Thrill Kill

"Probably one of the best games you'll never play....and there's not that many....."

Thrill Kill is a one of a kind game. It's probably one of the best games that you'll never be able to play, and there's not that many of them.
Back in 1997, a company called Virgin Interactive had an idea to develop a four player fighting game that catered to adults and adults only. They made the game knowing full well that the content in it would probably get them an AO rating.

But they didn't care because the game was a fighting game that was tailor made for adults, not kids. So, they made an insanely violent, gory, balls to the wall fighting game that was supposed to give Mortal Kombat a run for it's money (and it probably would have, had it been released).

The game was pretty much completed, but to nobodies surprise, it was tagged with an AO rating, which pretty much means commercial suicide since most retailers don't carry AO rated games. So, the game was edited down a bit (not much), and it received an M rating.

It was done, ready to ship. A few weeks before it was set to hit stores, Virgin was bought out by EA, who played the game, and deemed that it was so disgustingly violent that they would not release it. They thought it was so horrible that they even denied other publishers and companies the chance to purchase the rights to the game and re-release it. When compared to Mortal Kombat, EA heads said “Mortal Kombat is a fighting game. Thrill Kill is a killing game.”

Aside from the fact that this statement is completely contradictory, it's an utter load of crap. First, Mortal Kombat WAS a killing game, in case they didn't notice. You KILLED your opponents. Second, Mortal Kombat 4 was out at around the same time, maybe later, and it was, in my opinion, more violent than this.

So, EA canned the game, locked it away, and decided that it would never see the light of day….ever. So angry developers leaked it onto the internet, and there you have it.

All the hype about this game was about the fact that it was supposed to be the most violent game ever made. Honestly, after playing it, it really isn't, even for 1997. Aside from the fact that there's not THAT much gore, it's so over the top and campy that nobody could have really taken it seriously. It's not much more violent than an 80's slasher movie.

That's not to say that the game ISN'T dark; it's probably one of the darkest games that comes to my mind, but honestly, it's not that bloody. It's just the story and characters and their actions that make the game so notoriously crazy.

The game also pales in comparison to what's out these days. The first ten minutes of Manhunt is worse than this entire game, and so are the other Mortal Kombat games, not to mention Grand Theft Auto. Still, aside from all the hype about the game's content, it was known that the game was a technical feat for the Playstation back in the day, because it was the first fighting game (that wasn't a wrestling game) that allowed four players to duke it out.

So me, being a fan of interesting things, made it a goal, NAY, resolution to play this game at least once in my life. When I finally played it, I was pretty happy, because this is probably the best game that you'll never be able to play, and I was one of only a few dozen people that actually played this.

First, what got my attention was all the crazy notoriety that this game got. I wanted to see for myself if this game was indeed the goriest and sickest game of all time. Second, as I started reading more information about it, the overall general storyline caught my interest. This game's story and character structure is almost like Twisted Metal: Black, which was a pretty bad-ass game.

The story goes like this: In hell, the devil Maruka (I think that was the name) gets bored one day and decides to create a tournament, in which certain inhabitants of hell duke it out, with the winner being reborn on earth and given a second chance at life. All these characters have unique histories, because like Twisted Metal: Black characters, all of them have committed horrible atrocities.

You have Cletus, who hunted, captured, mutilated and ate his victims; you have Belladonna, a dominatrix that murdered her husband; you have Dr, Faustus, a crazy surgeon that murdered his patients and grafted a bear trap over his own mouth, and a former judge that would let guilty criminals walk free just so he could capture them and viciously torture and murder them himself.

This is just the tip of the iceberg; there's plenty of other crazy psychos to choose from. These characters made me want to play the game, because they were so interesting and just plain nuts. These characters aren't your run-of-the-mill crazy people; they are truly vicious psychotic serial killers who killed people in horrible ways. The story in itself is pretty disturbing, but honestly, not disturbing enough to warrant a cancellation.

Even though there's a fair share of dark, serious psychos, there's also a few light hearted, funny characters that are so over the top it's ridiculous. For example, there's a huge, hulking guy that's literally built like a gorilla, with huge arms and small legs and all, who was a former mailman that snapped and hilariously killed someone. Yes, it's pretty damn funny what he does.

The character's endings are pretty confusing as first, because they don't show you what the character does AFTER they're reborn, it actually shows you what the character did that landed them in hell in the first place. So, it pretty much shows you when and how they snapped.

Aside from that rich history lesson, the game itself is pretty unique. First, it's not the typical one-on-one brawler like Mortal Kombat or Tekken. The game works on a full 3D plain, and you get to duke it out with three other characters in a four player brawl to the death. Instead of the usual life bars that deplete after each hit, the game is based on your “kill meter,” which fills up more and more as you attack enemies.

When it's completely full, you have a limited amount of time to grab an enemy and perform a regular kill on them (the kills depend on which buttons you press; for example, you press Triangle, your character uppercuts the guy's head off, you press square, he kicks his torso off).

You have to eliminate each character, and finally, when it's down to simple one-on-one, after you've defeated your opponent and filled your kill meter, you're able to perform a character's signature kill, called a Thrill Kill.

A character has, from what I remember, about three Thrill Kills, and if you DON'T feel like killing your opponent, each character has a finisher in which they dance with the opponent instead of kill them. So really, EA acted harshly, because you don't really HAVE to kill your opponents…..kind of.

It was one of the character's Thrill Kills that got the game in hot water right from the get-go, getting the game an immediate AO rating. It was one of Belladonna's Thrill Kills. First, back then, after playing this game and witnessing this kill, it turns out EVERYBODY completely over-exaggerated the kill and even downright lied about it just to make it sound notorious.

Back then, people referred to the kill as the “***w*ob Kill,” or in friendlier terms, oral sex kill. Now first, everyone pretty much made it sound like that she killed her character by giving them oral sex, and I'm sure your imagination can think up of how that could turn violent and bloody.

Don't believe what you've heard, this kill is full of innuendo, but there's nothing sexually done at all. Here it is. I'm gonna spoil it, but it's not like you'll be playing it anyways:

First, she bends down, and gets on her knees, moving OUT OF FRAME. The opponent starts laughing, yes, LAUGHING, not moaning. Then the camera pans down to show that there's no sex taking place, she's just tickling her opponents feet. Yeah, EXPLICIT. Explicit enough to warrant an AO rating. No nudity, no sex, it just fools you for a few seconds thinking that sex is taking place. So no, there's no big, surprising, explicit oral sex kill like everyone said there was.

The game is pretty fun. The fighting system isn't as deep as say Tekken, but this game was made for people who just wanna have fun and not worry about deep fighting mechanics. Characters do have combos, which are fun to learn and pull off, but the fighting mechanics aren't really that complex. One of the game's faults is the fact that when you really get right down to it, the game is pretty much a button masher at heart, because you can win by strategically using one move throughout the game (like a long range kick that does considerable damage and is hard to avoid).

Still, the game has some inventive moves that are fun to pull off and watch. Belladonna has a cattle prod as her weapon, and she beats and shocks opponents with it. She has one move where she performs the splits on someone's head, drops to the ground, and moans as she's doing it. One character has a move where he fart's flames, and that same character has another move in which he sets his opponent's ass on fire. Yeah, this is the game that EA thought was so sadistic and serious that they just had to cancel it.

Still, when you can get through the game by just using one move (and you'll have to on the higher difficulty levels because the AI gets so hard and cheap), there's not much incentive to pull off some of the moves after you've already seen them all.

That's not to say the game isn't fun. It's actually very fun because it plays so smoothly and because it's so much fun to fight three opponents at the same time.
The AI is actually somewhat good, too. Sometimes, if you wail on someone for no reason, they'll start to team up with other opponents and try to get you killed.

Also, when an opponent's kill meter is full, and they're running around the level trying to catch you and kill you, your opponents will throw you at the enemy to save their own ass. So this little feature is actually pretty awesome; you can be thrown in to get killed, and you can do the same to your enemies.
Thrill Kills are a little harder to perform than say fatalities from Mortal Kombat. In this, when it's down to you and your last opponent, after your kill meter gets filled for the last time, thunder will come down and shock you.

As this happens, you have to hold a certain combination of buttons down until the thunder subsides. That's pretty much how you perform Thrill Kills. There's no button combos as the opponents are dazed, there's so button pressing combinations at all. You just have to hold down a few buttons, wait, and then catch your opponent and watch the magic happen.

It's a great alternative to what Mortal Kombat and other violent fighting games did. In fact, almost all of Thrill Kill's mechanics are new and inventive alternatives to what almost all violent Mortal Kombat clones did. Instead of two players, you had four. Instead of life bars that deplete, you had kill meters that filled up over time.

Instead of getting an easy shot to kill your enemy after you've depleted their life, you have to fill your kill meter and hopefully CATCH your opponent before time runs out, in which case, you'll perform the desired kill IF you held down certain buttons. And if you're unlucky enough to let your opponent get away after time runs out, you have to fill your meter again, and try to catch them AGAIN.

The game also had completely pre-rendered cut scenes for endings, and though short, were pretty cool because it's not something you normally found in fighting games like this.
This game obviously drew inspiration from Mortal Kombat, but unlike all the other bad MK clones, this one was able to break the mold and actually do some original things.

Aside from the gameplay, the game looks pretty decent, especially for 1997. The graphics are pretty well done, and the environments, though small, look pretty cool. Character models are kind of on the blocky side, of course, but how many games on the Playstation didn't have really blocky characters? None, that's how many.

The game's endings are all pre-rendered. They all actually look pretty good, especially for 1997. Even though the characters move insanely stiffly, the endings still look pretty cool, and they're all pretty entertaining and interesting, too.

Another thing that was absolutely great about this game was the bad-ass soundtrack it had. The music was done by a really small band called Contagion, and they did all the background music for the game, which is a cool mix of techno and metal. Aside from the fact that the game looked good and played really smoothly, another thing to look forward to was listening to the awesome background music.

The best part of the game, to me, wasn't the endings. It was actually the END CREDITS, which features an awesome, bad-ass song that was dark, slow, and heavy. Whatever camp and humor you might have experienced in the ending you watched, it all turns a little dark as the credits roll and as that music plays. It's one of the best game tracks I've ever heard.

The whole end credits and the whole layout reminds me a whole lot of the Twisted Metal: Black end credits.
If you haven't played this game, find it somehow just so you can hear this track. You probably won't be able to find or hear it anywhere else.

All in all, Thrill Kill was a good, solid fighting game, I'd even go so far as to say great, because honestly, if you think back to 1997, if you played this game THEN when only the PLAYSTATION and N64 were out, you'd be pretty thrilled with it because it was so new. Now, since you have next-gen consoles, it kind of dilutes your opinion on old games, whether or not you know it or admit it.

If it were 1997 now and this game was actually released, and if you played it, I'm sure anybody would have lots of fun with it based solely on the fact that it was four players and it ran quickly and smoothly, not slowly and sluggishly. People who've played this now say that it isn't all that special, but honestly, back then, for it's time, it would have been pretty damn cool and it would've been something new, too. I'm sure everyone can at least appreciate that.

I don't think EA was right to cancel this game, at all. Not only did they pretty much ban the game in their own way, but they also kind of screwed over the developers who put their time and their effort into a game that they believed in and they wanted to make. It's a little ridiculous that EA bought this company, inherited the library of games, played this, and decided, “You know what, WE don't like it, let's not release it,” even though fans and consumers wanted it.

They also went so far as to not option the rights to the game, which meant that it'd be canned forever. So these EA execs pretty much thought that they had had a vicious time-bomb on their hands that would taint whoever played it. They thought that it was so horrible and sadistic that it shouldn't even be on store shelves, even if it were under a different publisher, under a different company that had nothing to do with them.

So if they go by this notion, then they should have a say whether or not Rockstar should be able to release a game like Manhunt onto store shelves. EA pretty much banned this videogame because THEY didn't like it, and THEY felt it wasn't good for consumers.

Who were they to decide what consumers wanted and didn't want? People don't buy games based on the company's opinions of it, they buy games based on THEIR opinion, and when you get down to it, Thrill Kill wasn't that disgusting of a game. It wasn't that bloody, it wasn't that gory.

The only thing really sick about it was some of the characters, but that's really it, and even then, it's ridiculous that EA pretty much banned this game by not allowing other publishers to release it because they thought that it literally did not belong on store shelves. I guess they thought that they were looking out for “consumer's best interests,” and not letting this game “taint the youth of America.” Idiots, I say!

On the whole, Thrill Kill is a solid fighting game that has a pretty great story and pretty interesting characters. It's not the deepest fighting game, but it is solid fun, and I'm sure if it were released, people all across America would've been duking it out with three of their friends for hours. It's a pretty damn fun game. It's just too bad it wasn't released, and probably never will be.

Graphics: 8 out of 10.
Gameplay: 9 out of 10.
Sound: 8 out of 10.
Music: 10 out of 10.
Controls: 8 out of 10.
Story: 8 out of 10.

Overall: 9 out of 10.

It's a solid fighting game that has a rich history and a whole lot of notoriety. If you can get your hands on it somehow, and if it's not illegal, try and play it. It'll be a pretty good experience, and it'd be cool to know that you're one of only a handful of people that played this awesome game.

Then again, I don't think it should be considered illegal, because technically, EA is making ZERO profit from this game, so really, if you get your hands on it, you're not deterring any of EA's profits, because you can't make a profit off of a game that isn't on store shelves, and a game that was never sold EVER. So EA's not losing any money. It can't be piracy if the company isn't even making money off the game in the first place.

The fact that this game WASN'T released is probably one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th Century…kind of.

And for people that have played this game and have seen all the endings, here's something I noticed, and I'm sure you'll agree:

In the ending for Oddball, there's a shot in which he's lying on a bed thing and it starts spinning. In that instance, if you look at his face, he's a spitting image of Conan O'Brien, which I found hilarious.

And don't ask how I managed to play this game…..I don't remember how……

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/07