Tattoo Assassins

Tattoo Assassins

Tattoo Assassins arcade flyer
Developer(s) Data East Pinball
Publisher(s) Data East
Director(s) Bob Gale
Producer(s) Mike Marvin
Designer(s) Joe Kaminkow
Eddi Wilde (stunt coordinator)
John Carpenter (programmer)
Artist(s) Paul Faris
Bob Short (make-up artist)
Writer(s) Bob Gale
Composer(s) Brian L. Schmidt
Platform(s) Arcade
Release date(s) 1994 (prototype)
Genre(s) Fighting
Mode(s) Up to 2 players simultaneously
Cabinet Standard
Arcade system Data East DECO32
CPU ARM (@ 7 MHz)
Sound Sound CPU: M6809 (@ 2 MHz)
Sound chip: BSMT2000 (@ 24 MHz)
Display Raster, 320 x 240 pixels (horizontal), 2048 colors

Tattoo Assassins was a 1994 versus fighting game developed by the pinball division of Data East for release in arcades. A few prototypes were test-marketed, but the game was never officially released. Spearheaded by Bob Gale (screenwriter for Back to the Future) and Joe Kaminkow (leader of Data East Pinball, now known as Stern Pinball), Tattoo Assassins was designed to be Data East's answer to Mortal Kombat.

Development

Gameplay screenshot

Tattoo Assassins was developed to compete with the popular Midway fighting game franchise Mortal Kombat. The project was spearheaded by Joe Kaminkow (leader of Data East Pinball, a subsidiary of Data East Japan) and Bob Gale (screenwriter for Back to the Future) and put into development at Data East Pinball for a planned arcade release. Using the same style of digitized graphics as Mortal Kombat, Tattoo Assassins featured real life actors fighting each other with violent moves and combos. Most notable is that the game featured 2196 finishing moves, including some nudity-based finishers (only a rumor in Mortal Kombat) and animal-based finishers (before they were featured in Mortal Kombat 3 as "Animalities"). Some included dropping a DeLorean car onto the opponent (a Back to the Future reference), turning the opponent into a hamburger (a reference to an earlier Data East game, BurgerTime), and massive diarrhea.

Each of the characters had magical tattoos, which came to life when they performed special attacks and finishing moves. Even though the game was never completely finished, EGM posted an in-depth article with moves and information about all of the characters.

Characters

The following is a list of the characters that appeared in this game:

Two other non-fighter characters that appear in the game's story are Mullah Abba, the spiritual leader of the Order of Colors who discovered the mysterious ink used by the fighters, and Lyla Blue, a mysterious woman who is used as a channel by Mullah Abba to allow the player to control one of the assassins in combat.

Cast

(as credited)

Production and legacy

Internal development strife, management problems, deadline woes, and negative feedback from testers contributed to the game's troubled development and eventual downfall. With similar games like Killer Instinct and Primal Rage performing well, competing chances of Tattoo Assassins were slim and it was never put into production.

Even though the game was never released, several prototype models were produced for testing in arcades. Nearly two dozen machines were produced for the AMOA show in San Antonio in 1994, but most were later destroyed. Two machines reside at the PAPA headquarters, and a few others may exist in the wild.[1] In addition, the game's ROM has been dumped for use with the MAME arcade emulator and is available on the Internet.

After Data East filed for bankruptcy and became defunct in 2003, G-Mode bought the rights to Tattoo Assassins along with most of Data East's other titles.

References

External links

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