GAME OF THE MONTH COLLECTION!
SPLATTER HOUSE
(Namco,
1990)
Imagine a game where a man in blue must fight for his life in an
old mansion filled with zombies, hanging bodies, and other gruesome undead
creatures with only shot guns, knives, and even his bare hands as weapons.
Sound familiar!? No, the Game of the Month isn't Resident Evil or Alone
in the Dark; it's Namco's Splatter House!
Splatter House earns the GOTM because it's the
first real scary video game to be actually scary! Remember Friday the 13th
and A Nightmare on
That isn't Jim Carrey in the Mask!
Splatter House lets you play the role of Rick, the man who looks a lot like
Jason from Friday the 13th because of the red mask on his face. Although Rick
looks a lot like a bad guy, make no mistake, he's the hero of the game and
he has to rescue his girlfriend Jennifer from the evil
This is going to be no easy feet as there are 7 levels filled with all kinds of
sinister monsters, ghosts, and traps at every corner but there are also some
cool weapons to give some added protection. Rick can pick up things like Rocks,
2 by 4's, Shot guns, Spears, Meat Cleavers, and more to help him out. The game
also plays like a traditional arcade like 2D platformer so anybody should be
able to play it without any trouble.
You want wacky bosses, how bout fighting a bunch of flying decapitated heads
or a man with twin chain saws?
| The game play and bottomline: | |
The game's graphics are fairly decent with some nice effects like
the hanging bodies spilling acid in level 2 to the giant end boss with the
rotten flesh that has to be seen to believe. You'll see a lot of other cool
things here like the second boss is actually an enclosed room that comes alive
thanks to an evil spirit. The animation is a little stiff at times because
the large size of some the characters and there is no parallax scrolling in
the backgrounds either so you won't be blown away by the graphics especially
if you play anything for the Playstation2. The
music is not only very eerie and creepy, but it is also better than most Turbografx-16
games out there. Even most of the monsters have there own sound effects when
they leap out at you or when you destroy them. When Splatter House came out exclusively for the TurboGrafx-16, it gave that
system a nice little edge for people looking for a more adult themed game.
That was until the big sequel Splatter House 2, was released exclusively
for the Sega Genesis (Namco was pretty angry at NEC at the time
so they jumped ship). I knew then that my TurboGrafx-16 was truly finished
when the sequel appeared on another game system. Although Splatter House 2
and 3 are also great games, the first one introduced me to the series and
most importantly proved that horror video games don't have to blow big time.
On the down side Splatter House is kind of short with 7 short levels plus
the game kind of easy as well. Most video game experts should be able to finish
it in a day or two but if you are sick and tired of the usual cute action
games like Super Mario or Bonk's Adventure than maybe fighting
a guy with chainsaws for hands in Splatter House is more up your alley. Don't
expect a happy ending either, so play if you dare and Merry Christmas!? |
Here is my 8 minute video review of Splatterhouse too! Warning: there is some swearing in it: |
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Conclusion: |
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| SPLATTER HOUSE overall rating: 85/100 Find Splatterhouse on eBay here! For 1 player only graphics: 8/10 sound: 8/10 gameplay: 6/10 replay: 5/10 -StarSoldier (Ryan Genno) 2001 OTHER GAMES OF THE MONTH |
If
you want to learn more about the Splatter House series than go here:
