Weird Games: Thrill Kill

Perhaps in the age of movies like Saw and Hostel a game like Thrill Kill would not seem weird to anyone, but back in 1998 the game was just a little too controversial for the publishers and so it was pulled from the U.S. market.

Thrill Kill was originally created for the Sony PlayStation and was to be a Mortal Kombat like game where you could perform trill kills in place of fatalities that featured blood, guts and disembowelment. In addition, there were moves with names such as “Bitch Slip” and “Swallow this” nothing stranger than what you might hear on a cable stations reality television show.

Besides the brutal nature of the gameplay there was also the matter of fetish costumes, BDSM and sexual references that in then end proved too much for the company set to release the game. The game was developed by Paradox Development and published by Virgin Interactive which is owned by Electronic Arts.

The story followes ten souls who died and went to hell and were then pitted against each other in a tournament by Marukka, the Goddess of Secrets. Whoever survived the tournament would be reincarnated effectively being rereleased back onto the citizens of earth (oh joy!). One of the innovated designed of the game was that up to four players could fight at the same time which at the time was not done before.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_VbjA4BjGk[/youtube]

Now hype gave this game more press than anything else. First it was cancelled for being too controversial which in itself will make people want it. Then former employees that worked on the game released a version onto the internet. Because of the crazy thrill kills and mature content the game had sort of a cult following, but having played it, it was not really that good even for 1998.

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