Worst Fighting games of the 1990's-Part 4-Third time isn't the charm

Why WHY WHY are Shang Tsung's pants so tight? (Not... that... uhh i was uhh... looking.)

I'm lazy today. Screw it, not every Mortal Kombat game needs a standing ovation, especially this one.

Mortal Kombat 3

Midway/Willaims

1995

Hype does a lot of damage. We all loved and played MK2 until our fingers bled and our brains had turned to mush from trying to execute all the moves. Movies were made and merchandise was cranked out giving us the impression that this was no longer just a video game- it was culture. We had Mortal Kombat in our veins, we injected it, we loved it and craved it. All this hype is the excuse to why the third game was so... not good.

Before you all write to me, telling me that MK3 was a the best of the whole series, let me remind you that this game was- in so many ways- way too hype driven, and not at all an improvement in anyway of the previous game, even though it tried. It was almost like a repeat of a good Seinfeld episode, but with all the great parts taken out, like when Kramer says 'I'm out!' and throws his money on the table after losing a bet over masturbation. MK 2 was a gameplay spectacle that didn't need to be improved or changed. Leave it to Midway though, to keep up with the trends and make a 'combo-based' MK game.

Instead of the easy to execute combos that juggled your opponent around you were now forced to endure and ass kicking that was inescapable, should you find yourself on the receiving end (and against the computer that was quite often the case). Now you had to rapidly smash HK, HK BACK HK, or HP, HP, LP, HK, BACK+HK. If done correctly you could eat away a small chunk of someone elses life bar, if not then your fucked cause the computer is easily able to execute these combos.

HP, HP, LK, HK+BANG YOUR FUCKING HEAD AGAINST THE FUCKING ARCADE CABINET.

Killer Instinct was gaining ground and giving us fast action that the Mortal Kombat games didn't have (which was still ok, my eyes don't need 24-7 exercise from adrenaline junkie games). Mortal Kombat 2 was faster but as far as combos were concerned we had juggle moves that gave us the obligation to remember all these odd patterns. KI was successful and Mortal Kombats' third edition was on the table at Midway, which meant the game now had to compete, not just conquer the moment it hit arcades. Why Midway would compete with a game that THEY themselves also distributed is beyond me.

Along with a combo system that was too hard to keep on top of, there was the addition of bland characters that just... sucked. Stryker was my big gripe (or second actually). This guy was supposed to be a cop that was representing earth in a new Mortal Kombat and this pig was especially good at stopping riots. How? You might ask, well he's armed with a nightstick, a riot-made-rubber pellet gun, and some grenades. He looks like a bottle blond pansy, like the guys that pull you over for an illegal left turn and act like you've just burned an American flag. Sonya is back and played by an actress that isn't a very convincing martial artist. In fact I think she just got hired cause her tits are bigger than the original Sonya. The funniest thing is she does a vertical bicycle kick that looks like she's just doing aerobics. Jax got completely fucked with and was given new bionic arms. This game doesn't really take place in the future so to be honest the only way today's bionic arms would be of any combative use would be for you to remove one of them from your stumps and use it as a club. Leave it also to Midway to create ANOTHER stereotypical Native American Indian/Martial Artist with the NightWolf character (those spandex pants with the straps and revealing holes really speak pride and dignity of the American Indian)

The biggest sin this game committed was the loss of our beloved ninjas. Scorpion is gone but the games story doesn't explain why. Sub-zero is back but his mask is off and he's now dressed in an all-to-reveiling-bondage-like suit. The Bravehart inspired stripe down Zero's eye tell us that the designer couldn't think of much else to do other than give Sub-Zero a half-assed scar and no idea as to why he has it. What replaced the ninjas? These 2 robots that are obviously men in suits wearing plastic chest plates, and they both look the same aside from being palette swaps of one costume. Bullshit and lazy!

Sheeva was a great attempt at making all us 15-year old gamers horny and confused. Sheeva was a Goro like 4 armed character that is a woman with the biggest rack you've seen in a fighting game (in those days). The trouble is, those were fake boobs, you can tell because she doesn't have the 'bounce' of real tits like our Fatal Fury babe, Mai Shiranui. She was fun to play as but its just a desperate and obvious attempt at sex appeal. Again, LAME.

[Before you write me off as a pervert, first off YES I am, and second, imagine the sexual possibilities of a woman with 2 extra arms. close your eyes and think! Only a virgin would not find that hot.]

The only saving grace of the character line-up was that Kano was back, (Fuck yeah!) and Johnny Cage was gone (that actor was fired for the Bloodstorm ad thing) .

Fatality was the code word for the MK games and it made us so happy to disembowel our enemies. We love ripping the heads off, blowing up from the inside out, or just plain bleeding our opponents dry. This was an experience in video gaming that didn't need an improvement, just GIVE US MORE than 2 fatalities, PLEASE. Nope. Instead we get served with a stupid idea that must have been the idea of a fourth grader called 'Animalites'. Each character could now turn into an animal and attack them to kill them off . Most all of these finishing moves involved turning into a wolf and biting the opponents crotch. Hmm they must have ran out of ideas.

What really blew wasn't the playable fighters but the first boss. Motaro is the thing you fight before Shao Khan (again) and he's a centaur (you know half man-half horse) and he takes up about half the damn screen. Projectiles bounce off him and hit you, so forget about freezing or spearing him. Every hit he lands knocks you clear across the room and drains a third off your life bar. Its an experience so frustrating the controller might hit the wall 4 to 5 times before you actually win. Kintaro wasn't even this hard. The main trick to defeating Motaro is jump like a rabbit on meth and air kick him any chance you get but if he blocks it, he'll pick you up by your neck and pummel you.

Shao Kahn makes a return, (cause according to the games story, the second tournament never was finished) and this time he's brought his sledge hammer. Defeating this asshole will require a cheat code, some kind of trick, or about 50 tries. He now is armed with a huge sledge hammer that not only kills a third of the life bar but also makes you temporarily dizzy, thus giving Kahn another free shot at you. Another thing thats kinda stupid is that his weapon seems to come from behind his back, like as if he is a Warner Brothers cartoon character. So there you are running up to Shao Kahn ready to deal some damage and suddenly BAM! that fuckin hammer knocks you out, and Kahn-y can now put his boot into you while your reeling in pain. At least he's not as big a pain in the ass as Motaro.

This game didn't really say 'disappointing' until the hype had cooled and people had a chance to REALLY play the game. It was almost just like Mortal Kombat 2, but it wasn't. All our favorite characters were gone and replaced with duds. Midway must have listened to the crying and bitching, so they gave us the revamped version of MK 3 called Ultimate MK3.

Ultimate MK3 was an improvement. We got back all our ninjas, including the addition of 2 other pallette swaps that no one cared about (Raine, and Ermac). Millena and Kitana were back and we also got Jade and Smoke (the 2 hidden characters of MK2). It was so much better, and even now I wonder why they didn't just have us wait for THAT version rather than screw us with an MK game with so many holes in it.

Oh well, I'll still pick MK3 over the fourth Mortal Kombat game any day. That game was just wrong!

Worst Fighting games of the 1990's-Part 3-Bloody Hell

(This next game got its attention for 1 reason, It got the actor who played Johnny Cage from Mortal Kombat fired. Since I fucking hated Johnny cage, I'll give this travesty some credit. At least we didn't have to see that egotistical pansy ruin Mortal Kombat 3 (that game ruined itself).

I won't name the actor who played Cage, but I'm sure you can google it if you'd like. The actor had appeared in a magazine ad dressed as the Johnny Cage character standing next to a cabinet to an arcade game that Midway didn't make, with his hand on the controls. Midway fired him because of his presence in that ad being a contractual no-no. I remember seeing him in the ad as well in a game magazine back in the day, smiling his ass off, which was obviously Oscar-worthy acting because the game he stood next to wasn't worth cracking a smile.

If a game maker is going to hijack a mascot from someone else's franchise then that might tell you that the company really is into being shady. Frankly thats like getting Sega to have Mario appear in an ad for its next Sonic game. You know what other buisnesses are this shady? The Mafia.)

BloodStorm

Incredible Technologies/Chun Soft/ Strata

1994

I won't bother talking you through the craze and hype of Mortal Kombat again, because we all saw it and I already have enough MK pages to sink your ship. In this vain however, Strata needed to compete with the famous fighting game. Its previous try-TimeKillers, wasn't cutting it and they needed to follow that with a much more vile fighter that would get the sadists of arcades to drop them their quarters. One would expect them to give up the failed formula of Timekillers and try something new, get better artists, animate characters better, throw in some nudity, make the game fun, or for goods sake have a better way of attacking other that just mashing buttons into the floor. But NOOOOOO.

Mortal Kombat had blood, and was famous. So the makers of another way-to-violent-game, came up with a game more bloody than MK and its Timekillers game combined. They called it Bloodstorm.

[Game Developer: Hey chief, You know that insanely red and bloody game that were working on, well dammit, I just can't think of a name for it.

45-year-old-Game Developers' boss: Well the best way to sell a game is to give it a good name, not just make it fun and re-playable there, sonny. If we have that we'll take the arcade world by storm!

Developer: IT GOT IT! Blood,... Storm! Blood Storm! We can even remove the space in the middle of the 2 words and make it ONE word. We can invent a word!

Boss: Good job, sonny. Now get out of my office and feed my ostriches.]

Using the finest cheap comic book artists from England, and the greatest animators of Mrs. Cornholepeckers 5th grade class, they cranked out a fighting game filled with characters that made no sense, all fighting for the most original prize that any hero or villain could fight for: World domination! Yeah makes sense, no fictional protagonist/antagonist has EVER wanted that before.

These fighters all get something about their look that either makes them very futuristic or very primitive. All of them are ridiculous in some way or form, from either having a giant concrete fist to smash you with, having a bionic eye or fighting in a thong.

Excess ensues on an even grander scale. Characters can lose limbs thus giving the other guy an advantage. Once you've lost both arms your stuck with using your feet or at worse, headbutting. Its just that sad. This game features a block button as well ala Mortal Kombat. Why, you might ask? Because anyone who liked using the 'hold back' feature of Timekillers will surely go mutinous and move on. One could guess they were trying to piss people off.

Blood fills the screen in larger amounts, like in Kill Bill Vol1 or this game wasn't trying to be funny with it. Heads can be cut off at anytime by any opponent via 'death moves' that can be even executed at the beginning of a match (mind you, the CPU always blocks it, unless they are 'stunned').

This game tries to be innovative to the eyes by giving us some rendered 3d objects to use as weapons. The end result looks like crap, a cartoon character armed with a CGI-looking rocket launcher on his back. It doesn't look right, in fact it looks cheap. You can either be an animated game with cartoon-ish graphics or a CGI game, both together look like ass. Each character in the game has a CGI looking weapon and after you defeat a character you can steal it. Shoulder mounted rocket launchers, optical laser eyes, giant concrete fists, and belts with pockets that carry explosives. By the end of the game your fighter looks like he or she could lighten the load a bit, trying to carry enough gear to start a war.

This little ditty has tons of unneeded and who-gives-a-shit secrets. If you win a match in a special way, you get to fight against a secret hidden super tough boss, don't worry about losing those fights though, the match is only for shits, giggles, frustration, and the off chance of higher points. I've encountered two of these travesties, one is named Blood which is a red clad fighter with a red body, and a distracting, moving spraying blood splatter for a head. The other fighter I found was called "Shadow" who is a character that is invisible and forces you to follow his shadow on the floor. I have yet to beat these challengers, mostly due to the cheap bastard AI this game uses. I also found it just a little too easy to get access to fighting the secret characters, which makes this game even more of a pain in the ass. No one wants a CHORE of fighting an impossible cheap opponent just because they lopped off a head at the end of a match.

Speaking of cheap, the bosses of this game suck too, one of them being a rendered polygon 3d robot that towers to about 15 feet tall. I can't really describe it, its just the lamest damn fighting game character. Its like MK3's Motaro only way dumber and lazier in the design department. The other boss is a flying character that looks like a 1st generation CGI looking bat. If fighting against a boss the size of a damn mosquito sounds like fun to you, then please don't ever mate. The fact that I cannot be any more descriptive, or remember their names is a bad sign too.

Incredible Technologies no longer exists as a game developer as far as I know. The thing that surprises me the most is that BloodStorm was even getting prepped for a sequel before that company imploded. Those out there looking for a good hybrid of Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat should just try Timekillers, and they'll see why gore and cartoons in video games is a tightrope walk between art and playability, and clearly Incredible just didn't walk it.

Worst Fighting Games of the 1990's part 2

Now turn your head and cough.
Read that ridiculous shit on the pic, just read it.

Killer Instinct 2

Rare/Nintendo

1996

Killer Instinct 1 was a surprise, a success and not to mention great alternative to the the blood soaked world of Mortal Kombat, and the cartoonish world of Street Fighter. We had looks, sounds, speed, and intensity all in one, complete package. We all felt KI's sting, and we needed to see it happen again, we begged the folks and Nintendo and Rare to give us a sequel, we clamored for it. If we had known that they were going to screw it up this badly, we would have probably kept our mouth shut.

KI2 was in arcades in the coolest looking arcade cabinet, with our good busty friend Orchid on the side of it, staring us down with those huge... eyes. The game featured updated graphics, and sound that really WASN'T changed but that was ok, the sound was fine to begin with. Everything looked great on the outside, but KI2 was like a chick with a Wonderbra on, and lots of make-up, and you find out after that hot date when you've taken her home that she's on the rag, (but still didn't bother telling you about that).

The characters are my first gripe. Cinder was awesome in the first game, c'mon! The Human Torch in a fighting game, what wasn't to like? Riptor wasn't a bad idea either, a human and dinosaur mixed, why not? But in KI2 they scrapped those and gave us the addition of new fighters that are as boring as they are forgettable. The worst part is they kept most of the other lame-wads too, like Combo, Saberwolf and Spinal and just kicked them up a notch by updating their look. The new graphics gave Orchid a much better bounce in her step which is fine, but she also had to now compete against other sex-appealed whores, like Kim Wu, and Maya. Conan the Barbarian must be really pissed he wasn't picked for the role of Tusk. Tj Combo doesn't look like a boxer anymore, now he just looks like an ass in camo pants. Saberwolf has bionic arms, ...Whatever. Nothing great to see here folks, move along.

But what takes the cake and hurls it, then eats it again, is the fighting system. Before, combos were as easy as start and follow with other buttons, and mix it up. Now here, we get a clunky and complicated system of "Auto" and "Manual" moves that don't perform nearly as satisfying as before. Now you have to have an 'opener', hit certain buttons in sequence and then close it so that the CPU opponent doesn't lay waste to your sorry ass with an even longer combo than yours. If you loved KI 1 and was able to bust out 13 hit 'Killer' combos than playing this game will totally insult your whatever previous skills you might have had.

The story to KI2 is worse than the one before. Now the game seems to take place 2000 years in the past. The logic behind that, is that when Orchid defeated Eyedol (yay! go Orchid!), Eyedol's death released energies so strong that it caused a time warp. Yes that's right, the ultimate excuse for having a trip in time, a WARP. I guess as a result of this warp, all the fighters now control and fight like ass, just like people from long ago. They adapted you see.

Not even Orchids skimpier outfit could save this game, or Maya's annoyingly bouncing chest. I like boobs, but jezz when it comes to a video game I'm %100 sure they're fake.

To top all this off, this game is easy, too damn easy. Gargos is the final boss (he's just a gargoyle) and if he was any easier he'd just stand there and beg to be hit for some kind of sexual kick. I should never have to up the difficulty ante on an arcade game. I guess after KI1 a lot of people bitched about how tough Eyedol was (he was too), but really that's the whole point of the game, and since its in an arcade, there is no reason it shouldn't munch at a roll of quarters.

I was mad back in 1996 and I'm still mad about this disappointment. I can only guess that the people at Nintendo and Rare didn't want the series to last, so they roasted this turkey. This game also had to compete against others like, Tekken and Soul Caliber so it was doomed from the beginning. If you also get beaten out by the Street Fighter Alpha games, then that's saying something, its saying that it was better the first time around.

Nintendo 64 FINALLY had a KI release entiltled KI Gold. Due to the N64's cartridge media that meant poor sound (compared to CDs) and no movies for all the characters. The first KI didn't even make it to the N64, which is really the fault of the N64 not really being a completed project.

[In fact a good side note is that during the opening ads for KI one in arcades, theres a teaser showing the 'Ultra 64' logo and the announcer of KI telling us that this game was going to be made for homes in 1995 only on the Nintendo Ultra 64. If the Ultra 64 was made instead of the N64, things might have worked out for Nintendo and they wouldn't have gotten stomped so badly by Sony and its Playstation.]

When the X Box 360 was in the works KI3 was announced and recently the development for it was cancelled. Maybe that's for the best. I can only imagine what kind of shit they'd give birth to for the third time around.

Fighting games are a dying genre really, and perhaps if Killer Instinct was translatable into a first person shooter, it might stand a chance on the modern systems. As crazy as I may sound, KI the FPS might work, after all I'd love to put a bullet into Spinals cackling skull. And repeat.

Worst Fighting Games of the 1990's part 1

This list begins with a bang, the kind of bang that comes out of an ass. I've yet to decide just how many games will appear on this list, but I am hoping to get to at least 5 or more. Considering what kind of shit came out in the 1990's, that won't be too hard. This was a time when video games were really trying to experiment with things, from full motion video, to polygon based graphics. It takes a considerable failure to make it here, a company has to make a game that doesn't just suck, it also has to waste things, like time, money, logic, and even sanity. Some failures start off with good ideas but then just end in horror and im starting off with that here.

I should also point out that this list isn't in any kind of order, the reasoning behind that is due to my inablilty to really name what sucks the most. These games all are equally shitty.

Ask anyone what would be a fun fight to watch, weather they be a man on the streets, a businessman in a suit, or an african tribesman with a large bone ring in his nose. Most of them would tell you that dinosaurs and giant apes would be fun. Thank God that Atari answered that prayer and gave us the hit game, Primal Rage. The second thing they would answer is large robots, metal machines of death armed with sharp blades, lazer guns, or SOMETHING that they would use to emaciate each other. One such game answered that prayer and gave us a shit game called Rise of the Robots.

Rise of the Robots

1994

Time Warner Interactive/Mirage

SNES,Genesis, and also the losers of the 90's like the 3do, CDi, Amiga and the like.

This game had it all going for it, or so it seemed on the outside of the box it came in. The graphics to ROTR were all computer generated in the style of games like Killer Instinct. This game was all about robots kicking each others metal asses and taking model names, all for the sake of finding out who was built better. The story to this game is kinda typical, following a plot of an evil company doing bad things involving robots and getting them to fight rather that just have an all out war. No one followed plots of video games back in these days, so who gave a damn WHY the robots were fighting, just throw them into a ring and watch them bash each other.

This game had 7 fighters, all of them ranging from robots with human forms, to machines that look like forklifts with legs, spider robots, hell even a gorilla robot. Before matches, each robot had a cool opening movie to introduce themselves, seeing this happen on a SNES was unbelieveable. The games opening title screen reminded me of Super Street Fighter 2's Ryu opener. The look of this game was not seen on the 16 bit systems and the aforementioned Killer Instinct was still a year away. Lets also not forget that this was a fighting game with ROBOTS, so what could go wrong,? You'd have to work really hard for a concept like that to fail.

The main fighter, the 'Ryu' protagonist of ROTR is a fighter called ECO35-2, or 'Coton' for short. Now if you think that name is fucking dumb then wait till you meet the rest of them. The other fighters are called:

Loader

Builder

Crusher

Military

Sentry

The Supervisor

If you want background information on this motley bunch of recycled tin-canned-ass-bags, then just read thier name, thats how imaginative the developers were willing to go. Now, one would hope that even a game like this could at least give you a good selection of these characters, right? Right?

Wrong, if you were player one, you were shit out of luck. You only got to play as 1 damn fighter:

ECO35-2 thats it. In two player made player two could pick them all, even the boss- The Supervisor was availiable if you entered the cheat. Meanwhile player one is stuck with the blue, generic, bland way-too-human to be a robot fighter: ECO35-2.

This game can be beaten in one sitting. Its way too simple. The AI genius of this game is hard however if you try to think that this game is even remotely complex. The controls are set up exactly like Street Fighter 2 in that you have 3 punches and 3 kicks, all of which look the same but are performed at different speeds and inflict less or more damage. The key to winning this isn't anything special or difficult, no combos needed and no special moves. The key to survival in ROTR is walking your clunky, blue, slow ass robot towards your enemy and hitting the punch button and then... repeat. I've never completed a game so easily, and frankly the games ending for just 1 character didn't make me feel good for finishing this piece of shit.

Graphics sell this game as I have mentioned, and sound gets a few points too. The package and ads for this game noted Queen Guitarist Brian May scoring the soundtrack but in fact his track called 'The Dark' is the only song that made it on the main intro screen. I guess the designers for ROTR tested this game while their Cd player at the office played hits like 'Bicycle' or 'Radio ga-ga' and thought it would rock. No insult to Brian May at all, he's a guitar legend, but this project was NOT for him. Queen is ok, but not for a fighting game. While fighting you'll hear energizing music and lots of samples of what resembles metal hitting metal sounds, which works for it. No voice samples are in this game, no announcer yelling FIGHT! Lame.

Thankfully this was a rental at a Blockbuster and I wasn't a sorry bastard that actually went out and bought this. Otherwise this game would have been tied to a brick and thrown through a window of a Walmart. The even scarier part is that this game had sequal that appered on the Sony PSone and the Saturn, which got the same reception as the first game. No one can learn sometimes.

There was a lot of innovative gaming systems comming out in the mid-90's and a lot of them tanked. This game wasn't bad enough to kill the Nintendo SNES or the Sega Genesis, but it probably had its hand in on killing the 3do, and CDi systems ever so slowly. So while your cruising Ebay don't be surprised if Rise of the Robots is a pack in game for someone trying to rid themselves of a CDi or 3do system, they're just trying to get rid of the financial hex put on them from that fateful day when they had spent 500 plus dollars into what was supposed to be the newest generation of gaming system and what could have been a original and creative fighting game if only the folks at Mirage gave more than a damn.

Strange Finds- Non Sense!

Holy God, how high am I?

Parodious: Non-Sense Fantasy
1992 Konami
SNES (maybe others but I'm not sure)

A lot of crazy ideas come out of the land of the rising sun, Japan. From porn cartoons (that I love) to comic books for grown up, eccentricity is never in short supply, America still has yet to realize the potential for great hentai.

Video games is one of the main mediums that tell us that a Japanese mind for creativity is a very active place. NO idea is too weird for them. This is in no way me insulting them, in fact this is me THANKING them for coming up for ideas that are weird and fun as hell to play.

Mario is a fantastic example. Adventures of an Italian plumber that squashes killer mushrooms, travels underground and risks it all to save a princess from a giant turtle. Drug fueled? It has to be. The best music comes from drug use, why not video games? The latest Mario games have hula dancing jelly beans and Mario flying after eating a special mushroom. Jimi Hendrix never had trips so good.

Strange ideas are universal and not new, enter Parodious:Non-Sense Fantasy. Appropriately titled, because NONE of it makes sense, but that is the charm to it all. Remember the game Gradius? well this is a shump game just like it, a space ship based shotter that take you into the deepest reaches of the galaxy and throws you line after line of ships. But this isn't a typical shump, oh no this game falls into a different set of genre, a genre that I just can't fuckin explain.

This game gives you spaceships pick, or a flying octopus, or a bird. These objects fly through space and shoot at the following:

Penguins

Monkey heads

Las Vegas Showgirls

Alien space craft that look like treasure chests

Giant pirate ships with kitten faces

the list goes on and on...

Weird weird weird. You gather power-ups along that way that give you the serious things like the Gradius 3 'options' that circle around your ship, or you get special weapons, like a giant horn on the from of your space ship that sound out and spells things like:

No sushi tonight!

Toaster overheated!

Huh! Garlic Breath!!!

This game doesn't have that 'stage' style of gaming that pauses, its very very linear and fast moving. Cute sounds assault your ear with explosions and kiddy voices in Japanese accents that let you know when you've scored. There is so much hellishly odd shit going on with the screen that you can die simply by getting distracted with all the pretty colors. I love this game and yet I can only take it in small doses.

No story, no sense. If you want to play something that totally will blow your mind, make you laugh or help you get through those bong hits that you ripped while messing with your SNES- play Parodious: Non Sense Fantasy.

90's Fighting games- The Honerable Mentions

Snk's well done fighter, with a story written by the same people that penned beat-em-ups back in 1985. Girl gets kidnapped, boyfriend (never a husband thats too hard to follow) goes on a bad ass mission to save her and has to beat up generic thugs along the way.
Limb chopping off fun. Drawn by someone in 5th grade art class, before his perturbed teacher had him admitted to a rubber room.

Dinosaurs, blood, guts, flatulence. Atari was a far better publisher than console maker. Its too bad it was just a flash in the pan.

You now see the foundation for Tekken. I really like how we have a beautiful sky back there and these very synthetic and unorganic characters. Great steps in a fighting game, and we had to wait for the Saturn in order to play it at home.

This list of the top 5 fighting games of the 1990's has been a blast to make, I've been enjoying every pixel of it and sadly there wasn't enough great games for me to do a top TEN that would be easily understood by all who owned the great 16 bit consoles like the SNES and Genesis. Truthfully, I'm was kinda torn by some of these games because some were good but really not THAT good. To be on the top 5 list, you really had to be unforgettable in every aspect.

These following games didn't suck, they were all good, but not great either and I have explained just WHY they didn't make it. I feel its my duty to at least give them a moment in the sun. These game are in no particular order, they're all equally mediocre.

Primal Rage (Atari 1994): Dinosaurs and giant apes duking it out, eating humans for health during matches, gathering worshippers and performing death moves ala Mortal Kombat. No better ideas have been made by Atari. This game had cool stop-motion animated graphics of prehistoric menaces to the 'Urth' beating each other into a bloody paste all for world domination.

What went wrong: This game suffered from horrible and almost embarrassing console releases that looked ok, but had all the fun censored out. Also this series never went ahead with its sequel and honestly that move caused this series an untimely death. Quite a surprise for a franchise that gave birth to action figures and other merchandise. It could have been magical. Magical, I say.

Timekillers (Strata/Incredible Technologies, 1992): I don't care what anyone says, I loved this game! It was more violent than MK and was creatively inclined with its 'limb loss' feature. Whats better than cutting off an arm or a head to win a match? This game will get its own article very soon, just wait.

What went wrong: This game gets put on a lot of fighting games 'Worst of' lists and its not hard to see why. The game really needed a lot more work. More frames on animation, better looks for its cookie cutter characters, and a system of combat that's easy to follow would have helped. The story to this game really didn't exist until its loathsome console release on the Genesis, to which bred a plot that didn't really make sense or even get followed, we just wanted to chop some arms off. This game really looks rushed, and this could be due to the fact that it was made to cash in on the Mortal Kombat rage. All in all, 10 year old can draw homemade comic books that look better than this game.

ClayFighter (Visual concepts/ Interplay, 1993) : This game was fun, admit it. It was the first time that a fighting game had a sense of humor and the first time we got to see a game that made of other games. We all loved it so don't deny it! This games graphics were made from stop motion clay animated figures, all of them armed with an array of fighting moves and a smart ass-ed attitude. Best part is, was that all of its character were very unique and innovative, with the exception of one that really killed this game. Which brings us too...

What went wrong: The 'N. Boss'. The boss and lost fighter of CF that you fought against was a circle of spherical balls that threw other players projectiles at you. No punches no kicks, NOTHING, just a circle that attacks you. So lame, so half-assed. There is a game programmer out there kicking himself in the face right now due to his boneheaded decision to staple this travesty into an otherwise good game. Other than that, I noticed that this game didn't have a lot of frames of animation causing it to look really choppy. I know my SNES can do better than this.

Virtua Fighter (Sega, 1993): A fully rendered 3d fighting game that finally gave us a camera that wasn't JUST showing the side view of a fight. We started to really see what was possible in a 3 dimensional world and 'virtual' reality suddenly didn't have to involve playing a crappy shooter with a pair of giant electric goggles strapped to our head. Seeing this game these days kinda reminds us of that Dire Straits music video, we see martial arts being performed by a diverse lot of unmotivated characters, fighting in a video game was now realistic, which was a nice change from the gore riddled world of Mortal Kombat. But that also brings us to..

What went wrong: This game was so... ssslllooowww! It was like the fighters had gum stuck to their shoes. Jumping attacks now required you to do formulas in modern physics just to land a mid-air kick. The worst also came from the Genesis console release of VF, which included NO polygon based graphics, which is impossible for the Genesis to do, and there was the revelation that this game really was all about looks, and less about action.

Teenage Mutant Ninja(hero) Turtles:Tournament Fighters (Mirage/ Konami, 1993) : Our four shell shocked smart ass-ed heroes along with other characters of that series having a fighting tournament and the winner takes April home to have their way with her with a dirty weekend in the turtle van, or just fight for money. Cool characters, good Street Fighter inspired controls. I liked it actually. Yeah thats right, screw you, I liked this game.

What went wrong: No one else liked it. Besides did we need another frigging TMNT game?

No.

Art of Fighting (Snk/ Takara for the console release, 1993): Great fighting game with an innovative control scheme. Using the 'special' buttons meant dealing blows that made your opponents into bruised paste. Bouncing off of walls and dealing a flying kick to the face was beyond satisfying. I love and still screw with this game and discover new tricks all the time. All the characters have personalities that don't blatantly copy other games like and before it. The best part was that the SNES version has almost ALL the fun of the original arcade version, right down to the camera 'zoom' effects.

What went wrong: Almost nothing really, this game rocks. However this games plot follows the story of 2 men out to get the gang leader that kidnapped their girl. That story was used up 5 years before this game was made, and it was in its prime with Double Dragon. Also in the story mode you can only play as 2 characters. So we have the same used-up story involving the same 2 used up hero guys, one man is a martial arts expert with an unpronounceable Japanese name, and the other is an American pretty boy with a pony tail. I'm shocked this never became a cheesy action movie starring Steve Segal and Kurt Russel.

Eternal Champions (Sega, 1993): The Sega Genesis was getting its ass handed to them by Nintendo and its SNES. Why? Badly executed or horribly translated fighting games. Solution? Make one that's specifically for the Genesis, hype it up to commercially high levels, and try to advertise a failure motion controlled prep behind it (remember the Sega Activator?) . This was a creative and well received stab at one upping Timekillers by being WAY more complex story and fighting style wise. Great characters that span across time and cultural borders, good moves that present themselves as being linkable for combos and other specials and CGI death moves exclusively on the Sega CD system version that put Mortal Kombats' fatalities to shame. A top choice for Genesis fans.

What went wrong: It was on the Genesis.

Street Fighter EX (Arika/Capcom 1996): There is 6 games in this series spinoff of Capcom's fighting classic, all of them in full 3d. These games weren't bad at all, but it does definately scream the fact that Capcom was trying to get a hold of the 3d market of fighting games that was established by Sega's Vitua Fighter Series, and also Tekken. (I myself personally failed to include most of the 3d fighting games mainly due to the fact that as an old timer of video games I didn't own the Playstation until it was late in that consoles' life.) The fighting mechcanics of SFEX remain very faithful to the 2D origional series, only this time we get to see the dragon punch from a full 360 degree angle, so it still wins.

What went wrong: Nothing really, but theres no way you remembered this game until just now when you read this. Admit it.

Street Fighter Alpha (1995 Capcom): Great follow up to the other 3 versions of SF2, despite the fact that this game is actaully a prequel story-wise. The action is fast, the animation and character design looks fantastic, and the fighting system of 'spirit moves' give this game a 1 up above all the other SF games. It was exciting to see that Cap' wasn't giving us ANOTHER tired translation or update of SF2.

What went wrong: Again NOTHING. But SNES console owners got totally screwed on this, and forced them to go out and get a Playstation. Oh well, I guess we had to move on. I also thought the 'Dan' Character was a big pansy (c'mon the pink karate suit?), but that's done on purpose.

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Stay tuned ladies and gents, the WORST list is on the way (and man, is it long).

Strange Finds: My totally amazing EXCELLENT discovery... NOT!

Wayne's World (yes, it was made into a video game)

1993

THQ

SNES,Genesis,Gameboy,NES (maybe others but who would care?)

Before comedian Mike Myers was 'shagadelic' and 'randy' as Austin Powers, he was Wayne Campbell of Aurora Illinois, a lovable loser that hosted a public access cable show along side his shy and quirky companion, Garth Algar. A running skit on Saturday Night Live like this didn't really NEED a movie behind it, but people loved the mullet-headed-hair-metal-loving dofuses that looked as if they were making a show while inside of a nogahide walled Midwestern family room basement, surrounded by the very things that made them losers: Their mom and dads antique collection, sports equipment, and 1980's rock memorabilia. These two lovable doucebags sat on a presumably smelly davenport and talked about rock, babes, and... rock. Hollywood of course HAD to squeeze pennies from this half-baked idea.

After the movie was out and was a hit, the other Hollywood; Video games, needed to cash in as well, and thus brings us to the subject at hand: Wayne's World: the video game. That sudden scream of horror or perhaps that quick burst of WTF laughter was you.

I don't know what is worse so please feel free to tell me:

A mediocre movie based on a crappy comedy sketch or...

A Video game about a mediocre movie, based on a crappy comedy sketch?

Whatever- the point is, this game sucked. Wayne is a large-headed bobble doll that runs around with his guitar. Not that cool white Fender Stratocaster that he bought in the film but a really horrible green pawn shop fodder guitar. Hit the attack button and he unleashes a riff that sends out killer sound waves that destroy evil. He jumps incredible distances around levels that sorta resemble guitar shops and rock clubs, defending the world-Wayne's World- from what is presumably evil,... bad,... things. He does all this with a sarcastic grin on his face that just fuckin BEGS to have a foot violently shoved in it heel first.

I have played this catastrophe and haven't even made it past level one. This is somewhat due to bad playability, but its mostly due to just the absolute horror on screen. I would rather watch a a farmer have sex a dead goat than play this waste of electricity. OH I forgot, did i mention WHAT KIND of evil your fighting and jumping around about? MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS!! but these are not 'cool' musical instruments like guitars or basses, oh no! These are lame ones like bag pipe with evil eyes on them that float around and assault you with noise. Drum sets that pummel you, and who wouldn't fear the mighty accordion that whacks you when you get too close? I didn't even lose at this game and I wanted to stomp a mud hole into my controller after playing. I think the only high point is hearing the sound clip of Wayne saying 'Shawing!' Wow thats pretty risky, a video game penis joke in 1993 didn't happen.

The gameplay is muddy, frustrating, and very untested. It seems like this was a rock and roll platformer that just had Wayne's annoying smile pasted to the character. This game features odd cut scenes that contain sketch inspired dialogue, but none of it is funny. There was no need for this game, and no reason to believe it would convince gamers to spend $50 or even $10 on the cart. This is the kind of game cart you accidentally steal while at a Goodwill when you were looking at the suspecting old bag behind the counter and were reaching for that must-have Gradius 3 cart but missed your mark, you get home pull the plastic box out from inside the crotch of your baggy jeans and DAMMIT you got the wrong one.

Now as I write this I realize that games and failure of this kind wasn't uncommon in gaming back in the 90's or even now. A lot of bad games are games based on movies, a movie comes out, people like it, and they want to experience it at home. No problem, but why do games based on movies usually SUCK?

Remember ET? Atari, armed with its 2600 console made a game based on the successful 1982 film and rushed its release date and gave the poor programmer only 6 weeks to build the game. The end result was appalling, the game made little sense, the graphics were ugly and made ET look like a mangled green cock. The gameplay consisted of falling in about 200 holes in order to find pieces of his phone to 'phone home'. This game was loaded on millions of cartridges and all of them came back to Atari. Along with that, Atari was in a financial crisis due to banking way too much on this game and the success that it never had a snowballs chance in hell of receiving. The video game crash was now in full swing and 1982-83 became a dark 2 years for gaming. It might not be ET's fault alone, but you don't end up burying millions of carts in New Mexico on 'just a bad call'. Its true. Atari broke and overstocked buried millions of ET carts, when faced with dire circumstances.

Things are different nowadays but very little has actually changed. Total Recall on the NES, Wayne's World on the SNES, Genesis, and Gameboy, Waterworld- and in this modern age- Enter The Matrix. The industry just hasn't learned its lesson. Very rarely does a video game based on a movie do well in the eyes of gamers. I myself think we all could do without it, we don't need crap based on crap, it just piles higher and higher.

Thank God Lucasarts makes Starwars games that deliver the goods, so maybe I'm wrong. But come on- WAYNE'S WORLD? Why?

90's fighting game top 5 list-Number One- Mortal Kombat 2

[I will make a lot of enemies for putting this game on the top of the 1990's fighting game pedastel. In which case I will advise all potential whiners and bitchers to create their own damn blog if you disagree. oh and by the way, blow me.]

Mortal Kombat 2 ( or II)

Arcade and also 'Throw a rock at any 1990's era gaming machine and anyone you hit most likely that system had a release of this top notch fighter except the Jaguar and 3DO consoles.'

1993

Midway

Sequels are almost always a let-down. From movies to video games to sex, it seems like lightning just won't strike twice. There is a magic in that first time experience, and you never get it like you had it before, its just not the same. I think the main problem is when it comes to any media (or sex) the second time around needs to be DIFFERENT- not just a repeat.

The world loved the first MK. Arcades had to get multiple cabinets just to cut down on the lines. 50 cents became a normal and acceptable price for a credit at a video game. Grown men- 20 somethings- and more crowded this machine. All for a game that was clunky, slow and had only ONE good selling point: Hardcore violence.

So in 1992 when MKII was on the table at Midway I'm almost positive that they held some kind of meeting. I don't know the story and frankly few people care about HOW this game was made. But my instinct tells me that Midway's suits read through piles of mail and page after page of reviews of MK just to see where they went wrong and what could be done better. Midway listened and Midway delievered.

The gaming world felt the heat of the original Mortal Kombat, and a mojority of those who felt it, liked it but they hated the slowness. Not being able to duck under projectiles, slow walking back and forth, only 1 fatality per person, way too easy bosses, a meaningless scoring system, 'Test your might', blurry looking digitized characters, the secret Reptile character being just a green speedy rip-off of Scorpion. The list goes on and fucking on. It was a great game but it was in no ways perfect and its predacessor needed to have more balls, more speed and a HELL of a different look. The first game was foundation to the series and its control system was good, albeit ADEQUTE. The characters for the second MK needed look more,.. cool (for lack of a better term), which ment no more fighting in outfits that look like halloween costumes. The characters needed to be better than just looking cool, we needed some that didn't even look human. Goro looked like a tall man with 2 extra arms (at least to me). Shang Tsung looked like an old fart fighting in a kimono.

The world of MK need a facelift too, Which meant things needed to be turned upside-down. The world and story of MKII had to take a completely different turn to the left. Why not places with floating monks or people on fire? Why not pit levels where the spikes are now on the ceiling or better yet no spikes at all just flat ground in which to splat someone.

Fans held thier collective breath. Not Midway though, they knew this was going to be a hit. No one spends over a year on a game unless its going to rock (unless your John Romero of Daikitana fame). This was 1993 and the video game making process wasn't into the 'Hollywood budget' phase yet. Making games then might have been tough then but compared to now its small potatoes.

I was a small boy when this game came out. I saw that all my friends had the EGM's and ANY magazine that remotely tried to report on this game. The first pictures I saw really blew me away, I was shocked by just how 'dark' the new MK was, and I'm not just talking about violence and content, it was just dark. The Outworld the MKII was set in was nightime almost 24-7. I ended up begging to get to the nearest bowling alley arcade just to see this game. Just to see it, thats all, and because of all the grown men and thier endless rolls of quarters, I NEVER played MKII until its console release.

This version of MK had speed and then some. Matches were heated and two experts can be done pounding each other for two rounds in as little as 30 seconds. MK was really born for arcades which means your going to be playing very quickly and the machine will rob as many quarters as it can get. The speed was a welcome change and a well handled one at that.The fighting style was the same but with the new speed-up, it was now time to see how fast you could 'juggle' your opponent. The block button will always be a MK staple, don't even try to run away. We'll never see an MK without that god damn, fucking BLOCK button.

The arcade version of this game featured a DCS sound system that nearly shook the damn cabinet. Characters screamed, blows sounded like explotions, splatters of blood made you think of raw meat hitting the kitchen floor, 'Get over here' finally meant GET THE FUCK OVER HERE, and the announcer's voice was deep and menacing enough to get you in the mood to kick some ass. Music was now full and engaging, painting the world of MK in a new 'fantasy' light. Its a shame that the arcade is dead, because this game was the loudest when arcades were in thier prime.

The look of the game was far out there. The world of MK wasn't the same after this because in the story all the fighters are now competing in a place called Outworld. This place was surrealistic and yet still easy to recognize. You fought in wastelands littered with dead bodies impaled on spikes, or in forests with trees that bellow and have faces. Outworld was like Hell but with an oriental theme. There were 3 pit levels ranging from spikes on the roof, to pools of acid, and even just a flat stone ground that broke your enemies. One level that cathes the story followers eye is the Arena level were we see that Kano and Sonya are chained up and imprisoned.

Along with the backgrounds this game had a much more 'painted' look. The first MK took realistic images and put them onto fake CGI backgrounds, which resulted in a tacky 'cardboard cutout' look. MKII was much better, all the characters look real but also have a 'painted' look, as if artists with millions of colors are illustrating a moving picture. It wasn't 'photo-real', it was stylized and artistically asthetic, not to mention easy to pass the most discriminating eye. I'm into art myself so I might be one of the few that noticed this about MKII. Point is, it looked way better than the blurry shit from before.

The fighters got a makeover as well. The ninja costumes on Subzero, Scorpion and the now playable Reptile look WAY better. They have these cool coverings over thier mouth that look more like guards made of plastic or metal instead of just cloth. The two female fighters fight in knee highs and carry weapons like razor sharp chinese fans or ninja sais. Baraka was a totally new look, he is a mutant from the out world with a large jaw and metal shards that come out of his arms ala Wolverine. Kung Lao fights with a hat that has razor blade around the brim. The only character that sucks is the returning Johnny Cage, fighing in jogging pants and blowing kisses after a victory (rolling eyes). Fuckin candy ass.

The story kicked ass and was good enough for a movie. After Liu Kang wins the first MK game (according to the written story of MKII, your winning character to beat MK doesn't matter), Shanf Tsung goes back to outworld with his 500 year old ass in his hand and Goro's corpse to explain to his boss, Shao Kahn. Shao Kahn is fair enough to allow Shang Tsung a second shot and restores him to his youthful 30ish year old prime. But theres a catch, the MK fighting team from the last game needs to be taught a lesson. So Shao and Shang kidnap Sonya and Kano and invite the gang, both evil and good to go to Outworld duke it out and pervoke them to try and stop Shao Kahn from either losing his mind and killing them first or even worse, invading the Earth world. Other fighters are just out for personal glory and a spot in Kahn's throne. Thats the story, hope it was clear cause I'm not writting more into it.

The two new bosses were tough. I mean it. Goro is now dead and his bigger, meaner and cheaper brother Kintaro is PISSED! He still had four arms but also tiger stripes on his back. He could jump out the screens' view and then stomp on you and drain half your life bar. The only way to defeat him was to stick to a pattern and don't stand still. But don't expect a victory on the first try (or even on the 5th). Shao Khan, the final boss was bad too but since he likes to point at you and gloat during a match, he was much easier. I guess if you spent enough time to defeat Kintaro than Shao Kahn is your chance to rest a little. Kahn had a penchant for cheap moves that take a lot off your health, some moves being very slow moving kicks that knock you to the other side of the screen. Totally cheap, but satisfying once beaten.

The AI was better and the improvement came from how the computer tended to 'mirror' your patterns, that is if you had a pattern. Don't expect to do the same moves more than twice. The cpu would just cut you down before you can keep it going. Jump and kick down the oppenent once and land a hit, no problem, try it again,... WHACK your hit. Since you can't block a projetile with a projectile than you can't count on the computer fireballing you, just at the moment you throw one. It was not however, impossible.

The drawbacks to this game are not enough to turn you off completely. The only this I thought was bad was the pit fatalities now had to be done with a special button code. In MK the one pit level was easy, just uppercut and its done (down and high punch). Another thing that truely screwed up this violent opus was the additions of "Friendship" finishing moves and the "Babality" moves. Why would anyone want to turn their opponent into a fucking baby? After a match of me pounding my oppenent into a paste, why give them flowers before they die? Stupid. This was all done as a source for humor which is fine but fuck that noise its still,... STUPID. But it comes down to choice, if you don't those moves; don't do it! This game also was made for those who really only like to master the fighting of 1 character, so if your like me and you like using them all, then you'll have to memorize a shitload of moves. I however was a Kitana fan and she was the only character I could successfully use to bring down Kintaro.

This experience was needed to be brought home to console users. It was almost a damn law. No game this good could have just sat in the arcade. But the first MK was poorly handled by the 16 bit giants of the gaming industry; Nintendo and Sega. If the SNES's censorship of MK's successful gore effects didn't piss you off enough than the Genesis's version with its shitty graphics and sound would. Fans of MK again got nervous and held their collective breaths, myself included. How would the console developers handle MKII, would there be blood, plus real fatalities and if yes, then what would we lose? MKII was a big and expansive experience and everyone was unsure how it would be handled. How could they jam all the greatness into a 5 inch, 24 meg cart? What would change?

If you were an SNES owner, nearly NOTHING. Nintendo learned thier lesson and released a version of MKII that was and is comparable to MAME. Sounds were there and the graphics were spot on. Only little things were moved around, like smaller characters on screen or a fewer frames of animation. The SNES version blew me and everyone else away and outsold the weaker Genesis version by millions. All the blood and fatalities were intact and arcade junkies were happy. Console owners got thier 50 bucks worth. The Genesis version again was,... lame. sorry Sega fans, it sucked. Nintendo shined because of this. Now we had the blood that was missing from the first game and graphics that only the SNES was capable of delivering.
One has to wonder, Why didn't they re-release the first game WITH blood? Im sure it would have sold like crack. In the world of emulation and hacks there are now 'bloody verions' availiable from file sharing networks all over the web. Even an NES rom is availiable of MKII (thats not a typo someone actually made and hacked Mortal Kombat II for the old NES).

Nearly EVERY port had an MKII release. It was big and profitable in every aspect including... fucking merchandising. T shirts, comic books, action figures, just naming a few of MANY. I never got THAT into this series and honestly I have yet to find anyone that owns the Mortal Kombat gaming gloves that had the padded thumb protectors. Anyone still wearing a Mortal Kombat T-shirt is most likely still a virgin that is so fat that he hasn't seen his penis in 4 years. OK ok ok ok I won't like I bought the action figures, they were made by the same company that made the small GI Joes. This might be an explaination why I don't get laid as much as I'd like.
But more than all else, MKII gave Hollywood a vision and a movie of MK was made, and it wasn't bad. Really it was good. I love the (first!) Mortal Kombat film, and after bombs like Super Mario Bros and Street Fighter, I am surprised that Hollywood would even think of green lighting a MK movie. The film took a lot of creative license from Mortal Kombat 2 and not so much from the first game, which is another reason that this game won a spot at #1. If a video game can become a king in all media aspects than its more than just a damn video game, its pop culture.

This was the turning point for the 16 bit market. Who won the fight? Nintendo. The SNES had the best fighting game translation made for that time, and the more powerful systems still couldn't beat it. The Sony Playstion was 2 years away, and that so called 64 bit hunk of shit the Atari Jaguar didn't have an MK release nor did the 3do, so MKII was a fight for 16 bitters. Sega tried, oh they tried so hard, but not even the 32x attachment version of this game could help them from going in the toilet. Thats another reason this game gets this spot, because its part of video gaming history. Nintendo owes a lot of gratitute to MKII.

Mortal Kombat 3 came out almost 2 years later, and would be the game that would sink MK into a downward position on its rollercoaster-like lifespan. Why? because it wasn't as good as the one before it. MK is still alive on the modern systems and is doing well, but now the series is done with Hi-res 3d graphics and not digitized photo real sprites.

In fact, I'll be blunt MK3 sucked. I guess the lesson here is quit while your ahead, or at least before you make crap like Mortal Kombat: Mythologies: Subzero.