About 90 minutes ago I tried to get invited and join a game of Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection Online. I was a bit worried, because everytime I played online, there were only people from PAL territories, so I feared that the PAL version was region locked.

After receiving an invite, I tried to join the game but I got a PS3 system message about a network error and the invite message was gone. After getting that system message two times, I realised that the game actually was region locked. So I spend another $30 to download the US version only to be able to get my ass kicked by Y0j1mb0. (Perhaps not the best investment decision ever...) With the US version the invite worked, but I had terrible lag due to me being in Europe. But that's OK for me.

Then I played some GhostBattles to get some points to buy new outfits again and I realized the main difference between the two versions. I couldn't notice it playing online with the lag, but the game was running a lot faster than the PAL version. So the reason the PAL version is region locked for online is because it's running slow in 50Hz. Seriously, WTF were they thinking at Namco? I thought the days of crappy PAL conversions were finally over.

Now I have two installs of Tekken 5 on my PS3 and since I paid for it, I don't want to delete the crappy PAL version I got there.