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Our pals over at I-Mockery have unearthed an arcade game that, thankfully, was never released to the general public. The game is called Tattoo Assassins and it was designed to compete with Mortal Kombat. The game was made by Data East's pinball division in a period of eight months before getting canceled.

As far as the story goes, well, Off-road Velocirapter Safari has a better story line than this piece of crap:

Mullah Abba, a grown man in diapers, has discovered a magic ink that can come to life for brief periods of time. You could use it to tattoo people, too, but only certain people could receive the tattoos without coming to harm. One of those lucky few was a guy named Koldan, who then wanted to take over the world. Mullah Abba then sends his "color guard" to find nine people worthy of the ink in the hopes that at least one would be able to stop Koldan. Unfortunately, Koldan then possessed every last one of them, but Mullah Abba had one more trick up his sleeve: a woman named Lyla Blue, who will allow you, the player, to possess one Tattoo Assassin and take on Koldan and the rest... IF YOU DARE!!!

The game had no way of every being able to compete with Mortal Kombat. The developers knew that though so they went ahead and loaded the game up with hundreds of different fatalities. Some of the fatalities include a car running over your opponent, turning your foe into a giant hotdog, farting cooked turkeys out of your ass, an eagle pooping acid on your enemies and making your enemies naked with the Nude-alitie.

There's plenty more info on this abomination over at I-Mockery. There is a rom of Tattoo Assassins floating somewhere out on the Internet for those of you who dare give this a try. I think my favorite part about this entire game is that there is a character based off of Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding incident from the '94 Olympics. She even has ice skates on while fighting.


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68 comments | showing # 1 to 50

MrSadistic's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:03
MrSadistic
Oh man, Tattoo Assassin's had the most cheesy finishing moves. The game itself is so bad that it's good.
king3vbo's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:05
king3vbo
Holy crap... that is just awful
Barcode's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:06
Barcode
Wow....

The car was possibly the most annoying part. I had to stop the video after that. So.. so.. AWFUL!
loki d20's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:07
loki d20
This should have been packaged with some of the MK releases on the PS2, or even UMK on the DS...
Justice's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:08
Justice
That game was hilarious due to it's mighty suckage
ajay42's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:11
ajay42
Wait, what?! No way does any game where you can turn your enemy into a vandalized copy of American Gothic fail! That is pure epic win.
deiga-the-semivaliant's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:13
deiga-the-semivaliant
I remember reading about this back in the day.


Oh man....
Pagster's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:16
Pagster
So this ink is called, ghize...erm? How you pronouncing that?
galagabug 's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:16
galagabug
this game is palyable in mame. i've played it. i wish i hadn't.
MechaMonkey's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:16
MechaMonkey
2196 fatalities? Methinks not. Let's count them, shall we?

1) Drop ridiculous object on other person
2) Turn other person into ridiculous object
3) Make other person's head explode
4) Spit out something that drops acid
5) Run other person over ("Hit and stay", Lord have mercy upon us...)
6) Scalp other person
7) Make other person naked, which doesn't actually kill them, and therefore cannot be called a fatality.

7. 7 licks to get to the center of this game.
amalgamut00's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:16
amalgamut00
TRUCK WINS
moot button's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:21
moot button
that deloreon went 88 mph over that guy's face!
fromagex's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:27
fromagex
Wait, we're calling this bad? Seems pretty awesome to me. I would have loved to have a humor based fighting game.
Crapsh00t's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:29
Crapsh00t
HIT AND STAY

Definitely worth a smirk.
Twosixteen's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:29
Twosixteen
This is the greatest goddamn game ever made evar!
vp360's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:30
vp360
wow that suks
Senryoku's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:31
Senryoku
One of the comments linked another site that had "An Insider's Report" which sounded like hell to work on this game.

http://www.bunnyears.net/tattoo/
Cheeburga's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:32
Cheeburga
Best game evar.
manta's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:32
manta
If it came out today, I'd pay 50 bucks for it.
Aertyr's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:41
Aertyr
PERFECT WIN
Rockvillian's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:43
Rockvillian
I want this cabinet
moot button's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:47
moot button
do they make this for my PX-3600? if no, i say online petition time
kwaselow's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:48
kwaselow
dude, i was so planning on doing a C-Blog post about this game.
BlackSunEmpire's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:52
BlackSunEmpire
Public Health message at 4:20 Smoking Kills.

Interesting choice of time.

I watched 4 minutes of that crap, I feel dirty.
kevinski's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:54
kevinski
Hahahaha...Hit and Stay really caught me off-guard.
mockery's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 16:58
mockery
My favorite is still the "EAT SHIP AND DIE!" fatality. So much randomness in that game... but yeah, somebody should take on the task of building their own Tattoo Assassins arcade cabinet since there are supposedly only like 2 in existence (one of which was apparently destroyed). You could probably find a bunch of the artwork 'n stuff for it to make a convincing reproduction of it. Just imagine how people would kneel before you when you showed off your perfectly functional Tattoo Assassins cabinet as the centerpiece in your living room. These are the things dreams are made of, my friends...
Jim Sterling's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 17:00
Jim Sterling
This is the game I wrote about for IGN. I happen to know someone who worked on the production team for it.
wario67's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 17:01
wario67
OMG That music god fucking annoyning
and so did the " perfect kill" thing
wario67's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 17:01
wario67
OMG That music got fucking annoyning
and so did the " perfect kill" thing ^
Jordan Devore's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 17:05
Jordan Devore
The VO guy responsible for saying "perfection" needs to be hurt.
Deathsaw's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 17:09
Deathsaw
I'm not sure what's worse: The horribly unimaginative fatalities or the god-awful animations. Needless to say, Maya DOES win......the failure award.
Niero's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 17:17
Niero
FUCK DATA EAST

FUCK TENGEN

That is all.
Brandon Undead's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 17:19
Brandon Undead
I really think they messed up not releasing this. Every time I ripped a head off someone's body with it's spine still dangling, I thought to myself, "I really wish I had just high punched furiously until this bastard turned into a squirrel." I did.
kusarigama's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 17:19
kusarigama
No matter how bad this game is, it can in no way be as bad a Shaq Fu. Playing that game was the most miserable 20 seconds of my life.
F Whipple's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 17:19
F Whipple
I need a shower now
timtheterrible's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 17:22
timtheterrible
This game is serious business.
cynicalllama's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 17:23
cynicalllama
I want you all to stop this needless ranting. This game is part of the top three tier of games far too good for anyone to ever realize. The others of course being Time Killers and Blood Storm. Well worth finding the roms for! wait wut?
Brandon Undead's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 17:25
Brandon Undead
TIME KILLERS WIIIIIINZ!
bleep's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 17:30
bleep
Wow I think I can die a happy man now that I've seen an indian turn someone into a squirrel and then do a war dance/ chant......they really needed a poop sock fatality
sTo0z's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 17:53
sTo0z
If I hear "AC WIN" one more time in my life I'm driving straight off a bridge.
flynsk's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 17:55
flynsk
Did they just turn someone into "Whistler's mother?"

seriously, i fucking NEED this.
Sharpless's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 18:00
Sharpless
That was amazingly awful. Particularly Lyla. *wink* And Maya shoots fucking tigers... that's a little awesome. (And I'm positive there was a bare boob in her nudity "fatality.")
Holiday's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 18:09
Holiday
It's like the Showgirls of video games.
Clockwork's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 18:10
Clockwork
They all look like Johnny Cage.
Wedge's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 18:16
Wedge
I remember seeing an article on this game a long time ago. MSPaint combat ftw.
WhiteSpyderZero's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 18:17
WhiteSpyderZero
I believe the guy who played Johnny Cage in MK 1 & 2 was in the advertising campaign for this game...In the Cage outfit

Needless to say Midway were not amused, and fired his ass - Hence his disappearance from MK3
lethaljim's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 18:18
lethaljim
i hope my own death is half as awesome as some of these
Holyetheline's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 18:18
Holyetheline
I liked when the dude turned the other dude into a nun.
Cutie Honey's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 18:26
Cutie Honey
BURGER TIME!
Eschatos's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/31/2008 18:32
Eschatos
Can't... watch...
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