Killer Instinct
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| Killer Instinct | |
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| Developer(s) | Rareware |
| Publisher(s) | Midway (Arcade) Nintendo (SNES, Game Boy) |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Super NES, Game Boy |
| Release date | October, 1994 (Arcade) August, 1995 (Super NES) |
| Genre(s) | Fighting |
| Mode(s) | Up to 2 players simultaneously |
| Media | ROM & HDD |
| Input methods | Joystick; 6 buttons |
| Cabinet | Upright |
| Arcade system | Proprietary MIPS Based Hardware System |
| CPU | R4600 |
| Sound | Midway Digital Compression System (DCS) |
| Display | Horizontal, Raster, standard resolution (Used: 320 x 240) |
Killer Instinct is a fighting game developed by Rare, Midway and Nintendo. Initially released in arcades in 1994, and rumored to use an "Ultra 64" hardware engine, in reality the proprietary arcade hardware was co-developed by Rare and Midway. The game received a high profile launch on the Super Nintendo, as well as on the Game Boy. It led to a sequel, Killer Instinct 2.
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[edit] Story
Ultratech is a very powerful mega-corporation (entities which, in this future setting, replaced all governments) which organizes a tournament called Killer Instinct. Along with regular participants, experimental creatures created by Ultratech also fight in the tournament. Ultratech also discovers a technology to make bridges between dimensions, and to also release from this dimensional prison a two-headed monster called Eyedol, an ancient warrior that was locked away along with his rival.
[edit] Characters
[edit] Fulgore
Fulgore is a cyborg, part of a cybernetic project developed by Ultratech, the masterminds behind the Killer Instinct fighting tournament. Fulgore was entered into the tournament to test its fighting capabilities. If successful, the Fulgore unit would be placed in mass production. During the first Killer Instinct tournament, Fulgore met its end at the hands of Jago. A newer version of Fulgore was produced for the second fighting tournament.
Fulgore has two No Mercy moves, one in which it removes its head, revealing a large turret-like gun which shoots the enemy repeatedly. The other uses a laser beam from its eyes to reduce the opponent to ashes.
(1 year old, 6'5", 560 lbs)
[edit] Cinder
A criminal who was promised early release by Ultratech in exchange for participating in chemical weapons research. As a result of an accident during testing, his body is composed entirely of flame. He is promised a return to his original form if he is able to defeat Glacius in the tournament. In the early development stages of the game his name was Meltdown, but this was soon afterwards changed to Cinder.
Cinder has two No Mercy moves, the first creates a pool of magma under the opponent, who melts into it. The second shoots them with flames to reduce them to ashes.
(31 years old, 6'2", 195 lbs)
[edit] Glacius
An alien who was captured by Ultratech and promised freedom if he wins the tournament. He gets his nickname from his body's icy liquid composition and ability to shape-shift. He is one of the few characters that maintained his original name throughout early development.
He uses three different No Mercy moves, one where he becomes a gel-like mass and absorbs the opponent (similar to the Blob), one in which he uses his finger as a syringe to inject the enemy with a substance that turns them to ice, and the last of which he turns into a pool of boiling water that the enemy drowns in.
(unknown age, 6'3", 300 lbs)
[edit] Jago
A Tibetan monk following the Tiger Spirit, which later turns out to be Gargos in the second Killer Instinct, is on the path of enlightenment to defeat the evil within him. He believes it is his destiny to destroy Ultratech. He has many of the same moves as Street Fighter's Ryu and Ken characters, including the fireball and spinning uppercut. His No Mercy moves consist of stabbing the enemy with his sword, and meditating, which causes a car to fall on the opponent.
(21 years old, 5'6", 190 lbs)
[edit] Riptor
A genetically engineered velociraptor-human hybrid created as a prototype by Ultratech. The tournament serves to test its abilities as a killing machine. It has three No Mercy moves. One in which it spits acid on the enemy, one in which it stabs the foe with its tail, and one in which it runs at the enemy and eats them.
(4 years old, 7'0", 700 lbs)
[edit] Sabrewulf
Count Von Sabrewulf is stricken by lycanthropy, and is promised a cure by Ultratech if he wins the tournament. This is a semi-cameo appearance of Sabreman, known from Rare's 1984 game Sabre Wulf. Sabrewulf fights in his inherited castle as his home level, with biting and claw attacks, and the ability to howl and use his Flaming Bat, though sometimes they will not be flaming. He has two No Mercy moves, one where he slams the foe into the screen, and one in which he stabs the enemy with an elongated claw.
(45 years old, 5'11", 400 lbs)
[edit] Spinal
A marvel of modern biotechnology, he is a product of cell regeneration, made a living skeleton from the remains of an ancient warrior. While he seems to fight for sheer enjoyment, it is more likely he is battling simply because he lost his memory after death, since his brain couldn't regenerate. He carries a sword and shield, and has the ability to teleport and physically morph himself into a grayscale version of his opponents during combos. He has an odd quirk in that, in order to perform certain moves, he must gather energy (represented by tokens shaped like skull under his life bar in the SNES version, and by skulls floating around his person in the arcade and gold versions) by either absorbing opponents projectile energy attacks (with his shield in absorbing position), or performing combo breakers. Despite requiring these tokens, his special moves are not particularly stronger than normal special attacks. He can "store" up to 5 skull tokens, to the point of *overloading* if he absorbs any more energy. He uses two No Mercy moves, one where he repeatedly stabs the enemy with a spike on his shield, and the other where he summons skeletons to drag the opponent underground, presumably to Hell. (note: in the SNES version, the second No Mercy is replaced with Spinal summoning a bolt of lightning)
(2650 years old, 5'5", 110 lbs)
[edit] TJ Combo
A former heavyweight boxing champion for 5 years. He was stripped of his title and kicked out of the circuit when it was discovered that his arms had cybernetic implants which greatly helped his boxing ability. Ultratech promises him to return his title if he wins the tournament. Combo has two No Mercy moves, one where he snaps the opponent's neck, and the other he punches the opponent into the screen.
(25 years old, 6'1", 220 lbs)
[edit] Chief Thunder
A Native American Chief, armed with twin tomahawks, who enters the tournament to find out what happened to his missing brother Eagle in the previous year's tournament.
He has two No Mercy moves, one where he calls down a bolt of lightning to strike the enemy, and the other in which he knocks the opponent into the air, leaving various objects behind, depending on the character.
(42 years old, 6'2", 280 lbs)
[edit] B.Orchid
Hired by Ultratech as a secretary, she is actually a spy working for an unknown party and, along with Jago, appears to be the heroine of the game franchise. Her full name is Black Orchid. She has two No Mercy moves, the first in which she gives her opponent a heart attack by unzipping her uniform and flashing her breasts at them, and the other in which she turns the opponent into a frog, then (at the player's option) stomps on them.
(23 years old, 5'6", 125 lbs)
[edit] Eyedol
The final boss, Eyedol, is a two-headed, ancient mystical warlord who was trapped in a dimensional prison in the distant past. Ultratech released him to be the final combatant in the tournament. It is shown in Killer Instinct 2 that the person Eyedol was trapped in combat with was Gargos, the final boss of that game. For some reason, the game designers did not give him any No Mercy moves, ultra combos, or humiliations. Eyedol is the only character that does not have an icon in the character select screen, however in both the arcade and Super Nintendo versions he is a secret playable character that can be played as by pressing a combination of buttons before a round begins.
[edit] Gameplay
Killer Instinct plays like many other fighting games, in which the player controls a character in order to beat an opponent in a one-on-one encounter. The game borrows the attack set of Street Fighter and is also inspired by the finishing moves from Mortal Kombat. There are also several features that distinguish it from other franchises:
- A double energy bar: instead of winning two rounds, each player has two bars of energy. If a character finishes with his or her opponent's first life bar, the fight stops and resumes like a round, but the winning character still keeps whatever amount of energy he or she had at that moment. The player who depletes his or her opponent's second life bar wins the bout.
- Automatic combos: rather than press the necessary buttons in order to deliver the individual attacks that form a combo, in Killer Instinct the combos are automated and can be enabled by inputting a determined button or special move (which led to the character to deliver a string of hits).
- Finishing moves: Bearing resemblance to Mortal Kombat's Fatalities, each character has at least two moves known as No Mercy (Danger Move in later revisions) in order to finish the opponent in a violent manner. One of these No Mercy moves can be executed at the end of a combo (which is labeled as an Ultimate combo), when the opponents life bar flashes red (when his or her second bar is going to be depleted), although it uses a different combination movements. Another finisher is the Humiliation, that forces the opponent to dance (the dance style depends on the character), but this can only be used if the player has his or her first life bar.
- Ultra Combo: Another finisher, it operates like an Ultimate combo, though this one allows the character to deliver a long string of hits as the combo finisher instead, usually surpassing 20 hits, and can sometimes reach upwards of 80+ hits.
- Combo Breaker: The player who is being caught in a combo may break out of it by performing a combo breaker move. The combo breaker is a designated special move of the player's character. A combo can be broken at either the auto-double or linker stage. To successfully break an auto-double, the player must use the breaker move at a strength lower than the auto-double itself (i.e. for a player to break a Medium auto-double s/he must use a Quick breaker.) The combo can also be broken at the linker stage. At this stage the player can use any strength of breaker, making long combos a risky affair. Also, after performing a combo breaker, a white starburst will appear at the tip of the breaker's health bar, enabling advanced versions of some special moves that require a different command, i.e. Jago, instead of a regular green fireball, can shoot a red fireball.
[edit] Arcade Hardware
The Hardware used in the arcade version of the game is worthy of note, as it differed from other games of the time.
- Killer Instinct has the honor of being the first arcade game in history to use an internal hard disk drive in addition to the games ROMs.[1] This allowed it to store massive amounts of data thereby giving it the ability to have higher detailed graphics then other games of this genre.
- The entire game was pre-rendered using SGI computers (Silicon Graphics Incorporated) and the backgrounds themselves were pre-rendered as a 'movie', which simply adjusted frames based on your current location.[2] All this data was stored on the above mentioned hard drive.
- Also, Killer Instinct's Risc R4600 processor ran at 100 MHz.[3] Much faster than then it's competitors. For comparison Mortal Kombat 3's TMS34010 CPU ran at 6.25 MHz.[4]
[edit] Ports
[edit] Nintendo 64
There were no direct ports of either Killer Instinct or Killer Instinct 2 for the Nintendo 64 despite the arcade game's attract mode promising it was coming to the Nintendo Ultra 64. Instead a special version was released called Killer Instinct Gold, which is based on Killer Instinct 2.
Due to memory limitations on the Nintendo 64 hardware and cartridges, the pre-rendered FMV-flipbook backgrounds were replaced with realtime-rendered low-poly backgrounds. The characters' graphics remained as pre-rendered sprites, however.
[edit] Super NES
During that period, a Super NES port was planned and subsequently released. While it has many of the features the arcade version had and was a significantly advanced SNES title, many features were altered, downsampled, or removed. The graphic detail was vastly reduced and the onscreen characters were smaller. The stages with a 3-d panning camera were simplified into a 2-d panning view using parallax scrolling for the background. Zooming and scaling were removed. Some of the stages were redesigned or dropped from this version. The famous full motion videos that showed the characters after a victory were replaced by still images. Voice samples and sound effects were shortened.
Most of the characters preserved their special moves and danger moves. However, some of the special graphical effects — notably the shadow move effect — were removed. In the case of Spinal's skulls that surrounds him when he absorbs projectiles, the skulls are shown under his energy bar instead.
In spite of these changes, some other modes were added, such as a training mode, a tournament mode (used for multiplayer purposes), and other options.
The Super Nintendo version was packaged with a 16 track music CD entitled Killer Cuts featuring arrangements of music from the game. Killer Cuts was later sold through Nintendo Power's Super Power Supplies mail order service in both CD and cassette form.
The Super NES game was packaged in a black casing in Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States, as opposed to the standard grey shell. The game was not released in Japan.
[edit] Game Boy
A Game Boy port was also made, but sacrifices were necessary due to the system's limitations. As a result, neither Cinder or Riptor appear, and the moves were heavily altered due to the more limited controls of the portable. The game supports some coloring when played in a Super Game Boy. The Super Game boy also allowed for a two player versus match to be played by inserting a second controller. Sabrewulf's moves were also altered severely.
[edit] Version differences
- In the first arcade version of the game the Danger moves were called No Mercy. This was changed for all later releases in the arcades and the SNES port.[citation needed]
- In older arcade releases there was a glitch that caused Fulgore and Glacius' teleport moves, when used against the edge of the rooftop levels, to shrink the players graphics to roughly half their normal size.[citation needed]
[edit] Killer Cuts: The Soundtrack
An arranged soundtrack CD featuring original music from Killer Instinct was released as a pack-in for the Super Nintendo release of the game.
[edit] Reception
It was rated the 151st best game made on a Nintendo System in Nintendo Power's Top 200 Games list.[5]
[edit] References
- ^ Arcade History Database. Retrieved on 2008-06-03.
- ^ Catalogue of Arcade Emulation Software. Retrieved on 2008-06-03.
- ^ Arcade History Database. Retrieved on 2008-06-03.
- ^ Arcade History Database. Retrieved on 2008-06-03.
- ^ “NP Top 200”, Nintendo Power 200: 58-66, February 2006.
