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Tattoo Assassins: One of the worst games to never come out

4:06 PM on 01.31.2008, Hamza CTZ Aziz 68 comments

     retro

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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Barcode's Avatar
Barcode at 01/31/2008 16:06
Wow....

The car was possibly the most annoying part. I had to stop the video after that. So.. so.. AWFUL!
loki d20's Avatar
loki d20 at 01/31/2008 16:07
This should have been packaged with some of the MK releases on the PS2, or even UMK on the DS...
Justice's Avatar
Justice at 01/31/2008 16:08
That game was hilarious due to it's mighty suckage
ajay42's Avatar
ajay42 at 01/31/2008 16:11
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
deiga-the-semivaliant at 01/31/2008 16:13
I remember reading about this back in the day.


Oh man....
Pagster's Avatar
Pagster at 01/31/2008 16:16
So this ink is called, ghize...erm? How you pronouncing that?
galagabug 's Avatar
galagabug at 01/31/2008 16:16
this game is palyable in mame. i've played it. i wish i hadn't.
MechaMonkey's Avatar
MechaMonkey at 01/31/2008 16:16
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
amalgamut00 at 01/31/2008 16:16
TRUCK WINS
moot button's Avatar
moot button at 01/31/2008 16:21
that deloreon went 88 mph over that guy's face!
fromagex's Avatar
fromagex at 01/31/2008 16:27
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
Crapsh00t at 01/31/2008 16:29
HIT AND STAY

Definitely worth a smirk.
Twosixteen's Avatar
Twosixteen at 01/31/2008 16:29
This is the greatest goddamn game ever made evar!
vp360's Avatar
vp360 at 01/31/2008 16:30
wow that suks
Senryoku's Avatar
Senryoku at 01/31/2008 16:31
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
Cheeburga at 01/31/2008 16:32
Best game evar.
manta's Avatar
manta at 01/31/2008 16:32
If it came out today, I'd pay 50 bucks for it.
Aertyr's Avatar
Aertyr at 01/31/2008 16:41
PERFECT WIN
Rockvillian's Avatar
Rockvillian at 01/31/2008 16:43
I want this cabinet
moot button's Avatar
moot button at 01/31/2008 16:47
do they make this for my PX-3600? if no, i say online petition time
kwaselow's Avatar
kwaselow at 01/31/2008 16:48
dude, i was so planning on doing a C-Blog post about this game.
BlackSunEmpire's Avatar
BlackSunEmpire at 01/31/2008 16:52
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
kevinski at 01/31/2008 16:54
Hahahaha...Hit and Stay really caught me off-guard.
mockery's Avatar
mockery at 01/31/2008 16:58
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
Jim Sterling at 01/31/2008 17:00
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
wario67 at 01/31/2008 17:01
OMG That music god fucking annoyning
and so did the " perfect kill" thing
wario67's Avatar
wario67 at 01/31/2008 17:01
OMG That music got fucking annoyning
and so did the " perfect kill" thing ^
Jordan Grim Devore's Avatar
Jordan Grim Devore at 01/31/2008 17:05
The VO guy responsible for saying "perfection" needs to be hurt.
Deathsaw's Avatar
Deathsaw at 01/31/2008 17:09
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
Niero at 01/31/2008 17:17
FUCK DATA EAST

FUCK TENGEN

That is all.
Brandon Undead's Avatar
Brandon Undead at 01/31/2008 17:19
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
kusarigama at 01/31/2008 17:19
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
F Whipple at 01/31/2008 17:19
I need a shower now
timtheterrible's Avatar
timtheterrible at 01/31/2008 17:22
This game is serious business.
cynicalllama's Avatar
cynicalllama at 01/31/2008 17:23
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
Brandon Undead at 01/31/2008 17:25
TIME KILLERS WIIIIIINZ!
bleep's Avatar
bleep at 01/31/2008 17:30
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
sTo0z at 01/31/2008 17:53
If I hear "AC WIN" one more time in my life I'm driving straight off a bridge.
flynsk's Avatar
flynsk at 01/31/2008 17:55
Did they just turn someone into "Whistler's mother?"

seriously, i fucking NEED this.
Sharpless's Avatar
Sharpless at 01/31/2008 18:00
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
Holiday at 01/31/2008 18:09
It's like the Showgirls of video games.
Clockwork's Avatar
Clockwork at 01/31/2008 18:10
They all look like Johnny Cage.
Wedge's Avatar
Wedge at 01/31/2008 18:16
I remember seeing an article on this game a long time ago. MSPaint combat ftw.
WhiteSpyderZero's Avatar
WhiteSpyderZero at 01/31/2008 18:17
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
lethaljim at 01/31/2008 18:18
i hope my own death is half as awesome as some of these
Holyetheline's Avatar
Holyetheline at 01/31/2008 18:18
I liked when the dude turned the other dude into a nun.
Cutie Honey's Avatar
Cutie Honey at 01/31/2008 18:26
BURGER TIME!
Eschatos's Avatar
Eschatos at 01/31/2008 18:32
Can't... watch...
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