Yeah, we get it, it's the 90s.
Skeleton Krew is a 1995 Run-and-Gun action game developed and published by Core Design for the Amiga and Sega Mega Drive.
In the year 2062, a mutation outbreak had occurred in a futuristic prison owned by DEAD Inc. (Deadly Enforcement Aggressive Destruction), after its owner, the former mortician Dr. Moribund Kadaver, took over control of a cryogenics plant to turn prisoners into Psykogenix mutants. A team of mercenaries, the titular Skeleton Krew, are sent into the prison to deal with the mutant infestation, consisting of the three playable heroes:
- Marlon 7 aka "Spine", the American leader and a Jack of All Stats,
- Barbella 27 aka "Rib", a British soldier and Fragile Speedster of the trio,
- Ygor 9 aka "Joint", a Russian operative and The Big Guy, complete with a BFG.
Don't confuse this with a trope or a novel.
Skeleton Krew kontains examples of the following tropes:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The level titled "Sewer Duct" is appropriately enough set in one, crawling with hordes and hordes of enemies and assorted monsters.
- Air-Aided Acrobatics: The Venus stage has areas with large vents in the floors that constantly blow air, that you can use to float for several seconds to access hard-to-reach ledges, avoid getting shot, or launch yourself to nearby platforms.
- Airborne Mooks: The level on a descending platform in a deep shaft has you being attacked by Jet Pack mutants from all sides, which you need to fend off until reaching its bottom.
- All There in the Manual: There's a game manual that fleshes out the game's (more or less) Excuse Plot: that the main villain, Dr. Moribund Kadaver, used to be a mortician before becoming the leader of DEAD. Inc, who took over the cryogenics plant in the prison with the aim of turning prisoners into mutants. Said manual also explains that the three playable heroes, Marlon, Barbella and Ygor are Cyborg Super Soldiers whose upper bodies are entirely mechanical after being put through upgrades, which is the reason behind their durability compared to the mutants and monsters.
- Attack Drone: In-between fighting mutants as you escape the prison, you'll also need to contend with the security, which activates numerous hovering drones firing projectiles on you.
- Attack of the Monster Appendage: The prison cells have a recurring enemy in the prisons, showing as fleshy tentacles sticking out of walls and floors lashing out as you try to pass. These tentacles can be killed, but you don't see what they're attached to.
- Boom, Headshot!: After the Final Boss battle, if you defeat Dr. Kadaver, you're given a cutscene where you have your gun on his head, and the option to spare him or pull the trigger. Choose the latter and you blow his head off. Roll credits.
- Bottomless Magazines: Your default blaster that you can fire on full auto never runs out of bullets. Or needs to be reloaded.
- Elevator Action Sequence: "Elevator Shaft" has you making your way to the prison's descending elevator platform, and its second half has you fighting enemies left and right until reaching the level's bottom floor.
- Evilutionary Biologist: The game's Big Bad, Dr. Moribund Kadaver, is an evil geneticist and biologist whose experiments caused massive amount of human prisoners to mutate into nightmarish abominations.
- Excessive Steam Syndrome: There are various areas in the prisons and on Mars where vents, pipes and grates will constantly spew bursts of steam, which will cause damage to the players' health when they're attempting to cross an area.
- Flash of Pain: Subverted with certain obstacles moving along a set path, that display the same flash that enemies do when shot. However, those obstacles are really indestructible, and the flash is meaningless in their case.
- Grenade Launcher: One of the guns you can collect is a grenade launcher that sends a bouncing projectile that does more damage than your usual firearms. It's also useful for taking out enemies behind barricades, obstacles or on platforms right below you.
- Husky Russkie: Ygor, the Russian player character, is larger than the other two heroes combined. He's a Mighty Glacier who wields a BFG and specializes in using explosive projectiles, and is also capable of taking more damage.
- Impact Silhouette: As soon as Dr. Kadaver is defeated for the first time, he gets blown through a wall leaving behind a human-shaped hole. However, moments later you have to fight his bizarre and grotesque One-Winged Angel form that bursts through the same wall.
- Lethal Lava Land: "Mars" has an underground cavern filled with streams of lava above platforms and bridges, which proves hazardous should you fall into. There are also craters that spew balls of lava at you periodically.
- Meat Moss: After the mutant outbreak in an intergalactic prison ship, the mutation had caused massive amount of fleshy, tumor-like moss growing all over the prison's interiors with piles of meat embedded on various structures.
- Mutants: The assorted humanoid mooks you fight throughout, called "Psykogenix mutants", who used to be human prisoners until they were converted by Moribund Kadaver's experiments.
- Names to Run Away From: The game's Big Bad, Dr. Moribund Kadaver.
- Respawn on the Spot: Every time you lose a life, you re-appear on the spot you're killed.
- Sequential Boss: Dr. Moribund Kadaver needs to be fought thrice.
- In the first fight, he reveals his ability to Teleport Spam all over the area and fire Hand Blasts on you (either a string of projectiles or a Spread Shot). You battle him and cause enough damage to smash him through a wall...
- ...and in the next immediate area, Dr. Moribund bursts through a wall in his One-Winged Angel form - a giant crab-like creature with two human hands in place of legs, with his puny human head in a giant monster's body. Defeat him and he disappears into the darkness...
- ...and returns in a larger mutant body! But this time shooting him enough will sever his limbs and put him down for good.
- Shooting the Swarm: The sewer stage has areas which dispense swarms of blue flying bugs, coming at you in large numbers that you can shoot at. Alternatively, you can just flee - the bugs' only attack is blowing themselves up, and they explode on their own after a short while.
- Stationary Boss: When you reach the bottom of the shaft, you'll need to fight a boss which is a giant purple organic face in a wall. It's incapable of moving, but can sic giant centipedes that swim towards you until you destroy the boss.
- Theme Naming: Marlon, Barbella and Ygor are codenamed "Spine", "Rib" and "Joint", in that order.
- Tiny-Headed Behemoth:
- On the above poster, Ygor a.k.a Joint has a disproportionally tiny head compared to the rest of his huge body. It's not that obvious in the game, however, because of graphic limitations in 1995.
- The One-Winged Angel final form of Dr. Kadaver is a more obvious example, with his monstrous form towering over the heroes while keeping his human-sized head.
- Waddling Head: One of the creepier mutant enemies you can encounter near the end are giant red skulls on spider-legs, which crawl all over the place while shooting projectiles from their mouths.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: Repeat after us, Skeleton Krew... also, the main villain is called Dr. Kadaver. It's a game from 1995 after all.
