Yeah, that’s pretty lame. I’m sure there are a couple hundred pink octopus jokes to be made here, but I’m just too damned lazy to stoop to that level.

The fighting system is spot-on when compared to MK II. You’ve got your high and low punches and kicks along with a block button. Hell, even the trademark uppercuts and roundhouses to send your opponent flying across the screen are here. The only differentiating factor is a button that might have been labeled “special”, which allows you to unleash one of three special attacks you can choose at the character select screen that let your characters pull out lame weapons like kendo sticks, crowbars, and deadly icicles that stab at male crotches with horrifying results. The game even goes to middle school levels of maturity and even sports a hidden fart attack. Oh the hilarity of it all.

In all, the game boasts 224 fatalities. In addition to character-specific fatalities, there are a number of lame fatalities that any character can execute including exploding cigars, turning characters into the Mona Lisa, a Burgertime fatality, and even the ability to drop a god damn Delorean on your opponent in honor of the enigmatic writer of the game’s lame premise. The game even addresses the rampant rumors of the Mortal Kombat games by adding nudalities and animalities, which to its credit, TA did before Mortal Kombat 3 with even lamer results (see: pink octopus, above). Perhaps the absolute worst of these alternate fatalities was the “Turkey Fart” fatality where your character emits a turkey from their ass that bounces around the screen knocking everyone down. For that, I brandish my most sarcastic laugh: Har-dee-har-har-har. The maturity level goes even lower as Billy Two Moons summons a bird that secretes acidic shit on your opponent’s head and even a secret diarrhea attack that takes twenty-five percent of your opponent’s health. You’ll even get fatalities by executing a simple uppercut or roundhouse…though the roundhouse fatality is pretty lame, you can’t deny the blood fountain of the uppercut fatality is a neat touch – much better than the MKII blood ball that came out of torsos.

Graphically, Tattoo Assassins wanted to look as much like Mortal Kombat II as possible…and succeeded to varying degrees. The style was definitely there, but the characters weren’t animated as well nor were the transitions between animations any good. It made the game look like a wooden puppet show; really, especially when you’d sweep your opponent to watch them fall down, then immediately stand upright one frame later. The whole thing just looks sloppy, but I suppose that’s what you get when you get a digitized fighting game made by the pinball division of a company who loves to capitalize on the ideas of others. Perhaps the most ridiculous of all is the ice skater who is always sporting her ice skates and can skate across pavement, tile, and any other surface with the greatest of ease.

The backgrounds vary from the extremely bland to something looking like it was ripped right from Mortal Kombat II or 3. Some areas seem to go out of their way to look barren or lame, giving you no clue what in the hell they are. For instance, one level has you doing battle in a street in front of a tattoo parlor, but for no reason whatsoever, a bald eagle floats almost motionless in mid-air. Other levels look inexplicably barren and boring, as if the artists thought that adding bloodstains on the ground would somehow spruce things up. Levels are full of branding with the obligatory MK ripoff logo making appearances in nearly every level. Granted, there’s gore here…but it all looks lame in execution. The blood looks totally watered down, the fatality effects lack any of the proverbial “oomph” that the Mortal Kombat fatalities gave us, and while the multiple rib cages and skulls of MKII were funny, they’re still far cooler in comparison with this stuff.

The game’s sound further attempts to mimic the effects of the Mortal Kombat games. Everything from the voices during battle, to the music, to the little touches like the sound effects when you choose a character are all copies. Granted, this game is in prototype form, but there are some weird occurrences at work. All of the women sound like guys when they get uppercuts, and everyone from the girliest girl to the Asian stereotype that is Tak will occasionally yell the phrase “Navy Rules!” Game bug or the work of an in-the-closet developer…you decide.

While it saw a limited release in test markets, Tattoo Assassins never saw the light of day. Only four machines existed after the fiasco was said and done, to which one was nearly destroyed in a flood. To call this game a blatant rip-off is a sheer understatement, and despite not ever being released, it deserves a place here based on principle alone. This was the first project of Data East's pinball division, but they realized halfway through development that the game just plain sucked. By then, Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat 3 were right around the corner and had already outdone it. Let’s just hope Data East isn’t resurrected like SNK to bring us a DOA knock-off. That would just be Armageddon waiting to happen. To get a developer's side of the story, visit Dan's Tattoo Assassins page.