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| Title: | Cosmic Carnage |
| Released: | 1994 |
| Genre: | 2-D Fighter |
| Developer: | Sega |
| Publisher: | Sega |
| Regions: | USA, UK, Japan |
| Availability: | Common |
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Also known as Cyberbrawl in Japan. Also known as Ultimate Fighting.
A 32x exclusive. Cosmic Carnage was the first fighting game available for the 32x, appearing not long after the console’s debut. It was also the first glaring dud in the 32x library. What we have here is yet another “fight to the death” tournament game, this time set in a future populated by an assortment of dull aliens. You have a choice of eight characters, some of whom have configurable body armor (it’s mildly entertaining to shatter a characters leg guards, leaving him in knee pads and a jock strap. Yes, he’s a space pervert.) The first thing you will notice is the music. It’s simply awful, sounding as if the soundtrack was recorded by someone playing around on a set of low-end keyboards. The graphics aren’t much better, with uninspired character design, stunningly boring backgrounds, and very choppy animation. Each character has a very limited selection of "special moves," many of which can be used over and over again to defeat most any opponent. Graphical slowdown rears its ugly head quite often, slowing the game down to a crawl. The game does scale the camera in and out depending on your position in relation to the other character (similar to the Neo Geo and 3DO versions of Samurai Shodown), but this admitedly cool feature only showcases the choppy animation and crappy character design. Cosmic Carnage was obviously rushed through production in an effort to flesh out the early 32x library, and it certainly shows. The worst of the 32x fighting games.
The Japanese version of Cosmic Carnage is called Cyberbrawl, and it’s accessible from the American cart with a code. Humans replace three of the alien characters, but the moves, backgrounds, music, and general lack of fun remain the same.
Cosmic Carnage features seamless view scaling (the camera view zooms in or out based on the combatants relative positions), a feature not found in most 16-bit games. Some folks believe that Cosmic Carnage is a pseudo-sequel to Dark Edge, a Sega arcade fighter from 1987. Both game features similar styles, characters, and graphics.
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