re-created with the same attention to detail as that found in arcade Tekken, though it was lacking some of the lighting ambient effects. As far as performance goes, the game was purring along at a high and fairly consistent frame rate, although there were some occasional hitches.

Based on what we played, Tekken: Dark Resurrection is shaping up to be a good fit on the PSP. The core arcade game seems to be well on its way to being properly converted on the portable system, and the new content has a good deal of promise. Beyond the gameplay, we're anxious to see just how close Namco's coding wizards can get the game to the arcade release. Tekken: Dark Resurrection is currently slated to ship in June. Look for more on the game early next month from E3.