Much like past Tekken games, Tekken 4 has the Mishima clan at odds again, with the returning Kazuya Mishima (who was thought dead after being thrown into a volcano) and Jin Kazama seeking revenge against the leader of the Mishima Zaibatsu corporation, Heihachi. The biggest change in the Tekken series is the move away from the infinite playing field, replacing it with finite arenas that contain destructible objects that you can smash your opponent into. You can send your opponent flying into walls, cars, and even pedestrians if you hit them hard enough, causing some more damage to your rival and setting them up for a combo afterwards. With the enclosed arenas comes undulating terrain, which can really change your game plan during a fight, as some attacks can completely miss your opponent or can extend certain juggle combos because of a sloping area. In order to keep up with newer titles, Tekken 4 also has implemented true 3D movement, as opposed to the simple sidestepping found in previous games. You can now quickly sidestep or walk around your opponent depending on how you tap the joystick, which makes some moves that were quite hard to defend against very punishable if your opposition becomes too predictable. Also new to the game are Just Frames, which are commands that greatly affect the properties of certain moves in the game. Just Frames (as their name implies) can be extremely hard to use because they require precise timing, but anyone can do them often with a little bit of practice.

The default cast includes Kazuya, Ling Xiayou, Hwoarang, Yoshimitsu, Forest Law, King, Paul, Craig Marduk, Christie, and Steve Fox. Craig, Christie and Steve are the new entrants into the series, although Christie uses the same style as Eddy Gordo from Tekken 3. Craig uses Vale Tudo as his fighting style, and attacks primarily with power-moves and ground-based attacks, while Steve is unique in that his playing style is completely different from just about every other character in a fighting game. Using the kick buttons to dodge and avoid moves, Steve is ultra quick with his punches and can be an absolute nightmare for beginning players. Other characters in the game (unlocked by completing Story Mode with any character) are Jin, Violet/Lee, Nina, Lei Wulong, Julia, Bryan Fury, Panda/Kuma, Combot, and Heihachi. There are also "alternate" characters such as Miharu and Eddy Gordo, but they're simply palette swaps of other characters.

While the game does seem great on paper, in actual execution there are a couple of major flaws. Most of the problems involve the changes to the game system, oddly enough. While the inclusion of Just Frames into the game is a welcome addition for those who want to dig deeper into Tekken, the fact is that a couple of these moves are very powerful to the point of being abusable. The famed Jin Just Frame Laser Scraper is just one example, while Kuma's Salmon Hunter is another. Are these moves counterable? Sure, but the problem is that they are too low-risk for anyone to pass up, especially Jin's JF move, which contains three variations. This along with the usual character imbalances that usually appear in every fighting game make Tekken 4 slightly less enjoyable for those with competitive spirit, although casual gamers will still get a kick out of it.

Versus modes should always be the most used game mode in any fighter, but for those who have the misfortune of having only a few people to play with, Tekken 4 serves up a good heap of single player extras to tackle. Traditional game modes such as Team Battle and Survival make an appearance here, while a great Story Mode that details each character's rise to dominance sits alongside the normal Time Attack/Arcade mode. Fans of Tekken Tag Tournament will be disappointed that the quirky Tekken Bowling didn't make it into the game, but the pseudo-beat-em-up Tekken Force has, and it's just as fun as ever.

Visually the game is quite stunning, with nice water effects and huge attention to detail in many of the arenas in the game. If you ever happen to play on the rooftop and smash someone into one of the surrounding walls, you'll be able to see cracks where your opponent landed - very cool. While the arenas are nice and vary in size, many of them (such as the mall stage) still seem very empty. Others such as the fight club stage can seem too cramped at times for a proper fight, since many moves will knock you straight into one of the surrounding spectators. The characters themselves animate extremely well, especially Steve Fox and Jin. While there aren't many cool little details like clothes flowing with the wind like in Virtua Fighter, the designs for many of the characters are still some of the best found in any game. Sadly, the soundtrack isn't as great as I was hoping it would be. There's nothing as memorable as Jin's theme in Tekken 3, and that's a shame. Most of the sound effects seem to be lifted straight from past games in the series as well.

Sure, there are several problems with Tekken 4, but that's to be expected when you want to go out on a limb with your most treasured franchise. Experimentation can only go right so many times, and unfortunately for Namco, they stumbled ever-so-slightly with this game. Fans of the series will no doubt eat this game up, as it's been almost two years since Tekken Tag hit the PS2, but other gamers should rent it before purchase.

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· · · Reno