Killer Instinct (USA, Prototype)
Killer Instinct is a fighting game developed by Rare and published by Midway and Nintendo. It was released as an arcade game in 1994 and then ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and the Game Boy in 1995. The game's plot involves an all-powerful corporation called Ultratech organizing a fighting tournament. The story was adapted in a limited comic book series published under the short-lived Acclaim Comics imprint.
Killer Instinct features several gameplay elements unique to fighting games of the time. Instead of fighting enemies in best-of-three rounds bouts, each player has two life bars. The player that depletes the other player's life bars first wins the match. The game also introduced "auto-seconds", which allows players to press a certain sequence of buttons to make characters automatically perform combos on opponents. Also featured in the game are "combo breakers", special moves that can interrupt combos.
Critically acclaimed, Killer Instinct was followed by an sequel, the 1996 arcade game Killer Instinct 2, later ported to the Nintendo 64 as Killer Instinct Gold. Several retrospective lists by various publications included it among the best fighting games of all time.
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:
Killer Instinct features several gameplay elements unique to fighting games of the time. Instead of fighting enemies in best-of-three rounds bouts, each player has two life bars. The player that depletes the other player's life bars first wins the match. The game also introduced "auto-seconds", which allows players to press a certain sequence of buttons to make characters automatically perform combos on opponents. Also featured in the game are "combo breakers", special moves that can interrupt combos.
Critically acclaimed, Killer Instinct was followed by an sequel, the 1996 arcade game Killer Instinct 2, later ported to the Nintendo 64 as Killer Instinct Gold. Several retrospective lists by various publications included it among the best fighting games of all time.
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.
- 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. 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 of 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. Unlike the Fatalities, however, the Killer Instinct's finishing moves do not feature brutality or dismemberment.
- 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 (e.g. Jago, instead of a regular green fireball, can shoot a red fireball).
Killer Instinct (USA, Prototype)
Technical
CPU
- maincpu 5A22 (@ 21 Mhz)
- soundcpu SPC700 (@ 1 Mhz)
Chipset
- SNES Custom DSP (SPC700)
Display
- Orientation Yoko
- Resolution 255 x 225
- Frequency 60.098476 Hz
Controlers
- Number of players 2
- Number of buttons 6
- Kind of controler
- joy (8 ways)
- joy (8 ways)
- joy (8 ways)
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Killer Instinct (USA, Prototype) Screenshots
Clones of Killer Instinct (USA, Prototype)
Plot
Ultratech is a very powerful megacorporation (entities which, in this future setting, have replaced all governments) which organizes a tournament called Killer Instinct. Along with regular participants, experimental creatures created by Ultratech also fight in the tournament so their strength can be tested. Ultratech also discovers a technology to make bridges between dimensions, and releases a two-headed, one-eyed, satyr monster called Eyedol from this dimensional prison.
Characters
Main article: List of Killer Instinct characters
According to GamePro in 2010, Killer Instinct is "remembered for its colorful cast of combatants. KI featured a velociraptor, a sword-wielding skeleton, a creature made out of ice, and a buttload of other memorable characters." In 2012, Topless Robot wrote that Killer Instinct "featured one of the most amazing and varied cast of characters ever to grace a fighting game, including the Native American Chief Thunder, the demonic skeleton Spinal, fiery criminal Cinder, the killer cyborg Fulgore and the vicious velociraptor-hybrid Riptor." Development
Initially released to arcades in 1994, Killer Instinct and a racing game Cruis'n USA were promoted as running on Ultra 64, a hardware platform upon which a 64-bit Nintendo console of the same name (and which ultimately became Nintendo 64) was to be released. In actuality, the game ran on proprietary arcade hardware co-developed by Rare and Midway. A version of the game was to be developed for Nintendo's new console, but the console's release was delayed and the game was instead ported to two existing Nintendo consoles. Killer Instinct was the first arcade game to use an internal hard disk drive in addition to the game's ROMs. This allowed it to store massive amounts of data thereby giving it the ability to have more detailed graphics than other games of this genre. The game used pre-rendered sprites for characters, created with Silicon Graphics computers and the backgrounds were pre-rendered as a "movie," which simply adjusted frames based on the current location of the players. All this data was stored on the hard drive. Killer Instinct's R4600 processor was clocked at 100 MHz.
In the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) port many of the features the arcade version were altered, downsampled, or removed. The graphic detail was vastly reduced and the character sprites were smaller. The stages with a 3D panning camera were simplified into a 2D panning view using parallax scrolling for the background and mode 7 for the ground or arena, thus simulating a pseudo-3D effect. Zooming and scaling were removed. Some of the stages were redesigned. The full motion videos that showed the characters after a victory were replaced by still images. Voice samples and sound effects were severely limited, whether shortened or missing altogether. 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. To make up for the loss of overall quality, some other modes were added, such as a training mode, a tournament mode (used for multi-player purposes), and other options. When released in Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada, and the United States the SNES game had black cartridge casing, instead of the standard grey shell. The TV advertisement for Canada and the United States showed a person cutting through the arcade cabinet with a chainsaw to reveal an SNES console with the game plugged in.Killer Cuts, an arranged soundtrack CD featuring original music from Killer Instinct was released as a pack-in for the SNES release of the game.
A Game Boy port was also made, but cuts were necessary due to the system's limitations. As a result, neither Cinder nor Riptor are featured and the moves were severely altered due to the more limited controls of the portable. The game supports some coloring when played in a Super Game Boy, which also allowed for a two player versus match to be played by inserting a second controller.
In the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) port many of the features the arcade version were altered, downsampled, or removed. The graphic detail was vastly reduced and the character sprites were smaller. The stages with a 3D panning camera were simplified into a 2D panning view using parallax scrolling for the background and mode 7 for the ground or arena, thus simulating a pseudo-3D effect. Zooming and scaling were removed. Some of the stages were redesigned. The full motion videos that showed the characters after a victory were replaced by still images. Voice samples and sound effects were severely limited, whether shortened or missing altogether. 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. To make up for the loss of overall quality, some other modes were added, such as a training mode, a tournament mode (used for multi-player purposes), and other options. When released in Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada, and the United States the SNES game had black cartridge casing, instead of the standard grey shell. The TV advertisement for Canada and the United States showed a person cutting through the arcade cabinet with a chainsaw to reveal an SNES console with the game plugged in.Killer Cuts, an arranged soundtrack CD featuring original music from Killer Instinct was released as a pack-in for the SNES release of the game.
A Game Boy port was also made, but cuts were necessary due to the system's limitations. As a result, neither Cinder nor Riptor are featured and the moves were severely altered due to the more limited controls of the portable. The game supports some coloring when played in a Super Game Boy, which also allowed for a two player versus match to be played by inserting a second controller.
Reception
Upon its release on the SNES, VideoGames reviewer Tyrone Rodriguez gave the game a score of 8 (Great), stating his preference of it over Mortal Kombat 3 (the other editors' additional scores being 8-6-6).Computer and Video Games gave the game a 93%, adding: "Rare weren't lying when they said the home version would play better than the coin-op: no-one realised they were talking about the SNES!"
Retrospectively, Killer Instinct was ranked as the 148th best game made on any Nintendo system by Nintendo Power in 2006 and as the 19th best SNES game of all time by ScrewAttack in 2008. In 2007, CraveOnline users ranked it as the sixth top 2D fighter of all time, the staff calling it "the bastard child of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat." In 2008, ScrewAttack listed it as the fifth best fighting game of all time. That same year, GamePro ranked it as the 18th best fighting game.Virgin Media ranked it as the eight top beat 'em-up of all time in 2009, adding that Killer Instinct was "most famous for having the longest combos in the business." In 2010, it was ranked as the 10th top fighting game of all time by UGO.
Retrospectively, Killer Instinct was ranked as the 148th best game made on any Nintendo system by Nintendo Power in 2006 and as the 19th best SNES game of all time by ScrewAttack in 2008. In 2007, CraveOnline users ranked it as the sixth top 2D fighter of all time, the staff calling it "the bastard child of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat." In 2008, ScrewAttack listed it as the fifth best fighting game of all time. That same year, GamePro ranked it as the 18th best fighting game.Virgin Media ranked it as the eight top beat 'em-up of all time in 2009, adding that Killer Instinct was "most famous for having the longest combos in the business." In 2010, it was ranked as the 10th top fighting game of all time by UGO.
Legacy
A sequel titled Killer Instinct 2 was released in 1996. Like the first game, it was ported to a home console, this time to the Nintendo 64 as KI Gold.
Rumors continued to swirl years after the Killer Instinct game was produced of a possible follow-up. In March 2010, Rare's Ken Lobb announced that they are not working on Killer Instinct 3, but that they may bring Killer Instinct back someday. in July 2010, Lobb said Rare wants to make Killer Instinct 3. Rare studio manager Mark Betteridge said that Rare would like to bring Killer Instinct to the Xbox LIVE Arcade. In an August 2012 interview, Rare veteran Donnchadh Murphy said, "We all wanted to make KI3, but Microsoft [was] more interested in broadening their demographic than making another fighting game. So it never got made, I doubt it ever will." On September 17, 2012, Microsoft applied for renewal of the Killer Instinct trademark. In an October 2012 interview, Rare veteran Lee Musgrave, who was the former Head of Art at Rare, spoke on the issues of making Killer Instinct for XBLA: "We came close to firing off a conversion of Killer Instinct a few times, but there were licensing obstacles to that, and it never really had enough perceived interest to push it forward." On December 4, 2012, Microsoft's renewal for the Killer Instinct trademark was rejected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office due to the possibility of the game being confused with the unrelated TV series of the same name that lasted only for one season in 2005. Microsoft has six months to respond to the ruling but its spokesperson declined to comment about it to IGN.
Power metal band Powerglove made a heavy metal version of the theme song, entitled "Fight On," for their "Metal Kombat for the Mortal Man" album.
Rumors continued to swirl years after the Killer Instinct game was produced of a possible follow-up. In March 2010, Rare's Ken Lobb announced that they are not working on Killer Instinct 3, but that they may bring Killer Instinct back someday. in July 2010, Lobb said Rare wants to make Killer Instinct 3. Rare studio manager Mark Betteridge said that Rare would like to bring Killer Instinct to the Xbox LIVE Arcade. In an August 2012 interview, Rare veteran Donnchadh Murphy said, "We all wanted to make KI3, but Microsoft [was] more interested in broadening their demographic than making another fighting game. So it never got made, I doubt it ever will." On September 17, 2012, Microsoft applied for renewal of the Killer Instinct trademark. In an October 2012 interview, Rare veteran Lee Musgrave, who was the former Head of Art at Rare, spoke on the issues of making Killer Instinct for XBLA: "We came close to firing off a conversion of Killer Instinct a few times, but there were licensing obstacles to that, and it never really had enough perceived interest to push it forward." On December 4, 2012, Microsoft's renewal for the Killer Instinct trademark was rejected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office due to the possibility of the game being confused with the unrelated TV series of the same name that lasted only for one season in 2005. Microsoft has six months to respond to the ruling but its spokesperson declined to comment about it to IGN.
Power metal band Powerglove made a heavy metal version of the theme song, entitled "Fight On," for their "Metal Kombat for the Mortal Man" album.
