Arcade Video game published 31 years ago:

Tattoo Assassins (c) 1995 Data East Pinball.

Nine Tattooed Assassins are ordered by Mullah Abba to defeat Koldan and his minions in this unreleased one-on-one beat-em-up. Tattoo Assassins is little more than a flawed beat-em-up that was originally intended to cash in on the massive success of Midway's superior "Mortal Kombat" series.

- TECHNICAL -

Main CPU: ARM (@ 7 Mhz), M6809 (@ 2 Mhz) Sound Chips: BSMT2000 (@ 24 Mhz)

Players: 2 Control: 8-way joystick Buttons: 6 (HP, SP, HK, LP, BLOCK, LK)

- TRIVIA -

Tattoo Assassins has become the stuff of arcade legend, but for all the wrong reasons. It represents one of the most tragic tales in game design - and perhaps the only verifiable example of a game being utterly dismissed by the actual programmers themselves.

The original premise was straightforward, if a little ambitious - use Data East graphics hardware to produce a "Mortal Kombat" beater. The gameplay would include over 200 Fatalities, Animalities (this was BEFORE "Mortal Kombat 3" introduced them to the world), Nudalities (although nothing TOO explicit) and an array of "sickening moves", which basically consisted of farting and spraying diarrhea at your opponent. This is true.

Player layout in our catalog: 2P sim.

If you are exploring by feel rather than by title, jump from the tags above into the matching genre rooms, or return to the Arcade hall for the full wall.

Open Play on this page to start Tattoo Assassins (US prototype, Mar 14 1995). Keyboard, USB/Bluetooth pads, and the on-screen touch gamepad all work inside the emulator bar. Save states and fullscreen live on that same bar so you can pause mid-session and resume later.

Tattoo Assassins (US prototype, Mar 14 1995) is filed in our catalog as a 1995 release.

Player layout on this cabinet: 2P sim.

Genre tags on Classic Arcade Games: Fighter, Arcade.