Rather than spending time building modes and developing narrative (something the recent Injustice and Persona 4: Arena both did in completely different and yet equally remarkable ways), they're concentrating on getting the core right with the promise that it will be expanded over time. There's not a lot to the game to start with, a fact that reveals an awful lot about the developer's ambition. Killer Instinct's return to the scene couldn't be more perfectly timed, I suggest just as the kings of the genre are duking it out, a new challenger appears.* Since then, however, the combo concept has been embraced by games like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, and - more recently - Injustice.
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So while popular with fans, it never really captivated hardcore fighting game enthusiasts. All of this was commentated by some unknown guy with a dramatic voice, creating loads of excitement for anyone who happened by.Īll that said, however, it was generally looked down on by tournament or otherwise serious players due to a number of fairly crippling balance issues, bugs, and general lack of focus on things that the scene revolves around. A skilled player could execute a near-endless stream of attacks, all of which were linked together and very difficult for an opponent to break out of.Ī skilled player, on the other hand, could terminate a combo early by carefully timing a "combo breaker" move, turning the tide and often exposing their opponent to great risk through a reversal combo. Killer Instinct was a real crowd-pleaser in the arcades, thanks to its ludicrously over-the-top combos. I'll talk a little bit about number two, but mostly that's Matthew's department.
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To this day, I'm frequently reminded of my faux pas at team gatherings, but what can I say? I'm a big-time Killer Instinct fanboy not only do I own every home version of the game ever released - for every platform it ever came out on - but I also own an actual arcade cabinet with Killer Instinct 2 installed in it.
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Much to my eternal shame, and despite prepping members of the team by saying "hooping and hollering during E3 press conferences is not acceptable", I may have cheered just a little bit when Microsoft finally announced that there would, in fact, be another Killer Instinct game.