The other night I was at Target and I was looking for a particular brand of soap, I searched everywhere, but couldn’t find it. I ended up calling my wife to ask her if she knew where it was – she did. As it turns out, Target had recently remodeled that section of the store and had moved the soap to a different section. Long story short; I found my soap and now I’m smelling fresh! ‘What does this story have to do with Splatterhouse?’ you may ask. The answer is “nothing.” I just find it more interesting than that game.
Splatterhouse is a reboot of the classic side scrolling, hack and slash arcade game that stole thousands of quarters from young, gore hounds during the late 80’s and early 90’s. Back in those days, the mere fact that the game included over the top gore was enough to entice players to keep pumping in quarters, regardless if the gameplay was any good. These days, most video gamers, like those who play on 먹튀검증, are a bit more discerning, as we have traded in the sweaty, smoky game lounges and arcade cabinets for living room couches and high definition consoles. Unfortunately for Splatterhouse, Namco Bandai has designed their game much in the vein of its old school counterpart, but the transition from old to new doesn’t quite translate the way we would have liked.
The story in Splatterhouse—if you’re into that sort of thing—is much like the original. Rick and his girlfriend, Jennifer, have ventured into the mansion of a mad scientist. Jennifer is quickly abducted and Rick is left for dead. You take control of Rick as he—at the demands of a strange mask—puts on said mask and is turned into a huge, hulking beast of a man. From there on out it’s a trip through various locales and endless streams of enemies, as you save your girlfriend and stop the evil scientist. Sound good?
As clichéd as the story may sound, cliché is not the worst thing to happen to video games. We’ve played through countless amnesia stories and saved hundreds of princesses and it’s always OK, as long as gameplay stays fresh and interesting. Unfortunately for Splatterhouse, the gameplay might start off fresh and interesting, but there isn’t enough progression to keep things that way. The meat and potatoes of Splatterhouse is its brutal and gooey combat and it all works like it should, but during the roughly eight hours you’ll spend with the game, it never felt like the character was progressing in his abilities. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of moves to be unlocked, but none of them are different enough from the ones you start out with. This makes each unlock bitter sweet, making it difficult to get excited about the new additions to your moveset. By the end of your playthrough, you’ll likely find yourself using much of the same combat maneuvers that you used at the beginning. And when a game is built around nothing but constant combat, this quickly turns into a problem.
On the plus side, the game does look pretty, in a blood soaked meat factory kind of way. The environments change up often, making sure you don’t get bored looking at them, and the cutscenes are nicely animated. The regular enemy types are recycled too often, but the bosses are nicely designed and look like something that Tod McFarlane might have dreamed up. The big draw for the game though—at least according to the back of the box—is its elaborate gore, and it does the gore thing quite nicely. Blood splatters all across the screen as limbs are ripped from bodies, and the QTE kills featured throughout the game would make Jason Vorhees himself jealous. For gorehounds, this game has a lot to offer.
As nice as the game may look, there are still just too many problems to overlook. Besides the tedious combat, the game is buggy. Enemies were constantly sliding through walls and I found myself getting stuck on the environment in every other room. One certain bug that seemed to plague me took place whenever I would find a chainsaw. It was a bit of mindless fun mowing through enemies with the chainsaw, but it kept disappearing inexplicably. I could still hear it running, and whenever I would punch enemies it would make the sound of a chainsaw, but it simply wasn’t there. It’s the kind of thing that would be funny if it wasn’t so annoying.
Now, after all that, you may be thinking this is a bad game. It falls somehwere inbetween. You’ll find spurts of enjoyment, but nothing will stick with you throughout. Splatterhouse is not a terrible game; it’s just incredibly repetitive and as a result, ends up being rather boring. The inclusion of all three arcade Splatterhouse titles as unlockables is a nice touch, but this isn’t reason enough to warrant a recommendation. In the end, I really can’t think of any reason to suggest this reboot to anyone, unless you want to hear Jim Cummings (Winnie the Pooh) drop several F-Bombs. Talk about surreal.