Splatterhouse

Splatterhouse (スプラッターハウス, Supurattāhausu?) is a 1988 beat 'em up arcade game developed and published by Namco (now merged with Bandai as Namco Bandai Holdings). It is also subsequently the title of the entire series of games released in home console and personal computer formats.

Due to its violent nature as well as some questionable enemies, the TurboGrafx-16 port of Splatterhouse had a "parental advisory warning" of sorts printed on the front of the box.

Namco Bandai has announced a next-gen adaptation to reboot the franchise to be developed by BottleRocket Entertainment. On February 9, 2009, Namco split ways with BottleRocket Entertainment as the developer. On March 12, 2009, Namco announced that the split from BottleRocket was due to "performance issues"

Gameplay

Splatterhouse is a sidescrolling beat 'em up video game in which the player controls Rick, a parapsychology student who is trapped inside West Mansion. After his resurrection by the Terror Mask, Rick makes his way through the mansion, fighting off hordes of creatures in a vain attempt to save his girlfriend Jennifer from a grisly fate. Players of this game will also recognize a number of western horror film influences, such as Friday the 13th and Evil Dead 2

Similar to many sidescrolling beat 'em up games, Rick can only move in a two-dimensional environment. The playing field does not feature a three-dimensional area, a feature that was added later in the series with Splatterhouse 3. He has the ability to jump and can punch and kick. Rick also has a Special Attack, where he will perform a drop kick that sends him skidding along the ground, damaging any enemies he hits. Rick can also perform a low kick, low punch, and jumping attacks, as well as pick up and use various weapons placed in the levels.

All of the levels consist of walking left to right, with occasional auto-scrolling segments. However, alternative pathways through sections of the house are possible by falling down through holes or jumping up onto ladders. In this way, branching gameplay is possible, if only prevalent in the middle levels. Levels culminate in boss fights that take place in a single room. Unlike traditional side-scrolling fighters, boss fights have varying objectives and styles.

Source: Wikipedia, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splatterhouse," available under the CC-BY-SA License.