The things you find in mame, has got to be the saddest game of all time.

[Beretta]

randomly trying out games i never played before i come across this "gem"
"Tattoo Assassins"

never heard of it.. or have i.. i did'nt realize it at first but i had heard of this gamepro back in the early 90's.

i did'nt remember the name but i remember one of the "unique" things about it was a fatality by diarrhea (perhaps a one up to chao's golden shower fatality on primal rage?), surely this has to be that game.

anyway it apparently never made it to production as its only a prototype, checking maws i was treated with some of the games history which is so sad it's funny.

http://maws.mameworld.info/maws/romset/tattass

here's some highlights

"I remember this moment vividly--working away at 3:30 a.m. one morning. I was so physically exhausted that I casually leaned over to the garbage can and vomited, after which I went right back to tapping away. My fingers never left the keyboard."

"Our biggest deadline was the ACME convention. We made it there with a game that played, but there were no special moves for any characters except for one electric zap thrown in for A. C. Current just before we got on the plane. The game was a joke but no one seemed to notice--we were congratulated at having made it that far, which was impressive only if you knew the whole story. One guy at the show made a point over and over again that he could get through the entire game start to finish by pounding the electric zap button over and over with one finger. I wanted to beat him senseless."

"The biggest problem at this point was that we were all completely burned out. We knew the game was crap, and that we were no longer capable of fixing it. After we got back from the show, we were so "crispy" that we no longer cared about the money--our only true reward for finishing up was that we wouldn't have to work on it anymore. The artwork looked pretty bad because it had all been a rush job to make the show. This was an incredible shame because the artists were so talented, but their talent were being scuttled in dealing with the crappy video source. New artists were brought on to help pitch in, but it was too little too late.".

"New games like "Primal Rage" and "Killer Instinct" came out, and they blew Tattoo Assassins away. We resisted violently any attempt to change the game to make it better, because that would mean we would be working on it longer -- I've since read about this attitude being common in projects where coders are placed under very high pressure. The artists were hoping that the programmers would come up with some new game play feature to make the game sell, regardless of the quality of the graphics, whereas programmers were hoping that the ARTISTS would miraculously 'beautify' things so that the game would sell regardless of the game play. One programmer actually stopped working almost entirely in the hopes of getting fired -- he had signed a three year contract and would have to be paid off in a huge way if he got fired. He wanted out anyway to go get married and start up his own dot-com.".

"I remember our testers. One of them posted some really scathing stuff to Usenet. We had several of our competitors' games in the lab with our TAs, and we'd have to go down to the lab every half hour to stop them playing pinball and make them go back to playing our game. We couldn't even PAY people to play TA it seems ".

[SavannahLion]

Isn't there a movie with this concept?

[Ummon]

Hey, happens in every medium. A History of Violence is a supreme recent example, at least in how bad it was, but how great the cast was.

[Beretta]

Isn't there a movie with this concept?

ya i seen a movie with a guy in it that had tattoos that could come alive..
had like a bear and a eagle i think maybe something else.

i dont remember what movie that was though.. but i dont remember seeing any movie where living tattoo's was the main plot.. although there could very well exist one.

honestly the game has some potential.. i do stress SOME.

trying out most of the fatalities i find that most of them are just plain stupid.

the game is pure cheese, it is aparent that about 85% of the games concept was lifted directly from mortal kombat and spun a bit, which is really no surprise since it was born from the idea of ripping mortal kombat off and trying to out do them in the first place.

the game is pretty uninspiring right down to the crappy character names as well as most of the levels.

one of the things that really hamstrings the game is the way the characters move.. it is very slow.. you can see moves coming a mile a way it's like playing mortal kombat at half speed although it does allow for some crazy juggles combos which are fun for a few mins.

it seems once you hit danger your character goes into hyper speed.. so it would seem the choppy slow movement is intentional rather then a hardware limitation.

anyway the really "so sad it's funny" part of this game is'nt the gameplay, it is'nt the graphics, it is'nt the fact that it's a nearly complete rip off, it is'nt the lame levels, names, moves or characters..

it's the tid bits from the programmers own mouth, the behind the scene story.

although considering none of them had any experience making a video game prior to this i give them props for effort but it's hard to imagine a more pathetic backstory to a games development.

[shardian]

What was up with tattoos back in the early/mid 90's???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tattooed_Teenage_Alien_Fighters_from_Beverly_Hills

[ChadTower]

AKA Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ripoff 235

[Ummon]

ya i seen a movie with a guy in it that had tattoos that could come alive..
had like a bear and a eagle i think maybe something else.

Might've been the film adaptation of Bradbury's The Illustrated Man.



On the tattoo fighters thing:

The teens could then stand atop platforms called "Transo Discs" and transform into "Galactic Sentinels" with super powers. When they put their hands together in an interlocking square they form the ultimate sentinel called Nitron. However Nitron's power is "finite," and they are only to form him as a last resort (for example, in the first episode of the series, when Ninjabot made the teens' weapons disappear, they had no choice but to form Nitron).

Looks as it was a weird combination rip-off of, in no particular order: TMNT/Duper Rangers, Voltron, Captain Power....and perhaps PSI-FORCE (a Marvel 'New Universe' title).

[Ginsu Victim]

Hey, happens in every medium. A History of Violence is a supreme recent example, at least in how bad it was, but how great the cast was.

87% on Rottentomatoes.com

7.6/10 on IMDb

ya i seen a movie with a guy in it that had tattoos that could come alive..
had like a bear and a eagle i think maybe something else.

Might've been the film adaptation of Bradbury's The Illustrated Man.

I agree. First thing I thought of.

[Ummon]

Hey, happens in every medium. A History of Violence is a supreme recent example, at least in how bad it was, but how great the cast was.

87% on Rottentomatoes.com

7.6/10 on IMDb

Mmmm-mmm-mmmm. I thought it was super cliche, and a silly story with silly character responses.

[PsychoAU]

On the tattoo fighters thing:

The teens could then stand atop platforms called "Transo Discs" and transform into "Galactic Sentinels" with super powers. When they put their hands together in an interlocking square they form the ultimate sentinel called Nitron. However Nitron's power is "finite," and they are only to form him as a last resort (for example, in the first episode of the series, when Ninjabot made the teens' weapons disappear, they had no choice but to form Nitron).

Looks as it was a weird combination rip-off of, in no particular order: TMNT/Duper Rangers, Voltron, Captain Power....and perhaps PSI-FORCE (a Marvel 'New Universe' title).

It was mainly one of the several Power Rangers rip-offs.  I remember it because I thought the chick in purple was hot.  I had found a website a couple of months ago that had 3 episodes available for streaming.  Very campy, but in a good way.

[CadeFreak]

"""ya i seen a movie with a guy in it that had tattoos that could come alive..
had like a bear and a eagle i think maybe something else.""""

(Think that movie is Marvel's Electra....!)
 

[Beretta]

yup that was it, an utterly forgettable movie imo.