Killer Instinct

Mix a dollop of Street Fighter II's seamless game play, a dash of blood 'n' guts from Mortal Kombat, a healthy serving of human-modeled computer animation a la Virtua Fighter, and — just for seasoning — one of those enormous, fang-toothed dinosaurs from Primal Rage, and what do you get? Amazingly enough, you get Killer Instinct, a fighting game that's more than the sum of its parts, one with enough depth and technique to keep arcade junkies breaking dollar bills well into the next millennium. Killer Instinct is the rare game whose name serves as its own metaphor — after years of being associated with the innocuous Super Mario, Nintendo has finally gone for the jugular. A+"