A year ago, I talked about how Namco needs to step away from the Soul Calibur franchise and figure out what they want to do with the story. At the time, I blamed a lot of Namco's woes with storytelling on the inclusion of Anime characters and Star Wars characters as well as the fact that there's only so many times you can eternally retell the same story.

Gamefly sent me Tekken 6 a while back. I've been playing through it and I take back what I said.

Namco needs to just fire it's entire storytelling department.

I could go on and on about the entire story but I'll just say that this wasn't written so much as somebody just made a mess with a pen while other people interpreted the doodlings. I realize that Tekken stopped telling a story after the third one but this one also really scrapes the bottom of the barrel. From the concept of "Jin decides to have the Mishima Zaibatsu attack the entire world" (It's a large corporation but c'mon now.) to the individual character endings which have hit a new level of asinine to .....Azrael, this whole thing sets a new standard of awful in storytelling.

I realize that fighting games aren't supporsed to have a deep story but, when you FORCE us to go through your scenario campaign mode, you should probably put a little creative thought into the adventures of Captain Lars Boring and his robotsex toy, Alisa.

Also, here's a list of commandments that Namco will have to follow if Namco expects me to buy another Tekken game.

Thou Shalt make an easy mode that people without fighting game experience can beat. This is not necessarily for me but has been a common complaint with 5 and 6 as well as Soul Calibur 3 and 4. I can see how, if one of those were my first experience with fighting games, I'd write off the entire series.

Thou Shalt Not make a final boss that has projectile weapons. None of the other characters have them and it becomes irritating to have to dodge this sort of thing from across the screen with no method of retaliation.

Thou Shalt Not make a final boss with a disproportionate hit box. If you want to make a critter that big with that kind of reach, then you give him an equivalent hit box. If I have to get so close to him that his massive arm obscures my character, that just leads to a lot of cheap hits.

Thou Shalt make your sidestepping more fluid. Right now, the controller continually has the issue of interpreting sidestepping as crouching/jumping which usually leads to death. You have a good sidestep in Soul Calibur. Why is the Tekken one so bad?

Thou Shalt playtest your game with people from outside the project. It is difficult to believe that none of your playtesters haven't said something about having everyone fight the Apprentice in SC4 or the Scenario Campaign in Tekken 6 being required. I'd go into the online portion of Tekken 6 or the glitched save system in Soul Calibur 3 orother notable bugs but enough people know about the crappiness of those items that I don't need to bring out the laundry list.

As it stands, Soul Calibur used to be a "Week 1" purchase if I couldn't get it on the first day. Tekken wasn't quite up there but it was still something that I consistently bought. At this point, Soul Calibur is now down to a "rent first" and I don't know if I'll even do that for the inevitable Tekken 7. I don't know what the answer is. Perhaps the company needs the same type of overhaul that investors are claiming is needed at Take 2. I just know that, when you add the willful destruction of the Time Crisis brand, the blatent rip-off attempts at DLC,and the other failures with franchises like Warhammer, Namco has started to become a brand that I see as something to be avoided instead of embraced. (I never got into Ace Combat so no comment on that series.)