« TEKKEN 6 ONLINE PATCH IMPRESSIONS »
So, this is coming a week or so late but I've been a little busy working behind the scenes on some things. That said, I wanted to give my thoughts on the new Tekken 6 patch incase any of you were wondering how well it improved the online system.
As many of you know, Tekken 6 has gotten a lot of bad press since it came out due to its online matchmaking system being barely playable right out of the box. I'm sure many of you passed up on this game after hearing about how the online play is worthless, but don't bail just yet -- things are just getting good!
Unlike some other games out there, this patch fixes virtually every issue I had with the online component of Tekken 6. Before the patch, you were just randomly thrown into a match no matter what the signal strength was. Sometimes you would get a "four bar" match and sometimes a "two bar match" but it really didn't even matter anyway. It was a total crapshoot either way - even if the connection looked good, the game was still susceptible to lagging really bad once the match started.
Now after applying the patch, you can choose whether or not you want to fight someone based on their connection. So if a two bar match shows up as you search, you can opt out and search for a better connection. This feature alone improves the online play a great deal, but even now, once you start a match you don't run into the same type of issues as before.
Before the patch, the game would lag so bad the characters would move in slow motion sometimes. Completely unacceptable in this day and age, but now after the patch I have yet to run into that type of lag. As long as I choose a stable three bar connection, the game plays as well as Street Fighter 4 with a three to four bar connection.
Like Street Fighter 4, even though the online play isn't perfect, at least now it is good enough to where you can use it as a tool to learn about match ups and see what other characters are capable of. Now I know when I miss a combo it really is my fault, not the input latency (most of the time anyway).
So if you've been on the fence about Tekken 6 or need a new fighting game in your collection, go out and pick up this game. Now that the online portion of the game has received an upgrade, the only thing worth complaining about is the single player mode, but who plays fighting games for the single player mode anyway?