@@TexasHollowEarth the one without cutscenes is the more risque, early build. It has Bella's original fatality animation and different costumes. It was really unstable and would crash frequently.
Paradox OBVIOUSLY stole actual Aztec artifacts from their tombs before making their game, and as they did not heed the warnings to return them, were cursed to forever be in a hell of unending closures and alright titles.
So they took one game and went... "Hey, what if we change the gameplay? Hey what if we change the design?" ...and essentially just made an unrelated different game?
This shit happens to game devs allot constant changes from higher up leading to insane amounts of crunch before the same jack ass who wanted you to make all those changes says "you know what? Nevermind" cancels the game altogether and lays you and your entire team off
The age rating systems for media always make me laugh no end; "there's a scene where a man rips another man's head off then plays a game of football with it"... "sounds like a 15 rating to me". "You see some side-boob for 0.29 seconds"... "Better slap that 18 rating on it".
The alternative would be much worse. The ESRB was established by the game industry because the American government was planning on setting up their own regulatory body to rate video games.
As questionable as the ESRB is, the MPAA is the biggest joke of them all. The amount of similar elements you can have between multiple movies (Some violence, abit of tits and some swearing) and yet somehow, the rating can be vastly different between them.
So fun fact: Back when the fansite Fuzzd0rk's Thrill Kill had an active forum, we actually found out from an EA dev that a Thrill Kill PSP pitch was in the works! The attitude about it was "Yeah, this probably won't get greenlit, but we'll never know if we don't try?" Some people got excited, but most of us weren't optimistic. Of course since Thrill Kill was shelved and never officially released on any platform, that idea didn't come to fruition. Still though, we thought it was cool that even 10 years after it was cancelled, there was still some hidden love for it within EA.
I wonder how many episodes of "What Happened?" could easily be re-titled "EA ruins everything: Part ___" Yes, I put in three underscores. A proper "EA ruins everything" series would easily have over 100 episodes.
@@heroprime7599 they make nothing but bad business decisions. For the consumer that is. The decisions they make seek only to benefit them and milk the consumer dry so yes, yes they are as bad as people say. Evil companies can still stay in business off their anti consumer decisions. That does not make them a good company just because they can stay a float. Thats a dumb ass way of thinking. Please don't be as blind as that comment made you seem.
@@heroprime7599 That is perhaps the dumbest argument i've ever heard. as if companies just close down once they become unpopular. Walmart, Monsanto, Kroger, Homegoods, United Airlines, Amazon, Nike, a lot of people hate these companies. Between monopolizing and consumer apathy, they will probably never close down. God, what a fucking stupid argument
This story basically sums up 1998. Developer:"We're working on this unique and interesting idea for a game that no one else has done before and mixes sports and combat in a new way." Publisher: "That's cool, but... it needs more trench coats."
'Guys, it's the late 90's. We don't want to deal with something this different unless we have enough Xtremeness to make us feel comfortable with the risk we are taking.'
@@yahyamusseb the end of 2019. Yes it was roundly panned for basically failing at everything related to being an enjoyable family movie (released in the Holiday Season), both critically and commercially
"He instead admitted that the major influence was the musical "Cats", which, when you think about it, is insane, but when you break it down further..." ...It's still insane?
I wish we got that Aztec game base from Earth Monster. Would definitely be nice and different from the sports chaff we've been subjected to for decades now.
@@TexasHollowEarth Taking something from a nearby culture and incorporating it a very long time ago isn't "ripping off," and I'm pretty sure the modern form of the game doesn't have sacrifice because that's not legal now. Aztec faith as it was was an extremely long time ago, bud
Method man had a 100% combo that was super easy to do. A pole vault style flying kick, followed by just... basic Crouching kicks. Over and over. Just mashing one button until they die.
Paradox made the X-Men Mutant Academy games too? I still own both of them, and can totally see the same influence. When EA got to them, they got to them like Dio to a JoJo, going after them and their descendants. (The Macarena ending, that's some uncut 90's right there.)
I have very fond memories of Thrill Kill. My brother got me the leaked version of it way way back in the day that could still play on my PS1. Got my friends together many a time to play it, and i ended up getting invited to people's places I barely knew on the condition I brought it with me. This game actually helped me make new friends.
I remember being in my local EB games store, when one of the employees pulled out a psone with the portable screen attachments. The game he booted up was this game. My teenage self thought it was an import. I had no idea how rare of an encounter that was.
Awesome to see you cover this, my friends and I had a great time playing it when it was first leaked back in the day. There were actually multiple versions leaked, one the full release, and one from before they toned everything down. We had the latter.
2:14 Also known as that one game they play in Road to Eldorado. That's not relevant to anything, i just like to reference road to eldorado whenever i can.
I remember the day in 1999 in 6th grade, when a buddy of mine got a burned CD with the name "Thrill Kill" on it. Man, we played it so often... good old times
There were 3 versions of the game available Online One at 80% Without cutscenes, otr cutscenes without sound. Theh there was a 90 % complete one wich was censord if i remember correctly and a 99% complete version uncensored wich i still have my copy on disc and a backup on my harddrive, its pretty wide spread and u can easily find it on rom sites. i think it got leaked very shortly after ea canceled it since it was everywhere in 1998-1999 i dont remember 100% somewhere around that time here in germany. I worked in a rental store for games then and we gave out copies when customers brought us cd-r's...Since my boss didnt want to sell bootlegs but the demand was so big.
No one in Brazil had a original Ps1 or Ps2 so pirated games were the norm. Me and a lot of my friends got the 99% release version of this game at the time
Do some research. One quick Google search will show the numerous bootleg and downloadable versions of the game you can get for free, many people have played it and many have made videos talking about how it feels to play. Before accusing others of lying do some actual research before you look like a complete moron.
Yeah, no, sorry dude. Major fuck up on your part. I definitely had this on bootleg in '96. It was back when Playstation' s were getting, "Chipped." And all my adolescent mind could remember from it was that it was an arena fighter and there was a dominatrix called Belladonna who moaned when she won a fight or performed a special move. This was never, "unreleased." In the UK it was banned, but totally released.
Oh wow, are those some of my Thrill Kill clips (the training stage ones and some where I play Oddball)? That's pretty cool to see, I can tell because of the outfits and my terrible reaction to doing the moves - haha. And you know... Cleetus being OP as hell. I don't really mind though, they are there for people to use/see and experience the games I like to play! I was just really surprised :D Neat video, man! Always cool to see a video going in-depth on Thrill Kill. At least we still get to play this cancelled game.
Oh man, i remember playing a bootleg copy of this on PS1 back in the day in college, when i should have been studying , lol . From what i remember , the 4 player' vs' mode was actually quite fun.
Truly a shame, lots of work was put into the project and the engine looked damn fine with 4 player coop! And the theme would certainly made an impact in the industry AND its 100% cult classic material.
Man, I was wondering when you'd eventually get to Thrill Kill. I remember seeing upcoming screenshots on GamePro and, I think, Electronic Gaming Monthly. Ah, those heady days when we had to get gaming info from print on paper instead of a search engine. Such dark times.
I didn't know this game was never released properly. I actually got a bootleg copy of the game from a friend who came back from Thaïland with multiple dozens of bootleg games (Most of them, we've never heard of before). Needless to say, this game just amazed us to no end :D
Could you do a video on Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus? Not that great of a fighting game but is interesting because it was John Tobias' attempt at a fighting game after leaving Mortal Kombat. I believe you could have a lot of fun making & doing research for the video! Also love the 'What Happened' videos for fighting games! It's a great video series in general & they are very entertaining!
It was a shame what happened to Thrill Kill. Me and my mate played a version of it thanks to our local comic shop getting the completed code online. It was definitely a fun fighter, and you can see why it led them to their Wu Tang game.
I remember reading about this in a gaming magazine back in 98, complete with some disturbing art of the characters and some messily dark screenshots. Great job unearthing this obscure corpse!
A 100% copy isn’t actually floating around. The three versions I’ve seen are the 40-ish% done, then one that’s about 90% done but censored, then the censored one with some of the assets changed to make a 90% done decensor
Matt McMuscles the biggest part was that the ending cinematic’s aren’t in the 40%, replaced with the virgin logo splash. In the 90% builds they have these ending cinematics that....honestly seem like introduction cinematics - but from what I heard they outsourced these cutscenes to a Russian company and they did a crap job, so they aren’t good. But the idea is I think those were also placeholders. Any other information at this point would have been manual bound as there’s not much story past that. Also, hey, Rockem Sockem robots on ps1 also uses the engine
Thrill Kill was fairly popular in Russia in the early 2000s. Some pirates somehow found the leaked ROM, burned it onto CDs and started selling the game. The same thing happened to the Dreamcast port of Half-Life btw.
Ahh I remember this game and loved it. This is the game that actually convinced me to get a mod for my PS1 so I could play it as a buddy of mine found it online back in high school and was selling bootleg copies of it.
....honestly I’m guessing someone looked at it and screamed NO. I’d love to see a new entry, just not that one with the generic protagonist and edgy designs aspects.
My Dad actually has one of those Kill-Thrill CD's. I cant remember if its a burned copy or not but it's crazy that we had it in mid 99 despite being in the UK!
I think Thrill Kill might have seemed more cohesive, and less silly, if instead of porno they drew inspiration from Clive Barker novels like Hellraiser, Matt mentioned Silent hill which would have worked, HR Geiger artwork, even HP Lovecraft.
A copy of the game 75% complete was also given away on a demo disc with one of the old Playstation Magazines. I forget which one, but I had it, and played the hell out of it.
I actually had this game as a kid a burnet Disc version. I was like 9.... I still remember not getting what is happening and looking back there's no way I should had played it. But than to find out it wasn't actually released is like crazy.
I'll always be crushed that I never got to play the AO version of the game. The Dominatrix that moans and gives people head before killing them? That shit sounded amazing. Mortal Kombat but actually for adults is an aesthetic I adore and not having it makes me sad. I need anything: a video game, a book, a comic, a tv show, a movie. Anything that can fill the void in my heart.
We had one of the leaked copies and a modded PS1 to play it on. I remember we were amazed at how good the four player fighting was, so much that we couldn't believe that a game banking on character shock value had such innovative mechanics.
Thrill Kill was awsome we played the hell out of it back in the day, i was 16 and was working part time in a store where u could buy and rent video games, and one of the owners came into the store with the leaked version one day and we played it the whole day in the store and almost every customer asked wheh they could rent or buy it from us, and my boss always said it was just a demo and the game was sadly canceled. The demand was so high that we eventually told customers to bring cd-r 's and and I copied the game for them after work for free and they could come grab it the next day. Great times, such a shame it never got a official release Shaolin Monks was cool but couldnt hold a candle to Thrill Kill imo..Imp,Belladonna,Oddball and Doctor Faustus were just soo cool characters i loved it.
Back then a friend of mine had a version of this game. It was really fun to play and worked quite well with 4 players fighting at once. I liked that it didn't play like any other fighting game. The whole idea of not trying to deplete an enemies healthbar, but instead trying to fill your power bar first, to be granted godly strength to kill another player, is still so great and unique. Especially considering that the empowered player had to first catch one of the other players, who could run and dodge away from him, to kill them, and actually punishing them, by resetting their power bar to 0, while all the other players got to keep their power bar progress, if they failed to catch and eliminate a player. Successfully avoiding an powered up opponent in a 1vs1 situation felt almost as good as winning the fight. Thrill Kill is just one of those PS1 games that has burned itself into forever into my memory. I'd actually love to see how insane this game would be if they would remake it with todays technology.
I used to own a physical copy of this game back in the 90s. At the time I was living in a town in the middle of nowhere in South America. I thought this was just a regular game... Now I wish I had kept that copy.
Go on, cover the Shenmue series. From its Virtua Fighter roots, to its Saturn build, to the Dreamcast titles, the Xbox Shenmue II, Shenmue Online, the HD remasters and its eventual rebirth on Kickstarter. Makes for an interesting story and plenty of meat on the bone to dig into.
A buddy of mine had an actual copy of this game back in 98-99 and we played the hell out of it on his PS1. Dont know how he got ahold of it but had it.
Hey just wanted to say I really appreciate all these videos, i deliriously watched nearly all of them while unable to sleep due to sickness, but I'm all better now!
I remember wanting this game so fucking bad when i was a kid and being absolutely crushed when it was cancelled. The rumors that it lived on as an underground bootleg just made the sting worse since I had no idea where to get a copy and if it would even play on a regular PlayStation if I did find it and shelled out cash for it.
Would love it if Thrill Kill got released officially in some capacity, possibly a remake or a spiritual successor since it's a 3d arena fighter which you never get any of those anymore and with Capcom's Power Stone series on ice at the moment, what better time than the present... 🤘😀👍
Some American folks may not realise this but in that Simpsons clip when Ralph says " my knob tastes funny" that over here in the UK and Ireland that saying that would have some ahem " rude" connotations!
Yeah, and if I remember right, it wasn’t just articles, but didn’t they get so far as actual print ads too? For all the exposure it got back then, I was surprised when I learned that it never released.
I got my hands on a physical copy of Thrill Kill back in the PS1 days. Had to start a real game and hot swap to the disc to play it. It was a riot, and such a shame it was never officially released.
I remember as a kid hearing rumors of this game and getting cancelled. Then I had a friend that started torrenting stuff and I actually got to play it through him. It was such a weird game but I liked the goofiness if it. Honestly, I’m glad there are people in this world that still remembers this game other than me.
its funny that you mentioned EAs reputation at the time, as this was one of the major building blocks in the foundation of WHY many people began hating on EA.
I remember being in high school when this was released. Me end my pops when to a flea market in the suburbs outside of Chicago and got a burned copy of Thrill Kill (we had went to this same person at that flea market a year earlier and got our PSX modded to play import and burned games). Then I got the Wu-Tang rebranded version. Great times man I swear. Me and my pops talk about that to this day.
I wouldn't hate a reboot of Thrill Kill. The BDSM community has a good aesthetic for a dingy toned fighting game. Modernise it a bit, and I think you have a solid premise.
You might be remembering Vs. That fighting game by THQ with the girl in the skimpy purple outfit. That girl in the skimpy outfit is based on one of the Dev's daughter (and I'm pretty sure it wasnt his choice, but the character was used as the "sexy mascot" in the advertising)
I used to work with a guy named Thirlkill. Whenever I had to write his name down I always misspelled it as "Thrillkill" just because of this game. My boss noticed one time but just had me change it.