Review: Splatterhouse - Exploding Heads And Shotgun Blasts Ahoy!
by Allan Curtis
November 20, 2010
Overview
Splatterhouse is an iOS port of a 1988 Arcade game of the same name and features the same ultra gory beat 'em up action. In Splatterhouse you play as Rick who is on a mission to save his girlfriend, Jenifer, after she is dragged off by demonic creatures. Rick awakens after the attack wearing the "Terror Mask" an artifact that transforms him into a monster. Its your job to fight your way though a maelstrom of hellish creatures to rescue your girl.Features
Splatterhouse features the standard game from the arcade as well as a new mode called Splatter Rush. Splatterhouse 2 sees you punching and kicking (and occasionally shooting) you way though 7 levels of gore, taking you to such well worn horror tropes as a creepy forest, the sewers and a haunted house, complete with flying poltergeist chairs.The Good
Gameplay is very simple, you just have one button to punch and another to jump. You lack any sort of special powers or abilities, besides being able to blast demons apart with your bare hands. Anyone who has played a side scroller before will be well at home with this title, particularly as it lacks the complexity of other classic beat em ups like Streets of Rage or Final Fight.
One feature that stuck out back when the game was released and still does now is the gore. Grunt enemies explode into gore when you punch them, bosses explode, covering the room in a bloody mess and there are more flying bodyparts and gory deaths than you could ever count, giving the game an enjoyable campy B movie style.
Graphically Splatterhouse is extremely marred by the porting problems detailed below, but the game itself looks quite nice with varied enemies and nice gory animations. Some animations seem like they have lost a few frames, such as Rick walking, but this doesn't detract from gameplay.
Soundwise the game is very well done. The music is very good; really instilling a sense of dread and is contrasted well by the splatters and groans you'd expect from a game like this. Certain sounds, like Rick dying or getting hurt could be better, as they are quite muffled and annoying.
The Bad
Splatterhouse 2 is not a particularly great port. The Arcade Mode is confined to a tiny window about half the size of the phone's screen, making most things tiny and hard to see. Its not certain if this is to preserve the aspect of the original game or for some other reason, but it makes the game awkward to play.
You can zoom the "view" in and out, making the window bigger, but zooming it in more than one degree causes your control elements, such as the virtual dpad to get in the way and your fingers to block the view of some incoming enemies. To add insult to injury the game's controls feel slightly off and the dpad can feel loose.
The game at its core is very simple, despite the sometimes entertaining enemies and great music and sound, since it largely consists of you repeatedly hitting stuff and the occasional jump. If the game had more attacks than a punch and a kick and the odd weapon it wouldn't feel so repetitive.
Back in the late 80s and early 90s there was a craze for bloody games such as Mortal Kombat. Splatterhouse 2 comes from that time, so its gore is one of its main features, and that impact is just lost on a small screen. The game also lacks reply value. The min game is quite short and Splatter Rush is unlikely to hold your attention for more than a few turns. This is often a problem with arcade ports, as they were originally meant to only be played for a few minutes at a time so this is largely excusable.
