More worryingly, it lost a lot of ground to Virtua Fighter 4 - particularly in Japanese arcades where SEGA introduced an online network for VF, with scope to customise characters with downloaded accessories and progress through ranks according to matches won or lost. While Namco didn't quite have its baby thrown back in its face, it did lose the respect of many fans.

Fans were also dismayed to find undulating floors worked into the mix, something SEGA experimented with in VF3 but (sensibly) abandoned for VF4. For the sake of 'realism' Namco introduced a selection of tiny walled-in arenas together with a move designed to switch positions with opponents to corner them or escape being cornered. Part four was not entirely disastrous, but clearly a game in transition - a bunch of ideas not fully explored, rather hurriedly handed to the fighting game cognoscenti for evaluation. It's as dumbfounding or just plain dumb as your skills and/or attitude will allow - and this is traditionally where Tekken has the edge over its arch-rival Virtua Fighter, but more on that later. Rest assured the experts have their work cut out trying to master all of this, but Namco has also remembered that Tekken is famously easy to enjoy even if you elect to play using your elbows. New characters Feng, Asuka and Raven showcase the new face of 'Tekken-flava' one-on-one combat - an exhausting directory of individual techniques to absorb, then cherry-pick for personal favourite routines. The exaggerated snappiness of moves is back (even jabs land with the power of a 1000V electric shock!), T4's claustrophobic, higgledy-piggledy fighting arenas ousted in favour of broader and flat-as-a-pancake expanses to exploit. Since launch last year in the arcades Tekken 5 has been greeted as a return to form. Tekken 5 is a paragon of such virtues, the martial equivalent of Konami's sublime updates of Pro Evolution Soccer. The ultimate gaming experiences demand to become part of your lifestyle, holding you to ransom with their boundless rewards. At their very best they also reward interpretation - rather like art.

At their best, games are activities that require mastery of performance - rather like sport. It's stating the obvious but games aren't movies, and they're not music.

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