Splatterhouse is a remake that looks to be able to live up to its name sake, at least in the games extreme violence that looks straight out of a B-horror flick.
Playing the game on the Xbox 360 on Wednesday, Splatterhouse puts you in the lumbering shoes of Rick Taylor as he smashes his way through enemies to save his girlfriend from certain doom.
The demo I played started out with a 2D level that hearkens back to the arcade Splatterhouse games. Here, I was able to face off against some weaker enemies that exploded into bits of flesh and blood the second I hit them. Very satisfying.
After some slightly awkward jumping puzzles, the perspective shifted to 3D, where you pull some levers and end up in a room where you have to throw some weaker enemies onto spikes, for some reason.
The combat is smooth, with Rick punching and kicking with a brutal smoothness that makes tearing up a room of baddies a breeze.
A nice touch is the fact that Rick gets bits of his own body ripped off when he starts to take serious damage, exposing his ribs and other internal organs.
The only real problem I could find with my brief time with the game were some bland gray colored environments and awkward jumping. Hopefully, developer Namco Bandai can iron over these kinks before the game ships.
A statue of Splatterhouse protagonist Rick Taylor. Disturbingly well detailed. (Photo by Brennan Whitmore)
