After a three month inadvertent hiatus from the internetz and the website I have decided to post about one of the greatest fighting games of all time. Killer Instinct was made way back in 1994 and was released in the arcades to hopefully put up a boxers chance against other games that were in the fighting genre at the time. Ok so before I go any further I need to put this in perspective for you. This game was made by Rare who made Donkey Kong Country, so you know they are pretty good at what they do at least when they try (Perfect Dark Zero? What the fuck?), but they were not the only big named attached to this project. Nintendo decided to back them up and wanted to help them push this game….but why would a company like Nintendo give two shits about Rare? For one they wanted to back up the company that had just released one of the best games of all time, and two they wanted to test their hardware for the new “Ultra 64″ that was going to be coming out in just a little bit down the road. So yea you have two big ass names already attached to it…how do you get it any bigger? By having Midway develop the fucking arcade software. That is right now you have 3 magnanimous companies helping out each other to create awesome. Do you even realize how big that combination even is? That would be like Infinity Ward, and Bungee being backed by Microsoft to create a cross breed of badassery.
A boxer is about to punch a man made of fire in the dick it appears, I do not think I need to explain how awesome that really is.
Nevertheless the story line behind the game goes a little something like this. There is this big company named Ultratech who has completely taken over the world and all forms of government. They decide it is in their best interest to form a huge fighting tournament to test some of the diabolical creations that they have made in their secret labs. They also invite a few regular participants, or at least that what they say, I mean last time I checked a skeleton, a wulf (made by Ultratech and yes wulf is correct spelling), a Indian, a ninja, a raptor (made by Ultratech), a alien (captured by Ultratech), a criminal who is apparently on fire all the damn time, a secret spy, and a two headed what the fuck, are not even close to what I would call normal. The one man who is normal to a certain degree is former heavyweight champion of the world T.J. Combo. I mean he technically he did totally have his arms replaced by cybernetics but at least he had the common courtesy to have them covered up with synthetic skin unlike that asshole Jax from Mortal Kombat. If the person wins they basically get promised something by Ultratech, because once again this coporation rules the world and can basically do whatever they feel the need to.
The list of people to choose from is as follows
Thunder – Indian who is trying to find his lost brother who went “missing” after the tournament the year before. He is armed with tomahawks.
Fulgore- A 1 year old cybernetic badass that the tournament is basically funded for, just to test out how much PWNAGE it can deal out. If he wins the competition then mass production will begin.
Glacius- Alien captured by Ultratech and is promised freedom is he can win. His name comes from the fact that he is basically liquid ice (sounds logical right?) and can shape shift.
Cinder – Criminal who was captured by Ultratech and was told that he can be set free if he put up with some chemical testing, which went wrong and now his body is comprised of flames. If he can kill Glacius then he will get returned to his original form.
Jago - Tibetan monk who is trying to rid himself of the evil within and somehow thinks that it is his destiny to destroy Ultratech.
Riptor- A human/raptor hybrid that was created by Ultratech and is being tested as a killing machine in this compitition.
Sabrewulf- Count Von Sabrewulf is infected with lycanthropy and is promised a cure by Ultratech if he wins. A side note on him is that he is a reference to Sabre Wulf the first game that Rare ever made.
Spinal – A skeletal warrior who fights because he loves it. I kid you not I have no other reason other than that.
Come on do you think this skeleton would love to cuddle you next to the fire in the background?
T.J. Combo- Former heavyweight boxer who held the title for 5 years until it was found out that he had cybernetic arms that basically kicked the asses of the opponents for him. If he wins the title Ultratech will let him drive around in his pink 64′ Caddy and regain the title he had lost.
B. Orchid- Hired as a secretary for Ultratech, she turns out to be a spy for some unknown corporation, and to top that off has what might be the best or ugliest rack ever…one of her finishing moves she flashes the opponent and they have a heart attack.
Eyedol- The final boss of the game. He is a two headed piece of shit who does nothing but deplete your health bar in very cheap ass ways, and can regain his health slightly when he stomps on the ground like a dumbass. Did I mention he has a club? Oh I failed to mention that? It will not matter because he will give your face and attitude a slight adjustment with it. Ultratech released him out of his dimensional prison to kick some ass.
My only real beef with Ultratech is the fact that they use all these people to try to prevent shit from happening, and they also use them to control the world. They get the people they want dead to appear at this thing and use others already in it to possibly kill them. Honestly this is sound reasonable logic until you factor in that they just want to control the whole world…WHICH THEY ALREADY HAVE DONE DUE TO THE FACT THAT EVERY PLACE IN THE WORLD HAS NO WORKING GOVERNMENT BECAUSE THEY ALREADY TOOK IT OVER IN THE FIRST DAMN PLACE.
This game is different from other fighting games for a few different reasons but I will only mention the ones that actually matter. Instead of fighting in “Rounds” you have two health bars that you have to deplete to kill the enemy. To explain that better if you were fighting and depleted the enemies first health bar without getting hit, now they have one health bar to try to kick ass while you still have both of yours. The fighting is continuous which is a good thing for this game. Next up is the combo system which is not like others at all. In Mortal Kombat for example you might have to do something like “High punch, Low kick, Low punch, High punch” to do a four hit combo. Well Rare said “Fuck that shit” and decided to make combos have a much more automatic feel. They do this by you hitting a certain button, or even preforming a special move that will have a string of hits to it. Everyone has special moves but one special move for each character specifically can be performed in the complete opposite direction to enable its use to maximize combos. If you were using a character that had a move such as “Hold Back for two seconds, press forward and medium punch” well you could also do it by “Holding forward for two seconds pressing back and then medium punch.”
Back to the combo topic, the goal for the most part is to do as much damage at one time as possible so the bigger the combo the better the damage. Each combo you do will have a specific name based on the number of hits it has, all you really need to know is that 8 is Awesome and anything from 12-17 is a Killer combo, which will be shouted at you by the manliest announcer in the history of games. Another cool feature is that if your enemies second life bar is flashing red you can either 1: End the match with a combo that ends in a “No Mercy” move which makes the combo a “Ultimate” combo. Or 2: You can actually do an automatic super combo simply known as an ultra, which will range anywhere from 18-80 hits if you are a badass, or can glitch the game out. There is not a better feeling in this game than when you kick the ass of your friend and end it on an ultra, once the ultra hits you can sit back and watch the destruction which for me is usually me throwing the controller to the ground as to say “I DA SHIT” as I look at my friend letting them know that yes they did get owned, and yes they can do nothing to stop it.
Alright if you are not new to the Internet then I guarantee you know this game for one thing alone and you probably had no idea where it came from. In the middle of owning face with combos, or if you are the one getting owned with combos, a combo breaker (pronounced “C-C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER) can be done and it will automatically disrupt the attacking party with a move that will make them take damage and embarrass them at the same time. It is effective, and the computer uses it all the damn time just to get under your skin. I dare you to try and beat the final boss without having him break one combo and then take half your life with a 5 hit combo. When fighting you have to make a choice, do you do huge combos with the hopes that your opponent is retarded, or do you do small ones knowing that a combo breaker can not be used unless you do a combo of 6 hits or more. The choice is yours and honestly you will live and die by the choices you make in this game. Speaking of dying just like other fighting games at the time there is a time at the end of the match to kill your fallen comrade with what they call a “No Mercy” move. Honestly alot of them are terrible, but there are a few that are pretty awesome. Fulgore transforms into a turret and shoots the shit out of the other person, even Orchid flashes some titty. Other than that they are pretty bland. They do have a few stages that can allow for some pretty cool falling to their death….deaths. All you have to do is hit them into the air when they are right on the edge and boom, instant gratification.
The graphics to this game are simply mind-boggling, this game was the first to use a Hard Disk Drive which allowed them to basically make this game the prettiest game that had yet existed on the fighting game market, and do yourself a favor play Virtua Fighter, and then play this and tell me that this game does not blow the other out of the water. The sounds are perfect for this game. The sound effects that they use really are fitting and its very good that they actually took the time to not make every male character sound the same and every female sound the same as well. They use different noises based on what character is getting rocked and that’s the best part. Every character sounds pretty much like you would expect them to. The music is badass and had a CD that came with the SNES version when it came out in 1995 called Killer Cuts, and yes I do own it thanks for asking. The difficulty for this game is adjustable just like most fighting games back then but its hit or miss. It is either really easy or completely bat-shit insane.
Eyedol is such an asshole. Good luck trying to deal with any of his bullshit he is about to pull on you.
I played this game first at an old pizza place, but I really got good at it when it made its jump to the SNES. I can say there is only one person I have yet to beat the game with and that is Jago, I am just not good with him at all. Everyother person is at least moderate for me but with him I am nothing short of a huge piece of shit. My favorite character personally due to his combos is easily Sabrewulf, but am probably best with either Combo, or Fulgore. This game was so groundbreaking a popular, they did make a sequel Killer Instinct 2 that had alot of differences which I will get to in a review of it eventually. Hell the main man from Rare said he would not mind either putting the original out on the Xbox Arcade, or making a third if he could get the backing of some company to actually help them. I swear this shit needs to happen so badly, I mean let me say this much, KI 1 was one of the best games ever made for the arcade, and it’s port to the SNES is one of the best games on the system. Then you have KI 2 which was not bad in its own right but was not the same as the first, so they need to make a third and push the envelope as much as possible. By the way did I mention this was also popular enough to actually have a card game in the same setup like Magic, which I have never seen but that’s simply amazing.
On second thought….maybe Glacius is actually cooler than most people think he is….COOLER GET IT?
Then again hes getting his face melted by Fulgore…I guess the verdict is still out on this one.
To provide more information on this game I will refer you to the definitive Killer Instinct website on the Internet.
http://killerinstinctonline.net/KIARC.htm
I also wanted to add the Roms, but the Internet decided to give me the middle finger and refuse to upload what I wanted. Sorry for the inconvenience but I think the readers are big enough boys/girls/boy-girls to find them on their own.
