Tekken Arena

Everyone remembers that bit in Tekken when Jin Kazama uses up all of his energy dialling a phone in a club, then has to wait for three minutes for it to regenerate before he can type in the last number and continue his quest, right?

No? What about the bit where Paul Phoenix stops a fight half way through to have a swig of expensive energy drink to refill his stamina bar in order to give a street punk the working over he deserves?

Wait, that's right. None of these things ever happened, because Tekken is actually an entertaining fighter that requires a level of skill, and involves some player interaction that isn't just throwing cash down the drain.

Not so Tekken Arena, which consists of a series of buttons to press. Sometimes you can't press the buttons, and then you'll have to pay or wait. Then you can press the buttons again.

Superficially, the game is about training up one of a cast of famous Tekken characters. You'll lead them through scraps, perfect their training regimes, and hire fellow brawlers to increase their stats. It all sounds quite exciting.

Mechanically, though, every act is the same. Pushing a broken tram up a hill? Tap this button. Waiting patiently in line to get in a club to continue your quest for answers and vengeance? Tap this button.

Tapping the button uses up energy. You have a finite amount of energy. It's topped up when you gain enough XP, or if you chug down an energy drink. When you've tapped a button the requisite number of times you get a snippet of story and a new button to press.

Sometimes, instead of pushing a button you have a fight. These scraps, for want of a better word, use BP, or Battle Points, which are finite. They refill when you level-up though.

You don't have any control over what your fighter does, but there are two buttons at the bottom of the screen. One fills up your stamina, the other your rage, which makes whichever Tekken star you're playing do a special punch or kick.

Most of the violence actually happens off-screen. Your avatar lunges forward, disappearing for a second before some lights flash on your opponent and a chunk of their stamina bar disappears.

In other words, Tekken Arena manages to take the one defining feature of Tekken, and make it invisible. It's like a Mario game where every jump you perform is done behind a chunk of scenery.

There's a hideous compulsion to Tekken Arena, a simple tappy addiction lurking in wait for anyone who spends too long staring at its cavernous and bewildering menus. It typifies the social RPG, a genre that strips gameplay bare and leaves games as little more than one-fingered cash drops.

You know what to expect when you're going in, then, but the fact that Tekken Arena fails to capture even the slightest whiff of the atmosphere of its inspiration means that the whole thing feels even more uncomfortable than ever.

This is a game that clunks along without rhyme or reason, trampling over its licence with a scornful tread that crushes dreams.

The most damning thing I can say about Tekken Arena is that it could be about almost any other human activity, tied in to almost any other media product, and you wouldn't even notice the difference.