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.