SHE'S A KILLATATATATATATAAA

Every genre goes through an awkward adolescent phase where every company is hell bent on outdoing the next by sheer stupidity and shoving and yelling, much like the holiday rioters rushing to grab them. For example, the shooter boom that slowly shifted us from Gradius to DoDonPachi, lraving about forty fucking trillion bad/forgettable ones in their wake.

Well, the fighting game boom needs no introduction to anyone in my generation. Of course for you Tekken brats, let me assure you that the road from Street Fighter the First to your Soul Calibur is paved with an even greater ratio of crap/goodness. Mortal Kombat added 'realistic' violence to a decent framework- Time Killers added dismemberment to a crude imitation. Combos were added as an official feature soon after they were figured out as an unintended bug in SFII. So began Killer Instinct.

RARE is one of those companies that I never 'got.' I didn't especially like Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country was only fun until they started doing that damned rotating roster with every sequel. Let's also look at the time they turned a long-delayed furry mascot title into a scatological platformer with Tourette's. Yet Killer Instinct is one of their better offerings. in spite of some weird character modeling in the first installment, a certain lack of inspiration, and a rather ridiculous combo system. The objective of the game's design seemed to be to rip off as many fighting game trends as possible at once, from using pre-rendered characters to various gory-to-laughable -alaties. KI has its DANGER MOVES, which are like fataltities but called something else. In addition, there are the low-life finishing Ultra Combos, and HUMILATIONs, where you make the defeated dance to retarded disco. I always liked the skeleton guy's since he does the Charleston, a dance style sorely under-represented in gaming.

It's a little sad that the most coherent explanation of the plot I've heard came from a geocities fanfiction page, but in a nutshell, an Evil Corporation called Ultratech wants to take over the world with genetically engineered freaky super soldiers. So, various fighters come for various reasons to fight in this annual tournament in spite of the fact EVERY SINGLE YEAR'S WINNER HAS GONE MISSING. You could probably rattle off the motives and archetypes of the fighters, but I've got a page to kill, so here are some of them:

T.J. Combo: A disgraced boxer with cybernetic implants and maybe an eyepatch or something. He enters the tournament to (all together) RECLAIM HIS PLACE AS AN HONORED ATHLETE.
B. Orchid: A double agent with huge tits- but here's the catch! They end in sharp points and are apparently completely solid. One of her finishing moves has her flash the enemy, causing them to have a Tex Avery eye-bulge and fall over. The fact that they hold her up when she falls forward however makes me think they got an eyeful of some sort of botched surgery.
Jago: A Tibetan warrior monk, which is TOTALLY different than a ninja, wielding a laser katana. He fights to prove his skill to himself and also vaniquish evil whenever it coincides with his journey of ego fullfillment.
Glacius: An alien captured by Ultratech because they're so evil. Guess what his power is. Go on, guess.
Riptor: A DINOSAUR
Fulgore: Ultratech's latest robot soldier. Has a ponytail.
Chief Thunder: Offensively racist.
EYEDOL: Cheap end boss and two-headed medieval ogre.

In addition to the shiny graphics and combo system, the game also came packed with its own soundtrack, KILLER CUTS! I actually got the game before I had a CD player (gives you an idea of either how behind I tend to be on appliances or just the date of the game) and it sat there, teasing me with its hypothetical goodness. Well, I of course did end up listening to it and it turned out to be pretty unremarkable techno, with such unforgettable lyrics as:

KIL-LAH! KIL-LAH!
oooooh
SHE'S A KIL-LAH!
KIL-LAH! KIL-LAH!
oooooh
SHE'S A KIL-LAH!
KIIIIIIIILAA-A-A-A-A-A-AAAAH~

-B. Orchid's theme, "K.I. FEELING"

OHHHHH YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAH
(yooooo weooooooow weoooow)
OHHHHH YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAH
(yooooo weooooooow weoooow)

-Chief Thunder's theme, "Oh Yeah"

"It's a jungle, brotha!"
(jungle noise, ook ook sounds)

-"It's a Jungle", not recognizably the theme to anything

I wonder though, if Killer Instinct is warning us of the inevitable next trend in reality TV. I mean, people can be glued to their sets to watch a college girl eat bugs, it's only a matter of time before murder-based shows like Survivor: Chainsaw Hedgemaze Massacre gets green-lighted. Then it'll be ABC running nonstop coverage of The Running Man, and water-cooler discussions of Battle Royale. Only Killer Instinct MURDERS its winners so they won't be forcing themselves on us afterwards with talkshow appearances and solo albums. Genius.

Since tournaments in fighting games are NEVER on the up-and-up (except maybe Guilty Gear), the whole mess ends with the defeat of medieval juggernaut Eyedol, which basically only shows that Ultratech's technology is useless next to something that apparently was born naturally a couple thousand years ago. Speaking of that, his death somehow warps the suriving Killers back in time 2000 years for Killer Instinct II, which raises the question of whether it's a prequel or sequel or just a bad choice of scenario. Sadly the most inventive thing they could come up with as a follow up to a goat-legged, two-headed cyclops(Biclops?) was a squatty gargoyle named Gargos. I guess they used up their naming budget when they named Saberwulf, the werewolf who may or may not have cyborg arms or something for extra edge.

I always liked to play as the fire guy, Cinder myself in spite of his underwhelming er, 'projectile' that made it look like he was tickling the enemy while going IIIIIINNNNNFEEEERRRRNO!!! He was the product of Ultratech dicking around with super-napalm or something on a guy promised to be let out of prison early. He's also the guy you happen to need to put the cursor on to input the boss code. So you know there's something cool about him there. I also liked TJ Combo if only for his combination of wimp but easy-to-chain spinning attacks and his takes-forever-to-charge uppercut that sends enemies flying off the top of the screen. He's like the Ralf I knew before Ralf.

There actually was an attempt to even out the extremely combo driven system in the form of C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKERS (did I mention this game's announcer ruled?), which were a given special move every character would have, that with the right strength press and plenty of stupid luck, could free you from a humiliating, Harryhausenesque beating. Of course, since you could input moves in advance and mix up your attack strengths in elaborate ways, like a really dickheaded spider's web, they were really only used to their ful potential by the psychic computer opponents. WOW THAT CARTRIDGE MUST PRACTICE OR SOMETHING WHEN I'M OUT OF THE ROOM.

I'm still kind of confused with the atmosphere Rare hoped to create for this game. The music and generic aesthetics scream dark thriller, and yet we have Tex Averyesque death by tits, and people being uppercut and coming back down as an oversized can of dog food. It's like it hovers somewhere between Battletoads and Shadowrun. And that's a pretty wide, albeit slimy and gritty gap. I can only imagine what a KI Movie would turn out like.

ORCHID(Token Asian Lucy Liu): I'm totally hacking the mainframe. Keep an eye out for EVIL ROBOTS Jago-san.

JAGO(Ben Affleck): Oh no. An EVIL ROBOT draws near. Command?

FULGORE: VVVT, VVVVT. SENSORS DETECT BANANA PEEL. TRACTION LOW! DANGER! DANGER HOWARD PHILLIPS!!
*KLANK*

ORCHID: Ara, Jago-san is so brave. Here are my tits.

JAGO: I DIE

It'll probably win something. In the end, KI was a pretty brief fad. Prerenders lost out to genuine 3-D, and the gratuitous combo system really only obviously inspired Clay Fighter's pathetic attempt to poke fun at it. The arbritrary linkable moves sort of continued in spirit to the 3-D generation and other 'dial-a-combo' engines like GGX's.

Oh yeah, and unfortunately FOX's new show Killer Instinct is just another shitty crime drama. Curse you, FOX TV.

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