Killer Instinct

For the FOX television series, see Killer Instinct (TV series).

Killer Instinct
Genre(s)	Fighting
Developer(s)	Rare
Publisher(s)	Midway Games (1994–1996) Nintendo (1994-1996) Microsoft Game Studios
Composer(s)	Robin Beanland (1994-1996) Graeme Norgate (1994)
First release	Killer Instinct October 28, 1994
Latest release	Killer Instinct: Gold November 25, 1996

Killer Instinct, commonly abbreviated KI, is a series of tournament fighting video games developed by Rareware.

Gameplay

Killer Instinct plays like many other fighting games, in which the player controls a character in order to beat an opponent in a one-on-one encounter. The game borrows the attack set of Street Fighter and is also inspired by the finishing moves from Mortal Kombat. There are also several features that distinguish it from other franchises:

• A double energy bar: instead of winning two rounds, each player has two bars of energy. If a character finishes with his or her opponent's first life bar, the fight stops and resumes like a round, but the winning character still keeps whatever amount of energy he or she had at that moment. The player who depletes his or her opponent's second life bar wins the bout.
• Automatic combos: rather than press the necessary buttons in order to deliver the individual attacks that form a combo, in Killer Instinct the combos are automated and can be enabled by inputting a determined button or special move (which led to the character to deliver a string of hits).
• Finishing moves: Bearing resemblance to Mortal Kombat's Fatalities, each character has at least two moves known as No Mercy (Danger Move in later revisions) in order to finish the opponent in a violent manner. One of these No Mercy moves can be executed at the end of a combo (which is labeled as an Ultimate combo), when the opponents life bar flashes red (when his or her second bar is going to be depleted), although it uses a different combination of movements. Another finisher is the Humiliation, that forces the opponent to dance (the dance style depends on the character), but this can only be used if the player has his or her first life bar.
• Ultra Combo: Another finisher; it operates like an Ultimate combo, though this one allows the character to deliver a long string of hits as the combo finisher instead, usually surpassing 20 hits, and can sometimes reach upwards of 80+ hits.
• Combo Breaker: The player who is being caught in a combo may break out of it by performing a combo breaker move. The combo breaker is a designated special move of the player's character. A combo can be broken at either the auto-double or linker stage. To successfully break an auto-double, the player must use the breaker move at a strength lower than the auto-double itself (i.e. for a player to break a Medium auto-double s/he must use a Quick breaker). The combo can also be broken at the linker stage. At this stage the player can use any strength of breaker, making long combos a risky affair. Also, after performing a combo breaker, a white starburst will appear at the tip of the breaker's health bar, enabling advanced versions of some special moves that require a different command.

Titles

Killer Instinct (1994)

A arcade fighting game developed by Rare and published by Midway and Nintendo. Initially released in arcades in 1994, and rumored to use an "Ultra 64" hardware engine, in reality the proprietary arcade hardware was co-developed by Rare and Midway. The game received a high profile launch on the Super Nintendo, as well as on the Game Boy consoles the following year.

Killer Instinct 2 and Killer Instinct: Gold (1996)

A 1996 arcade-only fighting game developed by Rare, licensed by Nintendo, and manufactured by Midway. It was the sequel to Killer Instinct. The game was also ported to the SNES, but never released. Like its predecessor, the game features two 8-way joysticks with six buttons each for attacks (three punch and three kick), allowing for both a single player mode or a two player versus mode. It was later ported to the Nintendo 64 console under the name Killer Instinct: Gold.

Killer Instinct 3 (2012)

It was rumored that "Killer Instinct 3" would be released by Microsoft Game Studios but still has yet to be confirmed. Rare has expressed interest in bringing Killer Instinct to Kinect.

Trivia

• In Rare's game Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Bottles mentions Killer Instinct 3. This is one of the many "teases" to a third installment in the series along with a Christmas card from Rare and music sheets to the opening theme with as the title of the music.