Review: Splatterhouse

FIRST AND FOREMOST! THIS GAME IS RATED M! LOADS OF M!

Before a review can begin, before judgment can be passed, I must first and foremost warn the lovers of iconic Disney voice actors to beware. Also, this game is intensely graphic and vulgar and gory. If you learn nothing from this review, please take away that the Rated – M logo on the cover means business. From beginning to end, you are ravaging horrors viciously and creatively.

With that said, moving on! The opening cinematic reveals our protagonist, lying in a pool of his own blood. His intestines are strewn on the floor. Blood soaking an image of himself and a girl. A girl we find out is named Jenny. I know what you are thinking, “Why does this always happen to me?”

The answer, STOP GOING INTO CREEPY MANSIONS!

Now, back to the bleeding guy.

He is using his last breathes to reach for a skull mask. It is calling to him. Giving him a chance to get Jenny back. A chance to find out what is going on. But at what price?

Once agreeing to this devil’s deal, you seem to explode into a hulking… hulk (minus the green). Sort of an incredibly ripped, not green hulk. But, that is besides the point. The point is, that mask has some freaking awesome powers. Right after the sweet upgrade, EVEN MORE SWEETNESS OCCURS. Spikes grow out of Rick’s back, his arms, his… body! Then, with spikes in hand, you start hacking and slashing away at horrors. No instruction, just shear abuse of the X button.

A short massacre later, the Devil May Cry powers wear off and you are back to the mere hulking Jason. As not to get to involved into the story, because who wants that, I’m going to reveal what gives the game its grit.

Splatterhouse for the Xbox 360 and PS3 is a next-gen remake of the TurboGrafx 16 and SEGA games. This fantastic Beat’em up game performs exactly as expected. It is very easy to pick up and just play. You spend some

time at the beginning just pressing the buttons and see what it does. After figuring that out, you are set to charge through and play the game. To be honest, I knew absolutely nothing about the game or the series before this title. Which isn’t a bad thing. After playing the game for the first two phases, I unlocked the original TurboGrafx title. Pretty sweet if you ask me. Playing through the game unlocks the original series. EPIC win.

Pressing on, the combat system reminds me of one part Devil May Cry, one part God of War. You gain blood to fill up what I call the Terror Gauge. (I apologize upfront, I never cared to learn games “technical” gauge names. One is always Energy, the other is Health) So, when you fill up the Terror Gauge you can unlock your Terror Demon form and also perform a Splatter Siphon. The Splatter Siphon is a way of turning energy into health.

Splatterhouse reminded me a lot of God of War. You don’t always have weapons, but you do get to rip people in half with timed actions and multiple combinations. Rick gets to melee the crap out of horrors and gigantic house sculpted monsters. An interesting twist, however, is that Splatterhouse requires the correct orientation of the joysticks before Splatter kills and certain timed actions can be performed. For example, while killing minion horrors, you can grab them with low health, and the action might require to pull both joysticks up to rip their head off, or both joysticks faced outward to rip their arms off. Very cool.

In a game full of brilliant gore, and an entertaining fight system, my only complaint are the graphics. There isn’t anything wrong with them. The world is rendered “beautifully” creepy and breathtakingly horrific. But, I just never got on board with cell shading. It is clean, it is smooth. It just isn’t me. And it in no way affects the scoring.
Great job, Namco.

Score: 8.5 / 10 – This is a great, great game. I haven’t played a beat’em up game in so long. And I’m glad the one I start anew was this one.

Splatterhouse was developed and published by Namco Bandai Games for the Xbox 360 and PS3 on November 23rd, 2010. A copy of the Xbox 360 version was provided to us for reviewing purposes.