#512 Vicious Circle Bosses (1/2): Dredlok gameplay.
0Gameplay of the final boss Dredlok in Atari Games' Vicious Circle.
Vicious Circle is the last prototype game to cover, at least until Primal Rage 2 is (hopefully) fully emulated. It was made by Atari Games, and it is a complete and total, unapolegetic Killer Instinct rip-off. It uses a very similar graphics engine to KI, as well as having pre-rendered backgrounds contained in a hard-drive and a combo system reminiscent of the Marvel vs. series. The backgrounds in particular look extremely tacky, effectively just being a distracting video played in the background, and not interlinking at all with the actual stages they're a part of, unlike KI.
The game has two bosses, the final boss of which is Dredlok, a generic looking character with exposed muscles (that is to say, he appears to be skinless) and with two blades on his arms, similar to Baraka. Dredlok, however, has one small problem. He can infinite. Endlessly. Forever. As soon as he has caught an opponent in his web of combos, that's it. He can continue until the opponent is dead, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. All you have to do is keep pressing the same few buttons over and over again, and he'll continue to combo the opponent right up until they're dead. It's ludicrous. As an opponent, this means if you beat him THE AI LITERALLY HAS TO LET YOU WIN. The same could be said arguably of all games, I'll admit, but in this game if you were to beat Dredlok it would only be because out of the kindness of the soulless monster that is the computer.
Obviously, this is extremely unpolished, as you might expect from a prototype. However, considering this game was probably play-tested in a few locations, you have to feel sorry for any poor soul who actually had to fight Dredlok. Not only does he has infinites, but his AI is something else. It's not even susceptible to infinites from a player Dredlok, and he will absolutely destroy you, every single time, no matter what you do. Indeed, he's the most broken, difficult boss you never knew about, and, arguably, probably even worse than The General himself. Hell, at least I could defeat the General by playing as the General. I know for a fact I stand no chance of ever taking down Dredlok. But, understandably, that doesn't bother me too much.