Sung (Tenth Degree)

Sung from Atari's Cancelled Tenth Degree.

In the late 90s, Atari attempted to break into the 3D fighting arena with their own original beat 'em up. The game was Tenth Degree or Juko Threat, and it was worked on by James Goddard, who did work on Streetfighter and Namco's Weaponlord. Unfortunately, at the time the competition was particularly fierce- Namco had Tekken 3, while Sega had Virtua Fighter 3 and Fighting Vipers 2... all of which totally eclipsed Tenth Degree in pretty much every aspect. Since there seemed to be nothing new or exceptional about the title (it also failed to garner much attention during testing), the game was eventually dropped and never released.



Which is really too bad- if only for the reason that one of the fighters in Tenth Degree's roster is the lovely Sung (pictured above), a sexy taekwondo fighter whose design was surely made to capture barefoot fans' hearts. Unfortunately it was just not to be- I've scoured the web for footage of this Korean cutie in action, but to no avail (I even tried finding the MAME version of the game). Only the artwork above (but what a lovely artwork it is) and a few screenshots give us a taste of this babe's barefooted greatness, and hint at what could have been. Anyway, perhaps there was a reason why Tenth Degree was never released- maybe it sucked. Games have progressed since the late 90s, and other hot martial arts babes have taken the spotlight. But still, everytime I see Sung's artwork and gaze at those strong, sexy soles and toes... sigh. What could have been. Oh well.

Since I couldn't find a good video of Sung anywhere, I decided to recreate this hot TKD babe using Soulcalibur IV's Character Creation mode! I think she's a reasonably close representation of the original, and certainly she's hotter in HD graphics than any 90s arcade game could ever render her. So, check her out and enjoy a barefoot videogame babe brought back from the brink of obscurity, back into our foot-loving hearts. Enjoy!