Splatterhouse

Platform: TurboGrafx-16
Developer: Namco
Released: 1990
Genre: Beat 'em up

The Game
Rick and Jennifer, a couple of good ol' university kids, get caught out in a storm and decide to take refuge at the scariest, creepiest, most weirdest private residence in the entire town, West Mansion. Once inside, they are beset upon by numerous monsters who mortally wound Rick and steal away with Jennifer for undoubtedly nefarious purposes. Rick wakes up in the basement of the house some time later, alive thanks to a sentient object known as the Terror Mask (or "Hell Mask", if you live in a non-wussified country), which binds itself to his face and transforms him into a hulking monster. With the power of the mask at his disposal, Rick starts to tear his way through West Mansion and the monsters that inhabit it in search of his girlfriend . . .

Splatterhouse is the first of a trilogy and the only one of which was on the TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem, with the other two being made for the Sega Genesis. A remake is currently in the works and due out for the PS3 and XBox 360 later this year, and supposedly the remake package will also include all three of the original games.

Due to the violent nature of the game, a lot of content was either changed or removed outright when it was ported over from Japan. This includes swapping weapons out (a meat cleaver became a 2x4, for instance), toned down violence, and the removal of a few screams, amongst other things. But don't worry, there's still a fair amount of gore and horror to be had.

The Characters
Rick is a university student who nearly gets killed, gets fused with a sentient mask that turns him into a brutal monster, and rips West Mansion a new one.

Jennifer is Rick's damsel in distress girlfriend. She gets kidnapped by monsters at the beginning of the game.

Dr. West is a parapsychologist who's been missing for a while, owns West Mansion, and only gets a mention in the backstory. He might be the end boss of the game, but there's really nothing to indicate whether that's true, or if it isn't, what might have actually happened to him. For all we know, the dude's just off having a vacation somewhere, blissfully unaware that his house became a creepy spook joint while he was out.

The Terror Mask is a self-aware mask that can make people mutate into giant super-strong monsters, and it seems to have plans and motivations of its own, but it's left openended as to what those might be.

The monsters . . . man, I don't know. Maybe they'll explain it more in the other two games. And even if they don't, it seems that the remake will delve further into the mysteries of the mansion, at least. But as far as this game goes, all that's revealed is that they are monsters and they aren't very nice.

The characterization is so thin as to be virtually non-existent. The people are more or less just props for the setting.

The Writing
Having the main protagonist also be the main savage monster of the story is a nice spin, but in the end this is basically your standard low-grade horror movie plot. Monsters take girl, hero battles monsters, so on and so forth. There's a minor twist here and there, but nothing too far out there.

And this is one of those games where that's all it really needs. If more story gets added on in the sequels, that's cool, but this game is more about splattering monsters against the wall than some hoity-toity storyline.

The Gameplay
Pretty straightforward and, in some cases, somewhat disappointing fare. Rick can punch. He can jump. He can kick. He can jump and kick. He picks up the occasional weapon, but they only last for the one level they're picked up on, and they're more just for the cool splatter animations than actual necessities most of the time. There's one, the wrench, that's only found in one spot and can only be used once, as a throwing weapon. Since at that spot in the level there's usually one of the nasty ghoulies right within punching distance anyway, it's fairly pointless to even bother picking the damn thing up.

The Challenge
The game only rarely takes cheap shots, but when it does it can be particularly annoying, especially the ones dealt out by the final boss. Most enemies can be taken out by a single hit as long as you've got a weapon in your hand, and even when you don't have a weapon most of them only need two or three hits at most.

The main challenge, as with a lot of lazier games of the mid eighties to mid nineties, is remembering where everything is. The baddies only rarely switch up their positions from one run through to another, so making it through any given level without getting hit is just a matter of rote memorization. It's fairly noticeable throughout the rest of the game, but it's most blatant in the very last level where all you have to do is time your jumps over burning logs and your dashes under burning guys as they jump over you. No punches or kicks until you reach the final boss . . . just the simple rigors of an obstacle course.

The game is pretty challenging, but not for good reasons.

The Sights
Before this, I had never played a game on the TurboGrafx-16 before. To be truthful and to my shame, I was only barely aware that the system even existed at all. But having gotten a look at Splatterhouse, I'm looking forward to getting to know it. The animations are a bit weak (Rick doesn't really jump so much as he stands still and then suddenly launches up in the air without moving his legs at all), but the sprites and backgrounds are pretty well rendered, almost up to the quality of a Genesis game. The splattered forms of the monsters were pretty neat looking, and the entire house was well decked out with a grisly horror feel.

The Sounds
There were a few voice bits in there, which I wasn't really expecting, mostly extremely short phrases from Jennifer. The music was alright, getting across the sort of B horror movie vibe that most of the game seemed to be going for.

The Bottom Line
Eeeeeeeeh . . . I won't say I'm sorry that I played Splatterhouse or anything, but I really just don't feel it offered anything unique or interesting enough in a beat 'em up game. The fact that I know that I got a watered down version of the game is also sort of a turn-off, making it feel just that much blander, as the violence is supposed to be the main draw of the game.

Overall, it was an average game at best, worth one play through but not any more than that. Hopefully the sequels have some more substance to them, or at least more style. I think I'll also seek out an unfiltered version of the game to see if the changes really made a big difference.

Aliens (Arcade)

Platform:  Arcade
Developer:  Konami
Released:  1990
Genre:  Shoot 'em up

The Game
Lt. Ellen Ripley must bust her way through several levels of a space colony infested with vicious xenomorphs to save Newt, a young girl that was the only survivor of the alien massacre.  All she's got to get her through this horrific ordeal is a homemade rifle/flamethrower/missile launcher and balls of steel big enough to take down the Empire State Building.

Aliens is based on the movie of the same name, the second in a series of movies involving the titular xenomorphs and interplanetary badass Ripley, played by the lovely Sigourny Weaver.  The game was released about four years after the movie and was the second to have that name, the other being for the MSX home computer and developed by, of all people, Squaresoft.

The Characters
Ripley is the protagonist, and if you've got a buddy with some quarters to burn, she can be joined by Corporal Dwayne Hicks (played by sci fi darling Michael Biehn in the movie).  There's no real dialogue to speak of in this game to convey their personalities, but I think it's safe to assume that they're both the same awesome folks we see in the movie.

Newt is the spunky young girl who just can't seem to keep from getting kidnapped by those nasty xenomorphs no matter how many of them you dispatch.

The xenos are those nasty buggers trying to bite off Ripley's head and spit acid down her throat.  Unlike just the three basic types we see in the movies (queen, face hugger, drone), there's tons of different critters running around the game's colony, all of them working as hard as they can to end the human incursion into their nest with their various unique abilities.

The Writing
There's not much to speak of past the basic exposition given at the very beginning of the game to get the player caught up to speed, but I have to give major props to Konami for picking the best section of the movie to use for a game.  Though there's actually only some moderate action when Ripley goes down to retrieve Newt in the film, the leadup to her mounting her rescue mission definitely suggests that something more like this game should have happened.  Kudos to them for making this expectation a reality!

The Gameplay
Basic run and gun with pretty basic mechanics.  You can shoot at two levels for most of the game: standing for the big stuff or crouching to wipe out the face huggers and other small critters.  Bombs can be found scattered throughout the levels, as can gun upgrades, allowing you to plow through the xenos with missiles, scattershot, and purifying fire.  My personal fave is the flamethrower, not least because seeing the special burning version of the enemy sprites is pretty damn cool.

The basic blast-hell-outta-them levels are broken up by the occasional cart ride which operates like a rail shooter as you take out xenos that try to jump on the front of your cart and chew on your face, air vent crawls in which you get a HUD set up like the movie's motion detectors, and freight loader sections that have Ripley take control of that kickass yellow mecha that always fascinated me as a kid.  Hell, I'd still love a ride in one today!

The action is fast paced, xeno blasting fun!

The Challenge
I actually beat this game as a kid tooling around in the local arcade, and I remembered it being pretty hard.  This time, however, I pretty much blazed right through.  I still ended up using about three fake dollars, though.

Hey, remember back when all arcade games were only a quarter a play?  Those were the days.

The Graphics
I've always enjoyed arcade graphics, and even some of the earliest games still impress me.  That said, Aliens manages to impress even above many of the other impressors.  The colors are a little gaudy, but the level design is quite good and the enemy sprites are very well made, especially the bosses.  I think my favorite of the latter has to be the xeno with the black sectioned armor on the back of his entire body so that he looks like a big wad of cockroaches when he curls into a ball and rolls around.  The infested human enemies are pretty creepy, especially the half-a-bodies that crawl along the ground and try to shoot you.

The Music
Music?  I was too busy dodging acid blood and filling hardened carapaces with burning death to notice any damn music!

The Bottom Line
Aliens has long been among my favorite arcade games, and this recent playthrough hasn't changed that.  Great graphics, entertainingly hectic gameplay, and great selection of setting . . . this is what more licensed games should be like.  I just wish it was a little longer, but that's arcade games for ya.