The Greatest Fighter in the World

(A Winner Is Me)

The smartest thing Sega could have done, in my opinion, was to get their polygonal foot in the virtual PS3 door and come out with their highly anticipated Virtua Fighter 5 before a deluge of games begins hitting the platform this spring and summer. In a related opinion, I also feel that the smartest thing Namco/Bandai could have done was get one of their illustrious fighters onto the platform ASAP, in order to give Sega the smallest advantage possible.

When Sega and Namco/Bandai are smart, everybody wins; especially me. But I always win, because I am apparently the greatest fighter in the world.

I did finally get Virtua Fighter 5 on February 22 after an epic struggle. Then, on Thursday, as you may have heard, Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection hit the PlayStation Store for downloading, so now I have both. I should reiterate that, at heart, I am a Soul Caliber fan and I have never played much of the previous installments of the Virtua Fighter or Tekken series. But with Soul Caliber IV barely even announced, I'll take what I can get.

First of all, both games look phenomenal. My understanding is that VF5 is running in 720p and Tekken 5 in 1080p (my television maxes out at 720p/1080i, so I may not be squeezing the most graphical juice out of Tekken), and both seem to be running at a solid 60 frames per second. This is especially crucial in VF5, which is so demanding of users' command input that some moves can only be executed by tapping buttons for a single frame---1/60th of a second. These are not any of the moves that I am performing. In any case, Virtua Fighter, despite its lower resolution, has the edge on Tekken in the graphics department, with backgrounds that are completely detailed (I especially love the snowy mountain level in which character movement leaves footprints and impressions in the snow) and extremely realistic character textures (see, e.g., Jeffrey McWild's craggy complexion). Playing as Lili in Tekken, I was disappointed to see the polygons of her hair crash through the polygons of her lower back as she walked away from an opponent after a match. For the most part, Tekken's graphics are beautiful; Tekken 6, I'm sure, will meet or surpass the beauty of VF5.

Neither game features online play. I'm not very clear on the specifics, but my understanding is that frame-based games, which demand deft precision in command input, can't be played online because of latency issues. This makes perfect sense to me---I've played plenty of online games over high-speed internet, and I know you can't eliminate lag well enough to ensure that the two players are synced within 1/60th of a second. Still, it would be nice if I could get out there and play against some other people, since I'm the greatest fighter in the world.

My brother was concerned that once I had both games I'd be hopelessly mixed up about which was which, but there are plenty of differences between the two for me to keep both games straight---and to justify purchasing both. Virtua Fighter's signature realism makes for a completely different experience than Tekken's comic take on the fighting genre. Virtua Fighter is the one in which you can not play as a bear, a kangaroo, or a wooden training dummy. Got it. I think I prefer Tekken's over-the-top martial arts pageant, but I do enjoy them both.

An item in the cons column for Tekken is that it is missing some components I would have made a lot of use of---especially a practice or training mode. But for $20, it's a steal. VF5, a much more robust game in terms of features and modes of play, has a dojo mode for training as well as a quest mode. When I fired up quest mode---perhaps because I am a novice of this series---I was expecting something along the lines of Soul Caliber's Weapons Master mode, in which the character of my choice would engage in some kind of storyline mode. Not so! Instead, quest mode takes me, the player, through an apparently neverending string of versus battles that take place in simulated Japanese arcades, against simulated Japanese players. It essentially simulates the experience of being a Japanese person playing VF5 in the arcades of Japan, as though you are the greatest fighter in the world. The other players are extremely easy, and I played through a good thirty or forty consecutive matches without losing before I figured out how to escape from quest mode. As a complete beginner at Virtua Fighter, I don't think I should have been able to win thirty matches in a row. I know my P P P K combo is awesome, but it's hard to believe that thirty people in a row would fall for it.

Anyway, now that I have both games on my PS3, I would like to see the luchador from Tekken fight the luchador from Virtua Fighter. I think that would be totally sweet.

In related news, Mortal Kombat II is also slated to hit the PS3 online store in March, with online multiplayer enabled. I'm sure this will be my big chance to demonstrate that I am the greatest fighter in the world.