I came across that video while I was trying to decide whether or not to write about Ready 2 Rumble: Revolution (conclusion: not yet). It feels like a long time since a really violent, disgusting murder simulator has graced our consoles and I'm glad I was reminded of Bottle Rocket's Splatterhouse remake before I wasted my time with a wacky boxing game. Sorry Nintendo but at least for now, I'd rather rip somethings head off and drink its brain fluids than fight my friends while I fight the inaccuracy of your gimmicky controller.
You may remember Splatterhouse as the gory side-scrolling brawler that Genesis owners rubbed in the faces of Nintendo fans while they were playing Disney tie-ins, or you may otherwise confuse it with the shitty Friday the 13th game. But when the original was released, it not only offered a blood-splattered good time but a fairly involved one at that.
Playing as college student Rick Taylor, who mistakenly chooses a haunted mansion to do his parapsychology research paper in, your girlfriend Jennifer is kidnapped by supernatural entities and you are knocked unconscious and left for dead. When an ancient Mayan hockey mask decides to use your dying body as its host, you are bestowed violent ass-kicking powers and head-off to save your love from the horrors of the mansion.
SPOILER ALERT:
Playing as college student Rick Taylor, who mistakenly chooses a haunted mansion to do his parapsychology research paper in, your girlfriend Jennifer is kidnapped by supernatural entities and you are knocked unconscious and left for dead. When an ancient Mayan hockey mask decides to use your dying body as its host, you are bestowed violent ass-kicking powers and head-off to save your love from the horrors of the mansion.
SPOILER ALERT:
She doesn't make it. (or does she?)
Being a remake, it's slightly confusing as to how she's "still in the house". I assume that will make sense soon enough, though. Thankfully the new Splatterhouse promises to retain the guts and gore of the original while bringing the license into the 3rd dimension for the first time. You can check out the preview gameplay video below:
It definitely looks to rekindle the evil spirit of the original. Unfortunately, thanks to liberal camera-cutting, even I'm having a hard time making my admittedly hasty judgments. 
The environments look appropriate if not exactly eye-catching but there are some hints that you will be fighting in closed arenas rather than open levels. That is, each fighting sequence will be in a closed-off area, similar perhaps to the way Okami does it but at a larger scale. I'm afraid that all the platforming I saw may only serve to bridge the combat sections together, which definitely earns a frowny face from me.
Don't break the monotony with something different; break it with something fun.
Apparently, enemies stand around and watch you kill their friends during finishing moves, which threatens to make the game too easy. I can't count how many action games have made themselves no sort of challenge by essentially making you invincible during certain moves, which you can typically string together to make yourself only sporadically mortal. Think chained-combos in whatever game you associate with repetitive combo-chaining (God of War, Devil May Cry). Then there's the brawler-caveat, as I like to call it:
When you buy a brawler, that's obviously what you want to do; beat people up. But I'm still yet to find a non-fighting game that could make melee combat alone tolerable for hours on end. If slaying endless hordes with repetitive attacks is what we have to look forward to, then we can go ahead and knock Splatterhouse down to the rental category right now. Also worth noting is that I didn't see anything similar to a "puzzle" in the video, not that I particularly care for them.
Splatterhouse's predecessors have already guaranteed it at least a play-through for me, and I think it's on the right track track to be coming an easy "Buy". With a release date of April 28th though...
Well, we'll just have to wait and see how this one turns out. Demo please?
-Unfather
Apparently, enemies stand around and watch you kill their friends during finishing moves, which threatens to make the game too easy. I can't count how many action games have made themselves no sort of challenge by essentially making you invincible during certain moves, which you can typically string together to make yourself only sporadically mortal. Think chained-combos in whatever game you associate with repetitive combo-chaining (God of War, Devil May Cry). Then there's the brawler-caveat, as I like to call it:
Splatterhouse's predecessors have already guaranteed it at least a play-through for me, and I think it's on the right track track to be coming an easy "Buy". With a release date of April 28th though...
Well, we'll just have to wait and see how this one turns out. Demo please?
-Unfather
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