(US Version Import) If you fought it was mediocre enough on the PC back then how about checking it's horrid 16 Bit count
Game Title: Slaughter Sport
Platform: Mega Drive/Genesis
Developer: Razorsoft
Publisher: Activision
Genre: Fighting
Age Rating: N/A
Release Date: October 12th 1990 (Japan), January 1st 1991 (USA)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Game Score: 2.5/10
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summery:
(US Version Import Review) If you fought it was mediocre enough on the PC back then how about checking it's horrid 16 Bit counterpart if you can tolerate the really awful controls.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Before the fighting game master piece Street Fighter II set the fighting arena as it is today there were a few set of early fighting games like Taito's Violence fight and Atari's Pit Fighter. Probably if you've looked a little deeper then you may have seen a mediocre fighting game that was called Mondu's fight palace on the PC DOS Systems. I can probably bet that the original PC version wasn't really a bad game for the time but however what if I were to say that it made it's way onto the Mega Drive in both Japan and America, it fortunately for us European gamers this rendition did not arrive in Europe. Are you interested to know why it never come to the UK at all? If so then please understand that this game will literally beat you down to a pulp within minutes.
In the 1-Player game you play as Rex a Human Fighter who enters an underground fighting tournament in space which is run by the extremely fat guy named Mondu. He holds the contest for you to fight against Alien type people. The text you read for when you start the game, lose a fight or win 3 fights are amusing to read at points.
Before I talk about the biggest problems that you'll have with the game I going to talk about the power up system which was a decent addition that future fighting games didn't have later on. As you progress through the game you'll be given a screen which allows you to upgrade your character with a fight purse that builds up as characters take damage. Currency is given to the winner of each and it can be spent on Healing up, Increasing Attack Power or buying weapons such as stopping your opponent from attacking or jumping, freezing, confusing and a few others.
Most of these Items are useful in the 2-Player game but against the CPU most are completely useless besides freezing your opponent or stopping your opponent from jumping or attacking. The effects only last for a short time and the CPU can use theirs when their Healths reach half way which if you are not careful you're at a disadvantage.
The graphics in Slaughter Sport are decent enough for it's trend on the 16-Bit Sega console. The environments aren't to impressive as they recycled the same 2 areas over and over just with different colours. The character animations is where the graphics stand out the most. Every character is rendered with smooth frames and most characters do look creepy to look at especially how Mondu the Fat has a mouth on it's body which is quite disturbing. The sounds are aright alongside the grants everyone makes when they are hit but the music is just plain and generic.
Now is the time to talk about the game main fatal flaws. First up I mentioned Healing, Yes you have to Heal yourself manually by paying to have it restored instead of the game Healing you after each fight, not to mention that you start the game at about 50% Health. The biggest problem of all is that most of your fights are unbalanced due to the extremely bad controls, items as already mentioned are unbalanced and also attack upgrades only last for one fight which is unfair due that is costs so much to upgrade, finally you also have fights later on were the alien creatures can nearly drain your energy within seconds.
Needless to say that the controls in the game aren't up for the task against all unfair odds which makes the game even more of a problem to control. Basic A Punches, B makes Rex do a Dragon Breath for some reason and C uses Items. When you have more Items in your possession you use B to switch between them. When fighting your enemy can knock you down easily and when you get up your character literally faces the wrong way which is annoying to get him to face the opponent which is something that every fighting game should know better. Most of attacks like Rex's Dragon Flame is ineffective cause it doesn't do as much damage as punching and it can leave you wide open to enemy attacks. Whenever you die 3 times throughout the whole game the games ends with your character getting eaten up by a shark that somehow manages to go through the solid floor. If you somehow manage to win against the opponent once then your enemy will get eaten by the shark.
Overall Slaughter Sport only has some of the right tools to make a decent fighting game but however it's executed horribly thanks to the unreasonable challenge being that you can't control your fighter.
If you've played this on PC like many years ago and then hear about that there is a version on the consoles which you'd think it would be more playable, simply to say that this version is just worse then what is was originally. Don't even think about downloading it or importing the game online anywhere because there were plenty of other fighters that does much better. If you fought it was mediocre enough on the PC back then how about checking it's horrid 16 Bit counterpart if you can tolerate the really awful controls.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Good Points:
1. Character animations are very detailed
2. It has a power up system
The Bad Points:
1. Horribly Bad controls
2. Some special moves and items are worthless
3. Extremely unbalanced and unfairly difficult
4. Relies too much on cheap tactics
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------