Darkwing Duck has a dirty, dirty mouth.

I'm not going to try and convince you that Splatterhouse is a great game, because it totally isn't, but if you've ever enjoyed a 3D beat-'em-up title before, you'll probably have a little fun with it. With a game that's been plagued by development issues like this title has, it's bound to be pretty rough around the edges, and when those edges rear their ugly heads in the gameplay, well, nobody is going to be happy about it. There are definitely areas that the game could see some serious improvement, but overall, I'm not entirely disappointed in this old school revival attempt.

Splatterhouse takes the original tale of the arcade/TG-16 title and spruces it up a bit, adding a little more back story to the hero character of Rick, the villain of the piece Dr. West, and Rick's girlfriend that you'll spend the majority of the tale chasing down. The back-story isn't particularly necessary, but we've become so used to overwrought drama in our video games nowadays, I suppose the developers felt there was some necessity to expand upon the creepy house with monster angle a little bit. I do enjoy the thought of tying this into some Lovecraft mythos, even if they're running a bit loose with that thread, but outside of that the story is largely forgettable outside of its major points.

For gore hounds and horror fans, there's a little bit to love too, but whereas the original game was pushing certain boundaries ages ago when blood and violence in video games was still pretty taboo, nowadays it's going to take quite a bit to shock your average 17 plus aged gamer. We've become pretty used to seeing head deforming curb stomps, giant bullet holes, and blood flying about the place, so when Splatterhouse attempts to fill its screen real estate with a lot of the gooey red stuff, it's hard to sit back and think this is something edgy. At times it almost comes off as lame actually, but there's still some interesting and disturbing visuals in the "splatterkills", which are QTE events that you can pull off on enemies once they've been damaged enough. Two in particular spring to mind, one that involves the rectum of a pretty grotesque creature, which even in this age of M rated gaming is pretty over the top and pause inducing. The only shame about the splatterkills is how repetitive they tend to be, I'd rather have a few more varieties between the different enemies, but you've got less than a dozen or so spread about, and you'll see them over and over again.

I will say that the game does stay pretty true to its source material, putting a heavy emphasis on weapons that can be picked up, using classic mainstays like machetes, 2x4's with nails, chainsaws, and even the occasional shot gun or meat cleaver. A lot of these tools were present in the original Splatterhouse, and just like the original, they're pretty powerful here. The only drawback is how limited they are, as they'll often break after a few uses, but once again, that's staying true to the source material.

One thing that modern Splatterhouse does deviate from in relation to the original game is the addition of experience, earned by gathering blood points, and the ability to spend those points on upgradeable moves. There's basic stuff here, like expanding your health meter, and then there's more interesting move types, including super-moves that are mask induced abilities that'll eat away at a secondary power-up bar that falls below your health bar. The game does try to put a heavy emphasis on using a variety of moves, but it's pretty hard to really combo anything together other than your basic light and strong attacks. The rest of your abilities are more stand alone type moves, they don't really segue into each other well enough to give you the ability to make combo variations on the level of something like Bayonetta or the Devil May Cry series. Also, I found the block ability to be nearly useless here, as most enemies could break through my block with little effort, and so I was stuck rolling around the majority of the time in order to avoid attacks. Damage will be taken quite a bit, but thankfully you do get an ability that'll allow you to absorb health from enemies around you, making you more durable than you might suspect.

One somewhat interesting throwback to the old games comes in the form of level segments that take on a 2D plane effect, still using the 3D character models but tossing them against the backdrop of one way area that's designed to mimic the old scrolling formula of the original game. In concept this is a cool idea, but since the game employs the same move set, jump, and run style of the 3D world, you'll start to feel pretty cumbersome packed into this tight environment. Avoiding traps and making precise jumps is difficult to do, and not nearly as forgiving as it is on the 3D plane. Hell, making jumps in the normal segments of the game can be a pain in the ass, but it's definitely exacerbated by limiting your movements during these side scrolling segments.

From the visual side of things, I appreciated the variety in the monster designs; the game really did throw a lot more monster variations at me than I would have thought. Granted, there are some palette swap creatures tossed in the mix, but overall I think the enemy variety is well suited for the game considering the overall length. I'm not entirely sold on the design of Rick himself, I think he's a little too generic and resembles a homicidal John Cena, but I suppose ripping off Jason Voorhees like the original game did isn't exactly a stroke of artistic genius either. On the sound side of things, having Jim Cummings (Pete from Goof Troop, Darkwing Duck) voice the mask was a stroke of pure genius, and his voice over is easily my favorite aspect of the entire game.

One last thing to note is that I do appreciate having all three of the original Splatterhouse titles on the disc as unlockables, I haven't played them in years and I'm not even entirely sure I ever played the original arcade Splatterhouse. They've haven't aged extremely well, but I'm all for nostalgic throwbacks and it's a nice addition to have, especially when I could see developers pulling the old DLC chain to eke a little money out for something like that. It's definitely not enough reason to pick this game up within its launch window, but I'm sure there's a subset out there that'll appreciate having these titles, and emulation seems to work without a hitch. It's a shame that the 360 controller is a bit unwieldy for the experience, but I'm sure PS3 owners will have a little better luck, or 360 owners that have the controller with the new D-Pad design.

All together though, it's hard to recommend Splatterhouse as something you must pick up and try out right away. I'd certainly suggest a rental at best, and maybe wait for an inevitable price drop if you like to actually own your games. It's not something I'd completely pass on, I did have some fun with it, it's just a little too repetitive and rough for me to consider it as a great release. You'll probably already know whether or not you're the audience for this game based on the whole gore/horror factor, so if you're going into this just for the gameplay element, I'd say you better try before you buy.