Difference between improvement and revolution (the Street Fighter story)

(sorry for writing an article that ends in depression-haha)

In 1987, video games had made a successful comeback. Nintendo had helped the industry recover from the crippling 1983 video game crash and arcades made a healthy profit. Arcades were delivering the games that were not always availiable to home consoles and if they were, the games were extremely limited. A prime example is a game called Strider, a platformer in arcades that was so poorly handled on the NES that people assumed that it really WASN'T the same Strider.

Arcades had some great games, but the NES was making things easier; no trip to play games- just plug and play. The downside to that was nearly EVERY game on the original NES was about the same. Beat Em Up's were huge and this was mainly due to the popular Double Dragon series. From that point on games were all about walking left to right and punching and kicking ANYTHING that walked in your direction. WHY? because those fucks kidnapped your girlfriend. Again.

This formula was wearing thin around 85. The same man attacking you over and over really starts to suck at about Level six and most of these games didn't even have good endings that made you feel good about your accomplishment. It would have been nice to see after awhile a cool cartoon porno scene come up after you've saved your frail waif again from the clutches of the evil crime boss-ninja-robot assassin- whatever. But again, it was all about the adventure getting to the end, and if the roll of quarters you brought to the arcade didn't get you there, then the Game Genie cartridge strap-on could.

Fuck that. It was old news. Then something happened. A little company called Capcom took the beat em up concept and made something of it that didn't require the monotony of fighting the same man twice. Head to head action, colorful characters and special moves. The even stranger part is that no one saw it coming and most of it hadn't been done in such a grand scale before.

Anything would have been better than its main competitor. The only other fighting game at the time that was Head to head style was the 2600's Atari game simply titled 'Karate'. This game blows beyond anything else. The classic mess ET: the extra terrestrial is 6 feet under the ground in New Mexico and this game is probably still floating around in pawn shops and antique stores, is there no justice in the world? If you want to see just how awful things can get on the 2600 then click here. Your Lego collection could look better at fighting than this.

But with this piece of shit giving reason for you to attack an Atari cart with a hammer, Street Fighter premiered in that same time and blew minds. When your partner games in the Arcade is ANOTHER Double Dragon clone and a 4 color Atari pong game with stick men, then success presents itself naked at your bedside.

For those of you that don't remember or have never played, Street Fighter 1 was amazingly small compared to its latter game Street Fighter II. In the first installment, you only got to pick 1 man, Ryu (Yes, THAT Ryu). You would have light-medium-and fierce punches and kicks to mix it up. You got 3 special moves which we all saw in SFII: the hurricane kick, the fireball, and the Shroyuken punch. Despite all these limits, it was still the best thing out there, and was only available at arcades and on the Turbo Graphix console (that few of us owned). It doubtful that the NES would have been able to pull this game off, seeing that it was so detailed and had real (but crappy) digitized voiced dialogue [to be honest the only phrase you could hear being spoken was after you won a match when your opponent said "What strength! But remember there are many guys like you all over the world." ].

The reception wasn't all that big for the first Street Fighter but it was enough to prompt a sequel. The rest-as they say- is history, but the jump from 1 to II was big. There was 8 fighters instead of just 1. The story was different for each character you picked. SFII may have been just a way of classically reviving a dead franchise because in video games 6 years is a LONG wait for a sequel. 6 years gave us a lot of time to get better home systems made which is why the SNES version might be the best arcade translation ever for that time.

The Genesis released the Champion Edition of SFII but with only 3 buttons on the controller for a 6 button game WHY FUCKIN' BOTHER. Nintendo and the SF games gave the industry a clue when it came to designing a game controller: you needed at least 6 buttons. These games are very reason Sega had to make the Model 3 Genesis (with a new 6 button controller).

The list of later Street Fighter games is long enough for me to not want to name them all on this page- if you want that list, go to wikipedia. It seemed to take a long time for this series to make a Street Fighter 3, and when it finally did the reception was lukewarm and bittersweet. We even got to see the series get a 3d face lift with the Street Fighter EX games, giving the snail paced Virtua Fighter a run for its money.

As of writing this, Street Fighter 4 is on its way to the latest generation systems like the Xbox 360, PS3 and the Wii. I, however don't own any of these systems and really am not holding my breath on this newest chapter.

Am I too old? No. Am I pissed that it took over a decade for Capcom to count to 4? No. My real reason for not caring about SF4 is that I'm one of a few that remember the series true roots and the real secret to all its charm. Whatever 3d multi-polygon- cinematic shit comes of this new game will just depress me even more.

Sometimes change isn't always good.

Worst Fighting Games of The 90's-Part 5-Atari's Pitfall

From the makers of such hits like :
ET: The Game (Still availiable 6 feet in the ground somewhere in New Mexico)
The Atari Jaguar system (Still availiable under the platform shoes in a bin at a goodwill... you gotta kinda dig for it)
and the smash hit translation of Pac-man (now availiable in a dumpster in New York City, happy diving you fucking BUM!)
Comes...
Damn it.

Pit Fighter-1990- Atari

I almost cannot consider this a 'fighting game'. You only can pick from 3 fighters and all 3 of them blow, there is a button to push in order to jump and the game really has no story other than "fight people and make money" . But since punching and kicking someone head to head is the name of the game in Pit Fighter, I guess you can consider it a fighting game.

This game was made by Atari games and was an arcade hit but for only 1 reason: it was the first fighting game to use photo-real digitized graphics. I'm sure however once the quarter was inside the machine and the player selected his fighter, the games horrible animation, uninspired characters and way-too-easy system of fighting kept them from depositing another 25 cents. (Is it me, or does Atari have a fascination with making shit?)

As I've mention you get to pic from 3 fighters, all of them pretty much the same. Kato, a black belt and karate kid ripoff. Ty, a kick boxer and rip off of Billy Blanks (I don't care if this game came first before ty-bo). Last and least-of-all-time we have Buzz, an ex-pro wrestler that unnecessarily wears black under-eye stripes because EVERY wrestler has to have some kind of gimmick.

The game takes place in abandoned warehouses and subways, and your surrounded by a huge throng of people that look and act as of they're on their way to the Jerry Springer studio after the fight. Surrounded by concrete walls and rabid human waste that wave around cash, you get the feeling that you've been there before, and if you don't get that feeling don't worry, you'll be fighting there again real soon. Over and over again.

Your fighter that you selected merely just on a frustrating whim will battle against REAL hardcore brawlers. Before a match however most of them have to get greased up to look grossly sweaty and then have to get drunk enough to move as slowly and stupidly as possible. The casting for this game must have been done at a biker bar somewhere near the Atari headquarters. The only interesting character I fought against was Angel, who is the only woman in the game. She dresses like a dominatrix, so I'll give them some points for at least trying to get sexy with this. Then there is former KFC employee, Southside Jim and greasy fat ass biker, CC rider. And who could forget rejected WWF wrestler, and gay porn actor Chainman Eddie, who NEVER uses chains to attack, he just wears chains for fashion (fabulous!).

This game was able to support up to 3 players but I doubt whom ever played this game had any friends. That person that was begging for 2 more players had already convinced everyone in the arcade that he was dangerously insane and playing a game like Pit Fighter proved it. So what was this lonesome dove with a roll of quarters to do? Maybe if he was brave enough, he could pay that woman across the street from the arcade to play with him. A good deed after all, what else is she gonna do? Scream at traffic about how the FBI put a chip in her brain. No way did the FBI do that, that's just political soapbox shit. The FBI in the 1990's was too busy putting "Winners don't use drugs" on the demo screen of nearly EVERY arcade game. Which is far more deplorable than putting a computer chip into a crack whore's brain. It was also WAY less effective at keeping kids off of drugs as the Nintendo anti-drug smash hit Wally Bear and the NO Gang.

opps, I forgot I have a review to do here...

Drugs might have made Pit Fighter tolerable. It might have also made the lousy animation move a little smoother. The digitized graphics of that time may have been a little too sketchy to make a FULL game. One might say this was just a first step in making games like Mortal Kombat... Whatever. When Mortal Kombat hit consoles later on, the reaction was huge and people were buying Genesis and SNES systems left and right. When Pit Fighter premiered on home systems people played the game for about 5 minutes, then traded it in for 5 minutes alone with the aforementioned street-walker they met outside the arcade.

God bless her. Even after getting a cigarette put out in her eye, then having to attack that 'john' with a broken ashtray, she still finds time for games.

1990's Fighting Game's Hardest Bosses

I'm a calm man (I think so and my friends would agree to as long as I lay off the booze) and I rarely lose my cool especially when it comes to something as simple as a video game. Its a real pain in the ass however to face a challenge so grueling, unforgiving and unfair that the controller to my SNES or my Genesis leaves a dent in my drywall. Everyone has- at one point- turned thier controller into a projectile so don't start laughing as you read, thats the main reason that 3rd party companies make replacement controllers for game systems. They certainly don't build controllers like they did the origional NES ones back in the 80's and I'm sure that they have the 'rage prone' gamer in mind for designing new ones: one hit against a wall or floor and boom!, plastic everywhere.

Fighting games of the 1990's didn't give us our victories very easily, and more times than many we all suffered the wrath of bosses so horribly hard that we would turn to our Game Genie's and cheat codes JUST to say 'I did it'. I choose to not grant myself a victory so cheaply until i had finished the game myself, and I when that was done, i'd dabble in that crap later. Gaming is supposed to be a challenge and in arcades the games were even harder because that roll of quarters that burned a hole in your pocket wasn't going to spend itself, now was it? Hell that girl in high school never believed it was your penis anyways.

Bosses in games are just like bosses at work, they cripple your spirit and successfully remind you that you CANNOT press a button fast enough and/or at the right time. No one ever really remembers an easy one like KI2's Gargos, or Mk2's Shao Kahn. Its those cheap, AI controlled, and borderline psychic oppenents that drove us normally calm gamers to the 'cheat' sections of the gaming magazines.

Let's take a look at some of the toughest (I think anyways):

Kintaro (MK2): According to the story of Mortal Kombat 2, Goro lost the first Mortal Kombat tournament and it might have something to do with the fact that he was weak and didn't block much. I beat Goro after 1 try just by doing jump kicks, (cakewalk!). But Kintaro, Goro's brother is way meaner and way pissed off. He blocks almost every thing that heads his way and doesn't give you a lot of oppurtunity to strike for free. I could only beat this four arm goliath with Kitana because he did fall for the 'fan lift' attack a lot, but he didn't fall for much else. To make matters worse, his stomp attack was hard enough to kill half the life bar, and every hit that he landed on you threw your character across the screen. Kintaro wasn't a fair fight, but he was possible to defeat and when you did, you already felt like you had beaten the whole game even though Shao Kahn was waiting for you next.

M.Bison (SF 2,3, Alpha and god only knows how many others): A flying, stomping, and scissor kicking threat to your sanity. The trick of beating Bison was just to 'get lucky' and hold back to make sure you block whatever he decides to hit you with next. There was no telling what he'd do either. One second he jumps and stomps your head than he follows it the next second a flaming hand slap of some kind. Then just when you think you got him and you channeling that final blow fireball, he flies at you with an electrically-charged arm out and blows past your projectile and fries you into defeat. At this point you either set your SNES on fire or you might have to explain to a zit-faced virgin that runs the arcade just WHY you put your fist into the screen of thier Street Fighter 2 cabinet.

Vega (SF2 the only one he was technically an unplayable 'boss' in): You ever had a fly bugging you while you sleep or drive and no matter what, you can't possibly kill it, because the little fucker dodges nearly every swipe of your hand and fly-swatter? Thats SF2's pretty boy fighter, Vega. Nevermind the sexual orientation or androngenus image of this all-too-vain SF2 brawler. What pissed more gamers like me off was the fact this asshole never stood still.

Eyedol (Killer Instinct): I hate this son of a bitch. Eyedol played as fair as Hitler. For starts he delievered punishing combos that killed have your life bar. Oh! But if you were lucky enough at all to have damaged him beforehand, then after the combo that he branded you with he'd end it with a club smash that sent you flying 30 feet in the air, giving him time to stomp his foot and recharge a portion of his health. The same club smash can also be used to slap incomming projectiles back at you with triple the speed, making you feel like a stupid cock for thinking you could 'fireball' you way to victory. Rare and Nintendo owe anyone that defeated Eyedol a hookers' blowjob, because the games endings just seemed too small a reward after trying to kill a boss that cheats.

Motaro and (sort of) Shao kahn (MK3): Forget how stupid he looked, or how much of the damn screen his horse/human body took up. Mortaro was a cheater. EVERY projectile attack bounced off of his body and hit you, so forget about trying to freeze him. A slight punch from this centurian turned you into a human cannon and threw you against the screens edge, and any time he blocked an attack you would be then picked up and pummeled with his fist. Your reward for beating him was having to fight an upgraded verion of Shao Kahn now armed with a 50 lbs sledgehammer that knocked you unconcious, leaving no wonder that MK3 blew so much.

Death (Timekillers): A notorious blocker, a heavy hitter, a speeder and not defeatable unless you stun him and then kill him via 'death move'. All the more reason that Timekillers was so ill-recieved.

[Thats really what comes to mind so far, if you readers have one leave me a comment and i'll try that one out, just keep in mind these are FIGHTING games from the 90's. I want to always keep this blog intersting even it if it is about the past. Thanks.]

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.

90's fighting games top 5- Number 2- Nintendo steps up to the big boy plate

Dispite all of the SNES limitations, this game still rocked.

Could she stick those things up any higher?
Nothing quirky to say here. Just look.

Killer Instinct

1994 (95 for the Snes release)

Rare, Nintendo and Midway (arcade distributor)

Ever see a line at an arcade machine? Then you most likely didn't go to arcades in 1994 or your only 10 years old right now. The arcade is dead and gone but Nintendo along with Midway was a brutal force during its golden age. Now you walk into an arcade just to see 5 displays of Dance-Dance-what-the-fuck-EVER!

In 1994, Mortal Kombat was two-year-old news, MKII was turning into the same after some months and Street Fighter's inability to make a sequel and not just another damn remake kept plenty fighting game fans bored silly. MK3 was on the horizon and gamers needed something to hold them over, ANYTHING. Nintendo was listening and grouped up with MK distributor Midway and released a fast, furious, and arcade-friendly opus that speed hungry adrenaline junkies could not get from MK and Street Fighter 2.

Nintendo had -and still has- a knack for kiddy games (but still damn good games). Previously Nintendo had made Donkey Kong Country with Rare and with the help of well animated action and well polished graphics they produced a fun (but also overrated) side-scrolling platformer. DKC was fun but it was really for the little guys around the 10-13 age bracket. Nintendo's next game would aim for a more grown-up crowd, and why not? Nintendo was in its prime and was at the time working on a new game system that would need one HELL of a launch title.

KI was a total surprise; a fighting game with pre-rendered sprites and some beautiful 3d backgrounds that all screamed high art. The game looked as if it was all done in real time 3d graphics but that was merely an illusion of the Rare software genius within. This game also had sound and music that pounded on your ears as you played. The fighting style of KI was the best blend of MK's hard hitting brutality with SF2 combo driven skill. The characters looked either cool or in one case... damn sexy, each fighter having a uniqueness that set the group apart from SF2 and MK (with the exception of one ) The announcer's voice sounded like Darth Vader filled with steroids and the piece of spice made this game feel so... alive (for lack of a better word).

To fight and win in KI you needed fast hands and fingers. This game is very combo-based and relies on your ability to chain attacks together, so no more jumping around and kicking unless you plan to follow it with some specials and other hits. Doing this will set off chain reactions that will cause multiple knocks to your opponent. What made it fun was that your opponent- CPU AI or player 2- could do just the same and release a humiliating barrage on you. Not all hope is lost, you could perform a 'combo breaker' and escape with less damage and give your middle finger to what could have been a hollow defeat. At the final moment of a match the dead player would sway in pain and in MK tradition you could vanquish them with a 'Danger move' which was a KI fatality. Another good way to victory was dwindling the last sliver of the opponent's health with a 24 hit "Ultra Combo!" (hearing the announcer yell that out always gave me a chubby).

This all happens so quickly and its handled so well-no round 1 or 2-no stopping. If someones life bar is drained for the first time, they hit the ground and wake back up with a second and final red life bar, and the other player doesn't start from full. This gave the game its intensity that MK 1 and SF didn't have. What kind of fight STOPS when the player keels over for the first time? That's stupid, just get up and dust yourself off and kick his or her ass. This was a fighting game without the 'referee'.

The character line-up was a diverse and well designed lot. Each of them having their own background and story:

B. Orchid: (my personal fave) The bad-ass babe of the game, armed with 2 clubs that looked like mini Star Wars lightsabers. Also armed with a great rack and a killer ass. I have no shame and I'm a chronic pervert, oh well.

Spinal: A skeleton with a shield, sword, and an annoying laugh.

Fulgore: A robot built for hand to hand combat. Has wolverine-like wrist claws.

TJ Combo: The total rip off character of this game, and total racial stereotype of a Mike Tyson-esqe boxer. This guy manages to rip off SF2's Balrog and Mike all in one fell swoop.

Cinder: A man on fire, like the Human Torch from Fantastic 4. Cool idea, really.

Glacius: The yin to Cinder's yag. An alien/man made of ice and liquid. Not a pallete swap, however.

Chief Thunder: Native American armed with 2 tomahawks. Cool character beside being another damn stereotype. Hmm Maybe game makers in those days didn't know that Blacks and Indians aren't all boxers and rain dancers.

Jago: Ken and Ryu-esque karate man. Not much else to say.

Saberwolf: Werewolf that fights. Not done before so I'll give it a thumbs up.

Riptor: Human-dinosaur hybrid that fights. This was 1994 and the movie Jurassic Park helped us believe in using DNA to fuck with mother nature, so why not put dinosaur and human semen in a blender and see what pops up.

Eyedol (the boss): A two headed cyclops. One eye on each head. So he still has 2 eyes... but 2 heads with only one eye on each (am I clear?). He fights with a large club that looks like an antique lamp and has these odd looking goat legs (I guess you can't always have cool characters 'across the board').

The backgrounds each reflected the characters personality and tell us that these events take place in a dark and futuristic world. Orchid fights on top of a skyscraper and Cinder fights on top of a tower in the desert. Some levels presented us with 'pit' like finishes which enabled you to knock each other off of the tower at the end of a match, giving you a cool look at the soon to be dead fighter falling and hitting the pavement below. Riptor fights in a room littered with spikes and blood spilled all over, Glacius's world looks like Antarctica with an 'Asian temple' look. All in all, very imaginative.

The other plus brings us back to sound. Each level had a soundtrack of really good metal, techno, and hip hop music. The music and sound to KI was SO good that when it was released on the SNES the game came with a music CD in the box of all the songs. This game WON and conquered in the sound, graphics department.



But it wasn't all wine and roses.

KI's story was sooooooo... written after the game was complete.The plot to this game revolved around an evil company called 'Ultratech' that every year, holds a tournament to test out its products and even kill of few of its critics and traitors while at it. Riptor is a product of Ultratech as well as Fulgore. Orchid is a spy looking to dismatle the company by pretending she is a Secretary that just HAPPENS to carry two lightsticks that kill. Saberwolf is really just a man in a wolfs body looking to get a cure for his affliction of werewolf-ism. Eyedol is... fuck I guess something that Ultratech did for shits and giggles. The point, is the story wasn't the point.

Action was the point and it was there. This game took arcades hostage and created the aforementioned 'lines'. I played this game at arcades and eventually on its SNES release. I remember being beyond excited to get this game, and Nintendo broke a rule by putting the game into a black cartridge shell, so that made us ALL believe that KI was a hit not even Mortal Kombat got this much great marketing. In the pile of grey shells of games like Street Fighter 2 and MK 1 and 2, that black KI cart catches the eye.



However, this was also the game that showed the Super Nintendo it's age. The SNES version was still good, but it was SEVERELY cut back from its arcade counterpart. No full motion videos, tacked on endings, fewer frames of animation, and dumbed down sound. I expected all this and even at the age of 13 I was grateful that Nintendo TRIED to deliver a great translation. Even the Game Boy had a KI release, and boy did it suck, theres no need to cram 10 pounds of awesome in a 1 pound bag. At this point we now started to see what our precious Super Nintendo WASN'T capable of, and it was a revelation to Nintendo and the world that a new system needed to be made. The even bigger disappointment was that the N64 didn't have a KI release until later in that consoles life and was still lacking what the arcade had; No videos, weak sounds all because of the N64's cart media. We just couldn't win.

KI had a sequel and it came and went shortly after the success of the first game. It was nothing special. New characters that no one remembers and cool characters from the first game taken out for no reason. As of writing this article I read in my research that a third KI was in the works for the Xbox 360 but Rare has since cancelled it. That REALLY blows, a gaming system like the Xbox 360 could literally reinvent the KI series, full 3d real time graphics, surround sound in 5.1. I guess it just comes down to the fact that sometimes its best to leave well enough alone, or in this case just let it die. Wow... A great game started with a bang ends with a whimper. KI 2 was even beaten by the weak ass MK3 in terms of popularity. That makes this loss even more pathetic.

Killer Instinct was awesome and almost made it to #1 on this list. If this game wasn't so 'flash in the pan' it might have been higher. The industry can learn from this, if you make a sequel, you have to top yourself, not repeat. The success of KI was enough to get Nintendo to the front and really push the N64 system, but the surprise to me the writer is that this series never really blossmed to "Franchise" levels. No major merchandising, no cartoon on Saturday morning and no big budget movie (thank God Nintendo learned their lesson from the Mario Bros movie) .

Go to almost ANY emulator site and you'll find out that the arcade MAME version of KI is not so easy to find and even harder to put together and program, . I guess this was done on purpose , but it still sucks. I guess I need to win the lottery and buy the cabinet. For now I'll treasure the memory of how Orchid could kill off her enemy by opening her shirt and flashing her fun-bags at him.