"A New Standard"

-Visuals 9/10-

Killer Instinct, greets any player just stepping up to the arcade machine for the first time with some pretty fast moving frame rates, exceptional character designs and wicked looking combinations that flow nicely without much in terms of image break up, slow down, or missing frame rates. Each stage is well detailed, and fit each character specifically, giving the player the true sense of the animated characters personality.

While it does give you something to look at, the characters and what they do will keep you riveted to the screen. Looking further into that, the special effects come complete with flying sparks when blocked, and super fast Ultra Combos. You’ll see that a lot of effort was put into just the visual side of this game, given the speed and character flow when watched. Every move, and every special move look exceptionally realistic.

-Audio 9/10-

To break it down completely, you have a variety of music to listen to, spanning from dance music, to rap, to a form of heavy metal that can really be a treat for the ears. Every stage comes complete with a tune that makes you almost feel the groove of the in-game battle and after listening to it a few times, you may find yourself falling into the rhythm that the game is intended to have: Fast and furious.

The sound effects range from grunts, thuds, yells and various special move effects that sound relatively good coming from the stereo cabinet speakers. While playing, you may notice the 3-D effect on the speakers if the volume is up high enough. That shows true dedication to the actual in-game programming that went into Killer Instinct.

-Control 8/10-

For what it’s worth, the game control is somewhat difficult to get used to with the standard button layout. Set up much like the Street Fighter cabinets, you'll find yourself at home with the way that the buttons are set. With the three punch buttons, and then the three kick buttons, the switch up between buttons presses will be daunting at first, but slowly will come together with practice.

Through the game, you’ll find that most of the special moves require a lot of timing, and a lot of button presses at just the right moments. The standard arcade control also delivers this with enough practice, and you’ll find that pulling off the massive combo’s are pretty easy to do and you won’t break a sweat.

-Gameplay 8/10-

The cream of the game is the combo system. Dropping you in the middle of a battle, it takes different button presses at different times to pull off good looking combo’s that can either damage your opponent, or severely boost your own ego. When playing, you’ll see that pulling off the combo’s takes a little practice, but the only way to break them off is with Combo Breakers that are done with another movement of the control stick. Most of the game centers around this combo system, and to find every combo, takes days, if not weeks to master with just a single character. This boosts the replay value severely in terms of just trying to learn who does what and in what fashion they do it.

The true gaming mode of this game is the one player battles, and through this you will probably spend most of your time just trying out the various button combinations to see what kind of combo’s you can come up with and how fast you can pull them off. Each character has a specific way they move, with being fast but doing little damage, or being very slow but pulling off some of the most massively damaging combos in the game. There is that fine mix of easy and hard here, and to learn it all, will take up alot of quarters, and alot of time.

The computer AI can be pretty cheap at some points, forcing you to switch up your strategies if you’re having your combo’s broken all the time. The Combo Breaker system itself runs on a “Rock-Paper-Scissors” type of play, in which each combo that starts, can be broken with the Combo Breaker movement and a button that is one high than the combo started with. This seems confusing, but it’s all a part of the replay, in learning what moves with what buttons do what things and how each one of them looks.

-Overall 8/10-

Killer Instinct is a great fighting game that incorporates several different styles into one explosive game. With each character mastered, you are almost forced to move onto another character just to learn what they do, and how to counter out their combo’s. It seems like a daunting task, but in the end, with the great visuals, the awesome soundtrack, the control system, and then the intricate command system, you’re faced with a game that isn’t just a fighting game, but an impressive learning game.

This game is worth the quarters spent, and even if you're a first time fighting game player, Killer Instinct is a good place to start. If you're a Street Fighter fan, this game might not be your cup of tea, but it is an enjoyable experience, and can be quite competitive. Either way, Killer Instinct is a game that you will enjoy time and time again.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/01, Updated 01/03/01