Tattoo Assassins Fatalities Montage

What? You've never heard of this game before?

Once upon a time (rather, once upon a 1994 or so), fighting games were the hot thing in arcades. Street Fighter II had already graced its presence in arcades, and people gleely lapped up every retuned version. Naturally other game companies wanted to latch onto that success, and created their own ripoffs. Perhaps the most notable one (in terms of success) is Midway's Mortal Kombat. While the gameplay was lousy, the characters were lame, and the soul in its presentation was pratically nonexistant, it had one thing going for it that caught everyone's attention -- the notoriously gory Fatalities.

Which brings us to this. Data East Pinball was charged with the task of hurriedly creating their own MK clone. With a ridiculous story that was crafted by the same guy who wrote the Back to the Future movies (no, really), horribly digitized actors with stiff animation, the only thing it really had going for it was fatalities -- supposedly it boasted over 200 ways to make your opponent vanish.

Needless to say, it was pretty much doomed from the start. Late into its development, the project was scrapped on the basis that it did not live up to other titles such as Killer Instinct and Primal Rage (which, if you have played those games, is saying a hell of a lot). The game was forgotten until someone for whatever reason dumped a prototype rom and it became compatible with MAME.

I actually first came across this game when I was bored and downloading random MAME roms and WTFed at the title. It is a terrible game, but I've actually played worse fighters. (As an aside, why can't American companies make good fighting games, for fuck's sake?) I've got to say that most of the fatalities aren't even really fatalities -- transforming the other guy into a hot dog or Whistler's Mother doesn't really seem fatal. I think that if a game is going to include fatalities, then there should be absolutely no doubt that your opponent is finished, even if the only indication is a little thought bubble saying "I'M DEAD" popping out from their head.

Some industrious (more likely bored) little beaver has captured about 60 of the "fatalities" from this speck of a game. Be sure to lookout for my personal favorite move, wherin the offensive "Indian" guy summons a fire bire from his chest, which drops a green acidic dook onto the other guy, who promptly dissolves.