Splatterhouse has all the elements of any good B movie horror flick .. it's got everything a low-budget film would need to be a video-rental success: a big, deserted house, a beautiful, likely scantily clad woman, monsters, mayhem, blood galore, and finally, a mask-wearing hero with a penchant for slaughter. The..."story".. is that you (Rick) and your gorgeous vixen of a girlfriend decide to go for a trip to the old, abandoned house in the woods to get down to some hardcore, uh, "research", like any good natured college couple would, given the circumstances. Faster then you can say "nookie time", demons steal your girlfriend, knock you out, and you wake up a short time later with a cursed mask of evil wrapped around your face! You're pissed, naturally (you didn't even have time for a quickie, afterall), and decide to go into the mansion to get her back. Time to go fuck things up, my friends...It's games like Splatterhouse that were responsible for all that fuss from the government about video game content. Full of gratuitous violence, it set a new standard in the graphic nature of video games.
[GRAPHICS]
I'm not cleanin' this up...
Visually, the developers did a good job of porting the arcade version of Splatterhouse to a home console the likes of the TurboGrafx. There is a decent amount of detail in the enemies and backgrounds, although there is not a single layer of parallax scrolling anywhere to be found -- still, the death animations are fairly well done, but pale in comparison to the arcade equivalent; still, you've got to realize that this game is the size of a credit card, and Namco did a commendable job.
There's a fair amount blood n' gore (tame by todays standards, I must point out), which was considered a taboo . In fact, I believe that the arcade version of Splatterhouse was banned from arcades after complaints of it warping the minds of us sick, sick twisted youth.
[SOUND FX/MUSIC]
Look, ma! No hands!
Well ... at least they got the graphics right. Music isn't that bad, but sound effects are a completely different matter - alright, they're terrible. When you leap into the water in the sewer, it sounds more like you're bouncing on a trampoline than making a splash.
Like I said, though, the music isn't bad. But the qualities not there.. resembles the sounds you'd get from listening to music through a tin can, but what do you expect? In some respects, I suppose it's creepy, and fits the mood, but nothing noteworthy (you won't find yourself humming these tunes while in the shower). The music saves this title's audibal future from total mediocrity, but it comes close.
Hello there, beautiful!
[GAMEPLAY]...heh, at least they got the graphics right...
Pretty simplistic, really. The gameplay in Splatterhouse is mainly involves walking in a designated direction, while on occasion the screen scrolls by itself and you have to keep up. You can jump, duck, punch, kick, and if you're lucky, you'll stumble upon one out of a handful of rather brutal weapons to aid you in your quest for enemy dismemberment (a plank of wood, cleaver, shotgun, wrench, and rock. There's probably a baseball bat in there, too, I shouldn't wonder).
One of the most, uh, amusing aspects of Splatterhouse involves taking the role of spectator as the monsters you slaughter stop being monsters any more. If you connect with the 2x4, you'll send the enemy flying against a wall in the background, where they promptly splat in a manner similar to a fly against a windshield (complete with green goo). This only works for walking enemies, unfortunatly, since the bats and floating heads bounce off your plank, leaping through the air away from you before collapsing on the ground. The gameplay's not completely monotonous, but let's face it, there's not a helluva lot to do.
[OVERALL]
Home run, baby!
This game has its moments, I'll grant it that, but when it all boils down, there's nothing much to Splatterhouse. Incredibly simplistic gameplay gets old fast, since the formula never changes. But that aside, I enjoyed trugging through Splatterhouse, if not only to see the insane bosses that the developers cooked up. Sometimes the extreme difficulty of some game segments are enough to drive you up the walls, but it's this challenge alone that would keep you coming back for another try .. the brainless gameplay sure isn't going to keep you around for long.
As much as I may have trashed Splatterhouse in that last paragraph, it's worth a bit of fun. If you can find it somewhere reasonably priced, go for it -- but you may want to give it a try before you buy ...*cough* emulation. Whatever...
[GRAPHICS] - 8.6/10
[SOUND FX/MUSIC] - 5/10
[GAMEPLAY] - 5.7/10
[OVERALL] - 6.7/10 (not an average)