By Sam Graham
Long before horror games became all about people on Youtube
putting on annoying voices, narrating bollocks, over-exaggerated screams - when
the real thing they're screaming at is the knowledge that if they don't scream
louder or pull their biggest Salvador
Dali's Clock face then they'll have to get a real job - and generally being
shit at the games they're playing, they were about having fun.
Splatterhouse 2,
the sequel to - do I even have to tell you? You can probably guess - Splatterhouse 1 for the Sega
Megadrive/Genesis, is basically a 16-bit Stuart
Gordon film. It’s gory, camp, and completely unashamed of itself. It's that
guy who hangs out near schools on Halloween as zombie Jimmy Savile. Amidst a slew of animal mascots jumping over things,
Splatterhouse 2 was horror for kids, more brazen than anything R.L Stine was putting out at the time.
Simple premise: Rick, a man in a mask (not Jason though. Definitely
not Jason. Don't want to get sued) punches the shit out of everything on his
quest to save his missus from a haunted house.
There is more to it, but everything else is pretty much secondary, like
the plot in a porno: once you've got to the fucking, who cares about anything
else? Like its movie counterparts, nobody played Splatterhouse for its
award-winning plot anyway.
The game starts up with some eerie music and you walk to the
right, punching skinned monsters in half, then punch a globular demon until its
guts rupture, then stave in some demon's heads with a stick, then a face comes
out of the wall, so you punch it in the eyes until they burst. It basically
goes like that. This game has no pretence about what it is. It knows it is
trash and it celebrates the fact.
Grindhouse goodness. Gore = fun. Amidst the punching monsters in half
with Rick's supremely muscular arms, chuck in a couple of jumping bits and
you've got Mario on steroids. There's
demon fish and foetus' hanging by their necks that mewl when you punch them in
the stomach, it doesn't give a shit. It's a wonder it never got banned, though
this came out in a time long before people were offended by stupid shit like
Tracer from Overwatch having an
arse, just like the ones those no-life SJW's spend so much time sitting on.
Of course that's how it looks anyways.
Reality is, it's like those ghost trains that look great from
outside, but once you've handed over that non-refundable three quid, you're
subjected to sitting in the dark while objects of dubious girth and stench wipe
across your face. And by that crap metaphor I mean that the game is hard as
nails. Not because of fair challenge, but because Rick takes up so much of the
god damn screen you barely have any reaction time. As well as looking like he's
shit his man-nappy, he jumps and moves like it's leaked out down his inside
leg. Because he's so enormous and slow, Rick can only successfully dodge two
things in the whole game: Jack and shit. Some enemies jump over your head, but
more often than not they end up clipping you and you lose another hit
point. And those fuckers don't come
cheap. There aren't any to pick up, and you only get awarded them for your
score (that's how old this game is. People still played for the high score). 4
Hits and that's your lot. Honestly, worse reaction time than a blind woman at a
bukkake.
Most of the enemies only take the one hit, and the majority
of the levels are the standard 'just go right' variety, which is a relief, but
good luck on any level set in a lift, because there's no room to manoeuvre. Enemies
drop in from the ceiling and then jump over you right as you go to introduce
them to Rick's pixelated fist.
This game's main selling-point has to be in its art style. The
music has that 80's horror vibe to it, and the scenery look like a cross
between Friday The 13th and From Beyond. It’s bright and colourful and while it
requires some imagination (because the blood is made up of little squares), it
celebrates the gore and the cheese from the days of practical effects monster
horror. It's only Rick's stiff control that lets the game down, and by god does
it. It could have been perfect. Instead it's the equivalent of taking the first
bite of a delicious looking burrito, only to find out it's actually the baby
from Eraserhead.
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