Lost Classics: Bloodstorm (Arcade)

Mortal Kombat caused a huge shakeup in the fighting game genre. MK stood in direct opposition to Capcom and SNK with its button tap friendly, yet accessible special moves and combos in contrast to the complicated joystick motions of Fatal Fury and Street Fighter. Although the character designs were simple, they had well developed backgrounds, making the game’s backstory more fleshed out than the usual “some guy wants to know who the world’s strongest fighter is so he holds a tournament” story we see in 90% of fighting games at the time. The game also featured digitized actors with motion capturing. While it looks incredibly cheesy by today’s standards, it gave the game an unprecedented level of realism for its time. Oh, and there was one other big thing about it…oh yeah, that’s right, the blood. Punches and kicks drew blood, bodies were decapitated, hearts were pulled from chests as they were still beating, spines were ripped out, parents everywhere had fits, and politicians sensed opportunity.

Like many big gaming movements before and after MK, many games sought to imitate what made it special. Rather than presenting gamers with an equally accessible play control scheme or fully fleshed out characters, the companies decided to concentrate on the gore. As a result, we got games such as Incredible Technologies/Strata’s (keep these names in mind as they will come up again later on in the article) Time Killers and the 3DO ‘classic’, Way of the Warrior. While the latter game at least went the extra mile to use digitized actors, the play control and character designs of both games were so bad, that they actually rank among the greatest games of all time (albeit for all the wrong reasons). There were good games that used blood as a selling point as well. Eternal Champions, or rather its Sega CD iteration contained lots of hidden secrets, as well as a fighting game based on real-life styles that was more akin to Street Fighter than Mortal Kombat. Primal Rage set itself apart by not only featuring Dinosaurs and prehistoric apes as its characters, but by having a unique style of control motions that had players holding down the attack buttons while entering the motions. One game that stands in the middle is Strata/IT/Chun Soft’s Bloodstorm. While the play control and character designs leave a bit to be desired, it featured some unique gameplay mechanics which would have made it a classic had they been developed further.

The intro sequence sets up the tone for the game, depicting the world’s emperor in his final moments just before his grisly assassination. Not a pretty sight either, as he has been slashed opened from top to bottom, intestines hanging out, and everything. The world wasn’t doing as well with him in charge, as it takes place in a future on an Earth ravaged by plagues, radiation, disease, war, and a poopload of other bad things, and now that he’s gone, things are even worse. Several warriors have stepped up to take his place. Now we could do this the democratic way and have a campaign, complete with tv ads, debates, catchy slogans, and campaign stops, but where is the fun in that? Instead, they decide to hold a tournament to decided who the new leader will be.

If you had the ‘honor’ of playing Time Killers, this game plays similar, but a little more refined. Each character has their own set of moves. Limbs can be cut off, forcing the player to fight the rest of the round without them. There are instant kills, stage kills, and fatalities. Also, each character has their own special weapon (called a gauntlet) and when you beat that character, you gain it for yourself and can use it at any time. It’s kind of like a bloody version of Mega Man. You can also save your character’s progress using a password (unfortunately it only lasts until the machine is turned off). There are lots of secrets to discover, including hidden bosses, hidden taunt codes, and even big head codes (one of which is senator Joe Liberman, and I hope Obama is reading this as he can decapitate him real easy). If you though trying to find Noob Saibot in MK2 was ridiculous, wait until you see what you have to do in order to fight Dimentia. As little as they actually did with the gameplay compared to Time Killers, Strata/IT did even less with the character designs, as they are among the worst I’ve seen anywhere since an 80s Arnold Schwarzenegger Sci-Fi. As a matter of fact, the final boss Nekron looks like the mongoloid offspring of a broken Optimus Prime toy and an Alien.

Character designs ripped from the Running Man aside, Bloodstorm is pretty fun even if unpolished. If some more work had been put on a sequel, then Bloodstorm would have given Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter a run for their money. Sadly, this would not be the case as Strata would go out of business shortly after this game’s release. Incredible Technologies would go on to make an arcade game based on the Street Fighter movie (the Jean Claude Van Damme live-action crapfest, not the awesome anime classic). After that, they went back to the Golden Tee and Silver Star Bowling games that put them on the map, effectively making Bloodstorm into abandonware, which are games that are no longer supported (usually due to the original developer/publisher going out of business), but haven’t gone into free domain yet, so it’s still illegal to own this game’s ROM if you don’t have the arcade cabinet. Sad too, as this is a game just begging for an Xbox Live Arcade re-release.

Oh I almost forgot about this arcade advertisement. You see, this was the real reason that Sub Zero unmasked while Johnny Cage and Scorpion simply no-showed in Mortal Kombat 3. Dan Pesina (the actor who played the three in MK I and II if you haven’t already figured it out) was fired by Midway after this ad was done, and for good reason. Depicting someone’s intellectual property in an advertisement for their competitor’s product is a no-no. This rule holds even if you’re the guy who was actually assigned to play him by the IP’s owner. This game has another Midway connection, although a bit more legal and a bit less controversial. Luis Mangubat, who did this game’s character designs was picked up by Midway to do character models and designs for NFL Blitz, Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance, Deception, and Armageddon. As MK fans no doubt know by now, his designs have improved immensely since retarded Optimus Prime guy.