Line #52 VideoGame/TattooAssassins


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7	-> ''"Everybody shot fire out of their asses. Everybody vomited. It was a free-for-all of weird shit that went into that game. (...) Some of them were amusing. Some of them were just pathetic. It was done half-assed."''
8	-->-- '''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20180210185023/http://gameological.com/2013/04/splattered-ink/ Jack Liddon]]''', developer of ''Tattoo Assassins''
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10	One of the many {{fighting game}}s [[FollowTheLeader that tried to copy]] ''Franchise/MortalKombat'', developed by Creator/DataEast (specifically, their pinball division, now known as [[Creator/{{Stern}} Stern Pinball]][[note]]This is not as strange as it might sound; many programmers from UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfVideoGames like Creator/EugeneJarvis and Creator/LarryDeMar got their start writing code for solid-state {{Pinball}} games.[[/note]]) at the height of the ''MK'' craze. [[VaporWare It was never actually released,]] but a mostly complete ROM has been found.
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12	The story began during development of Data East's ''Pinball/BackToTheFuture'' [[PhysicalPinballTables pinball game,]] when Data East executive Creator/JoeKaminkow became friends with ''BTTF'' producer Bob Gale. Bob subsequently talked to Joe about a script for a story about magic tattoos coming to life and fighting each other; Kaminkow decided to turn the story into a fighting game. He assembled a team of programmers and set out to cash in on the latest fad.
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14	Unfortunately, the game was given '''less than half''' of the budget and schedule of most arcade games of the time.
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16	The story revolves around the [[AppliedPhlebotinum Ink of Ghize]], a multi-colored ink that can come alive if applied as a tattoo. However, unless someone has a certain genetic makeup, they are turned into shambling mutants. Koldan, the only member of the Order of Colors’ Color Guard that can use the ink, decides to TakeOverTheWorld with a mutant army. The Order of Colors’ leader, Mullah Abba, recruits nine others to use the Ink, only for Koldan to MindControl them all. Enter Lyla Blue (played by [[Music/GunsNRoses Slash's]] then-wife, Renee Hudson), who can control any of the assassins.
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18	Gameplay wise... it's ''Mortal Kombat'', only buggier, less visually appealing, virtually characterless, and with [[ToiletHumor fart and diarrhea moves]]. The game's main feature was the (supposed) over two thousand finishing moves. Nearly all of them, however, involved things like summoning the [=DeLorean=] from ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'', turning someone into a bunless hot dog, or crushing them with a boat. They even had [[{{Fanservice}} Nudalities]].
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20	Although the game was almost finished, it was [[{{Vaporware}} ultimately cancelled]] due to negative tester feedback and fear that it would not be able to compete with other titles of the day, such as ''VideoGame/KillerInstinct''. There was a feature about the game in ''Magazine/ElectronicGamingMonthly'', but despite this, it was largely forgotten. It does have a small cult following, though.
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22	----
23	!!This game contains examples of:
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25	* AlliterativeName: Karla Keller, Hannah Hart.
26	* ArtificialStupidity: Pretty much anyone that's played this game can tell you it's entirely possible to [[AIBreaker just jump kick]] your way through the whole thing. The AI is really that stupid.
27	* CaptainErsatz: Granted, since the game was trying to play FollowTheLeader with ''Franchise/MortalKombat''. For example, A.C. Current is Johnny Cage with Raiden's powers, Derek O' Toole with his red headband looks like Liu Kang, and perhaps most blatantly, Luke Cord is Jax with an octopus on his chest.
28	** Then there is Rhina for Sheeva, Billy Two Moons for Nightwolf and Koldan for Shang Tsung.
29	* CaptainEthnic: Billy Two Moons. If there was a "Mr. Native American Stereotype" competition, he and Pakawa from ''VideoGame/KasumiNinja'' would be fighting for first prize.
30	* DemBones:
31	** Prizm, who is a skeleton [[RockMonster encased in crystal]].
32	** Derek's tattoo is a skeleton. It can kill his opponent by either [[SkeletalMusician playing an electric guitar]] that [[MusicalAssassin makes you explode]], or by spitting a glob of acid.
33	* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: One of the characters is named "AC Current". Given his electric theme, AC most likely stands for "Alternating Current". So his full name is "Alternating Current Current".
34	* DigitizedSprites: Like its inspiration, this game uses pictures of real people as the basis for its sprites.
35	* FakeDifficulty: The four bosses have their animations play at double speed, so their wake-up is nearly instantaneous.
36	* FanDisservice: The "Nudalities" become significantly less interesting when you realize about 2/3rds of the cast are large, fairly ugly men.
37	* {{Fartillery}}: All characters can attack with farts that come out and curve upward.
38	* FinishingMove: Allegedly over two thousand of them. Each character had two to four unique finishing moves. All characters also had access to a communal pot of finishers, most of which involved things like falling [=DeLoreans=] or turning the loser into Whistler's Mother. There are also the Nudalities, one per character. The devs calculated the total number of fatalities by multiplying the communal finishers by the number of characters, giving a grossly inflated number.
39	* ForcedTransformation: A lot of the finishers turn the opponent into an animal or object. Most of them are just represented by a still image of whatever they're supposed to become replacing your opponent's graphic.
40	* GroinAttack: ''All three'' female characters castrate Koldan in their FlawlessVictory endings. Some of the characters can also do this in game, complete with [[EyePop the opponent's eyes popping out]].
41	* LarynxDissonance: The imperfect sound emulation in the MAME ROM shuffles everyone's voice samples, making everyone say and scream things that don't match their character, and in some cases, playing samples at the wrong times, making them say things like "Get up and fight" and "Navy rules" when they uppercut the opponent.
42	* MeaningfulName: A.C. Current, who has electric-based powers.
43	* MultipleEndings: Kinda. Each character has two newspaper clippings: one, which "resolves" their plotline (most of them don't actually match the bios -- most JustForFun/{{egregious}}ly, Karla's bio states she's seeking revenge against her rival Eva Gunther, but her ending is "[[ImGoingToDisneyWorld I'm Going To Disneyland!]]"), you get the normal way; the other, which describes the character doing something horrible to Koldan, you get by defeating him with a FlawlessVictory in the match-point round. DoWellButNotPerfect if you want the more satisfying conclusion.
44	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Mullah Abba, who is supposed to be the wise mentor of the game, does this ''twice'' before the game even ''begins''. Firstly he tattoos Koldan in an effort to make him into a better bodyguard, only to turn him into a genocidal supervillain instead. Then the Mullah tattoos nine other people in an effort to stop Koldan, only for Koldan to seize control of eight of them and use them for his own ends.
45	* {{Not}}: Due to incomplete emulation, Koldan yells this during each VersusCharacterSplash instead of laughing like he's supposed to.
46	* PlotHole: Hannah Hart's bio states she's looking for the man who killed her best friend, but her ending states that the killer murdered her ''sister''.
47	* PunnyName: The boss character Deke Cay, who is a zombie.
48	* RefugeInAudacity
49	-->'''Joe Kaminkow:''' All I can say is, we had no good taste, no good decorum, and no good style. There almost wasn’t anything that was off limits.
50	* RippedFromTheHeadlines: There are references to [[ImAHumanitarian Jeffrey Dahmer]], [[StrawFeminist Lorena]] [[GroinAttack Bobbitt]], and Aldrich Ames, and a whole character based on Nancy Kerrigan.
51	* ShoutOut: Even they have it, believe.
52	** One of the fatalities involves dropping a [=DeLorean=] on the enemy. All because the guy who wrote the "story" for the game was the aforementioned screenwriter from ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture''.
53	** Also, another of the finishers is a ShoutOut to ''VideoGame/BurgerTime'', an early Data East title.
54	** Yet another Fatality turns the loser into a bunless hot dog. The caption? "I wish I was a..."
55	** One of Tak Hata's Fatalities involve his tattoo laying an egg, which hatches into a two-headed [[Series/BarneyAndFriends Barney]] {{Expy}}.
56	* ToiletHumor: You can kill an opponent with flaming diarrhea and every character has a [[{{Fartillery}} fart attack]].
57	* ToplessnessFromTheBack: Lyla Blue serves as the game's character select screen, with your cursor highlighting the tattoos on her bare back.
58	* TotallyRadical: This is a very obvious DarkerAndEdgier rip off ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' with magical tattoos and fart jokes, so you could just call it ''The Nineties, the Video Game''.

Context VideoGame / TattooAssassins