Saturday Night Slam Masters
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| Saturday Night Slam Masters | |
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| Developer(s) | Capcom |
| Publisher(s) | Capcom |
| Release date(s) | 1993 |
| Genre(s) | Wrestling |
| Mode(s) | Up to 4 players, cooperative (2v2) |
| Platform(s) | Arcade |
| Input | Joystick, 3 buttons |
| Arcade cabinet | Upright |
| Arcade system(s) | CPS-1 |
| Arcade display | Raster resolution 384×224 (Horizontal) |
Saturday Night Slam Masters (Muscle Bomber: The Body Explosion in Japan) is a series of pro wrestling games by Capcom. Unlike other wrestling or fighting games before it, the games introduced a unique blend of gameplay from both genres, incorporating many ideas and developing new ones from them.
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[edit] Games
The Slam Masters series has three games:
- Saturday Night Slam Masters (Muscle Bomber: The Body Explosion)
- Muscle Bomber Duo: Ultimate Team Battle* (Muscle Bomber Duo: Heat Up Warriors)
- Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters 2 (Super Muscle Bomber: The International Blowout)
*Note: Muscle Bomber Duo was a update to the original Slam Masters, it offered gameplay tweaks/additions, a team battle royal mode, and a same character vs. same character feature.
Only the first game has been ported to home consoles (SNES, Mega Drive/Genesis, and in Japan only, on the FM Towns Marty).
[edit] Storylines
[edit] Saturday Night Slam Masters/Muscle Bomber - The Body Explosion
Professional wrestling experienced a sudden increase in popularity during the early 1980's, where many professional wrestling organizations were started all over the world. A severe rivalry existed among the organizations.
In order to resolve this conflict, 8 organizations combined to form the Capcom Wrestling Association (CWA), led by Victor Ortega, the CWA’s first champion.
One day, Ortega suddenly vanished. He was considered to be the axis of the sport and his unexpected disappearance caused the CWA to enter an age of confusion and disorder. The BWA, a dark underground wrestling organization, chose to take advantage of this opportunity and began moving. With "Fighters of Muscle Bomber = Destiny" as the theme, the CWA chief executives decided to hold a world tour called the “Crash Carnival,” to decide the new king of the CWA.
The gong that determines the new “Master of Muscle Bomber” is sounded…
[edit] Muscle Bomber Duo: Ultimate Team Battle/Muscle Bomber Duo: Heat Up Warriors
To decide who will enter the Team Battle Royal as Number One, the "Heat Up Scramble" is held! Which team will be titled the strongest?
[edit] Gameplay
The first Slam Masters game (and Muscle Bomber Duo) was played like a traditional wrestling game, only the game used a view similar to that commonly used in the fighting game genre. Each character was given a lifebar and had three buttons to push (an attack button, a jump button, and a grapple/pin button).
Each character was given two special attacks to use in the game (one used normally outside of a grapple and one that was performed during a grapple, commonly known as a finisher). When an opponent's life is depleted, he must either be pinned for a three-count or forced to submit. Defeating all of the other wrestlers results in winning the championship belt, which must then be defended against the entire roster.
In Slam Masters 2, the game's format was changed into that of a traditional fighting game with the pin system totally omitted, although the grapple system stayed the same.
[edit] Characters
- Biff Slamkovich (Alexei Zalazof)
- Gunloc (Lucky Colt)
- The Great Oni (Mysterious Budo)
- Titanic Tim "The Battle Axe" (Titan the Great)
- El Stingray (El Stinger)
- Mike "Macho" Haggar
- Alexander the Grater (Sheep the Royal)
- King Rasta Mon (Missing "IQ" Gomes)
- Jumbo Flapjack (Kimara the Bouncer)
- The Scorpion (Astro)
[edit] Introduced in Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters 2
[edit] Other Characters (Non-Playable)
[edit] Trivia
- Victor Ortega appears in the intro and best ending of the original Slam Masters, but is not playable until the sequel.
- The character of King Rasta Mon was based on an early design that was going to be used for Blanka for Street Fighter II.
- Some characters in the game are based on real life wrestlers. The Great Oni is based on famous Japanese wrestler Great Muta. El Stingray is based on Mexican wrestler Lizmark, Alexander the Grater is based on Vader, and Jumbo Flapjack is based on Earthquake.
- Mike Haggar is originally from the Final Fight series.
- Gunloc is not actually related to Guile of Street Fighter II, despite his profile.
- The character designs for the game were done by Tetsuo Hara, drawer of the Fist of the North Star series.
- Titanic Tim used to tag team with Birdie (from the Street Fighter series) as the "500 Million Trillion Powers." The name is probably a parody of the mid-80's Randy Savage/Hulk Hogan tag team The Mega Powers.
- In the early 90s, Capcom USA held a nationwide tournament for Saturday Night Slam Masters, one of the few instances when Capcom would sponsor a tournament in the US.
- Biff Slamkovich makes a cameo in Street Fighter Alpha 2 in the background of Ken's stage, along with many other various Capcom characters.
- In the Tokyo stage of Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters II, the original Japanese names of the characters (written in Japanese) are displayed on the monitor in the background.
- In the Moscow stage of Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters II, Zangief appears in the background.
- In the Las Vegas stage of Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters II, Balrog appears in the background.
- The home versions of Slam Masters (SNES and Mega Drive/Genesis respectively) had several differences. While the SNES version offered a Team Battle Royal mode, the Genesis version featured a Death Match mode. There were also some new win/loss quotes added to this version.
- In The Japanese version of Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters II, if you beat the character 2 consecutive rounds in a match, at the win / lose screen you will hear the character speak in Japanese. Hovever, in the US version, it is silent.
