Splatterhouse (arcade)
200x100 GFX Company: Namco
Genre: Beat 'em up, Platformer
Released: USA: 1988
Caught in a thunderous downpour while walking through the woods, Rick and Jennifer unwittingly seek shelter in the infamous West Mansion, home to the infamous Dr. West and his hideous experiments. The couple make it inside the mansion, only to be ambushed by the creatures lurking within. Jennifer is dragged further into the mansion's monster-infested halls while Rick is left for dead. However, a mystic artifact called the Terror Mask latches itself to Rick's face and revives him with enough supernatural strength to save Jennifer. Powered by the mask, Rick must now battle his way through the hellish Splatterhouse, find his girlfriend and escape.

Splatterhouse is a side-scrolling action game that leans closer to the early style of pre-Double Dragon beat-em-ups, but with more natural platforming elements (unlike the tacked-on jumping sections seen in certain scrolling brawlers). Rick's enemies aren't just the creatures in the house, but traps and elements of the house itself. A few of the stages have different paths the player can choose (or blunder into) that will determine the next stage to be played through. Besides using his supernaturally-charged limbs to beat the unholy crap out of anything in the house, Rick sometimes finds weapons and objects he can use to make the fight a bit easier. The 2x4 weapon even lets Rick swat enemies into the background's wall with enough for to make them splatter and slowly ooze down to the floor.

Made in an era when games would just emulate movies' themes instead of their playability, Splatterhouse was built on blood-soaked ground of '70s and '80s horror films. From the way that the Terror Mask looks like the goalie mask used by Crystal Lake's least favorite resident to the game's dramatic ending, the game is filled with the kind of images usually found in flicks popular on late-nite cable ("HBO will show this feature only at night") and the horror aisle of the local video rental store. The gory horror themes that made Splatterhosue popular with its fans also made it a rare sight in U.S. arcades, as the sight of spurting blood, misshapen creatures, upside down crosses and bubble-riding fetus demons may have been a bit much for the type of parents who liked to cause a fuss over anything they didn't like.

Player Characters:
Rick Taylor
Enemy Characters:
Biggy Man
Other Characters:
Jennifer
Screenshots (click to see full-sized):
Title screen (click to see .GIF) Intro - West Mansion (click to see .GIF) Stage 1 Stage 1 Stage 2
ScrollBoss Section Links:
Sprites - Splatterhouse series page
Custom Sprites - Splatterhouse series
Mini Logos - Namco mini-logos
Logos - Splatterhouse series

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