Monday Morning MAME Club [8/30/04] - Splatterhouse

[Flack]

Ok, so we played Burgertime. We played Super Burgertime. They were cute. They were cuddly. They were nice. Well KISS THAT GOODBYE folks -- we're trading in our spatulas for chainsaws this week and cutting more than the cheese. That horrible joke could mean only one thing ...

Splatterhouse is Hellvin's MAME Club pick of the week!
Download the MAME Club pick HERE



Download the ROM if you don't already have it, give it a spin, and respond to this topic with your review! Have you played this game before, or is it brand new to you? Do you like the genre? How did it run on your computer? Did you beat it? If so, how long did it take? What was your high score? How far can you get? Did you have any problems emulating the game? When writing your review, post it right here in the sticky topic and include any thoughts you have about the game. Remember, YOU are the reviewer. Let us know anything and everything you think about the game!

Club Members:

Gamereviewgod (ESP Ra.De.)
Wisesalesman (Waku Waku 7)
scooterb23 (I'm Sorry)
ddockery (Penguin-Kun Wars)
AlanD (Dr. Micro)
digitalpress (N/A)
IntvGene (Strike Force)
NE146 (Portman)
jonjandran (Bronze Adventure)
Flack (Rollergames, Yie-Ar Kung-Fu, Liquid Kids)
IGotTheDot (N/A)
zektor (Battle Bakraid, Haunted Castle)
buttasuperb (Blazing Star)
chadtower (Berkerk)
Sotenga (Caliber 50)
Stark (Mighty! Pang)
christianscott27 (Darius Gaiden)
ECWSandmanECW (League Bowling)
TripppsK (Lady Bug)
vespertillio (Rampart!)
ghsqb (N/A)
TheSmirk (Bomb Jack)
Flukkake (Elevator Action)
BHvrd (NARC)
ManekiNeko (Battle Circuit)
MarioAllStar2600 (City Bomber)
Ze_ro (Pandora's Palace)
slip81 (Biomechanical Toy)
Qbert (Mysterious Stones)
k8track (Go! Go! Mile Smile)
Hamsnibit (N/A)
Lady Jaye (Chuka Taisen/Cloud Master)
Sofa King Gud (Crossbow)
Schenley (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom)
Kaine23 (Super Burgertime)
Arqueologia_Digital (Burgertime)
Jiscan (N/A)
-hellvin- (Splatterhouse)
Acidic_Pain
Gamemaster_ca_2003
Vigilante
Hovoc
Mr.FoodMonster
sniperCCJVQ
A Boy

Remember, you don't have to be a member of the club to download the game and write up a review, but by joining you get the honor of picking a game to share with the group during your week. If you would like to join, simply send me a PM and I will add you to the list!

Remember kids, it's only a videogame -- don't go pick up a chainsaw and start splattering the house on your own. It's much safer to simply ...

... MAME ON!

[Gamereviewgod]

This is rather embarrasing, but I never knew this was an arcade game. I always thought it was made just for the Turbo. I'll have to try this one later today when I have some time.

P.S. Can we please sticky this one in the main forum... PLEASE???? This is why no one finds these every week!

[Bratwurst]

This game had a great atmosphere, and that's what saves it from the dumbass repetitious gameplay and ugly animation. Rick's lumpy body looks like something some kid spat up in Microsoft Paint.

[chadtower]

Great game, great game. The TG port is a phenomenal TurboExpress game, BTW.

[Neil Koch]

Fun game, but it's fustrating in parts and I wish you got more weapons. I actually got a TG16 for this game when I was younger.

[Dire 51]

This game had a great atmosphere, and that's what saves it from the dumbass repetitious gameplay and ugly animation. Rick's lumpy body looks like something some kid spat up in Microsoft Paint.

Hey, WATCH IT there, Bratwurst. Don't make me sic Biggy Man on you. I'll do it too! Just try me!

<shameless plug>And don't forget to visit West Mansion for all the Splatterhouse goodness you could possibly want! http://www.classicgaming.com/splatterhouse </shameless plug>

[-hellvin-]

This is one of my regular plays on MAME, I love it very much. Got the tg16 version today and am eager to try it out. I think it looks pretty nice and defenitely agree on the frustration part. Without a doubt the part I hate the most is the god damn poltergiest room! I always seem to get hit by something and the picture usually finishes me off. Then of course, the first time I beat that damn picture down the chandeller falls on my head. ARRRRGGG.

[Nez]

I 've played splatter house many a time. It fun but I always get my butt kicked. Good game but I like winning too much to give it any serious play.

[Flack]

So, can any of you guys give us a bit of a review of the game for those who haven't tried it yet?

[Dire 51]

Sure, Flack.

Splatterhouse is played from a sidescrolling perspective. There are seven levels to traverse, taking you through West Mansion, outside, back in, and finally back outside. Your life meter is represented by four hearts - and I DON'T mean Valentine's Day hearts, that's for sure. When you do complete a stage, you get two hearts added back to your life bar. Unfortunately, there's no other way to increase your life (unless you go to the Options menu and select Rank B to get 6 hearts per life, but that would be cheating).

In addition to your basic methods of attack - punching, kicking and the slide kick, there's a decent variety of weapons to be found. There's the cleaver, which you can use to decapitate zombies (and then watch the slime spout like a geyser out of their necks as they collapse), a two by four - which you can use to smack zombies into the wall, wrenches, stones, harpoons, shotguns (eight shells per gun), and the axe - this can only be used when fighting the fourth level boss, which is an upside down cross that attacks you with flying heads. The wrenches, stones and harpoons can only be used once - all the other weapons you keep until you are A. hit (you only drop the weapon then, so you can pick it back up), B. complete the level, or C. run out of ammo, which of course only applies to the shotgun.

There's a decent difficulty curve as well. Splatterhouse doesn't start to really get difficult until the fifth stage. The most difficult stage by far is stage six. During that stage, you fight giant floating monster fetuses/eggs. When they hatch, they jump around until they latch onto you and start draining your energy. This is particularly bad when you are fighting the boss, and it seems like a million of these little bastards are jumping around. Also, there is a strange purple cloud that follows you throughout the stages - one touch from it and you get hurt pretty bad.

A lot of little touches helped make Splatterhouse the great game that it is - hanging corpses that puke on you, strange muck creatures inhabiting the sewers, severed hands that chase you, diverging pathways in certain parts of the game, anime-style skull-toting female ghosts that shriek when you punch them, and a general B-horror movie feel to the whole thing.

That's the old stuff from WM (slightly edited). Now, the new stuff:

I've had the ROM for Splatterhouse for quite some time. I originally played the arcade game back in 1991, when I discovered it in the back corner of an arcade at Universal Studios Florida (and I had played the TG16 version about a year earlier). On the PC that I'm using now, the ROM runs fairly well, although it does "jump" at times. I've tried it on a few other PCs, and the ones it's run best on are newer, higher-end models (maybe the older ones I used didn't have enough memory to run it properly or something, I don't know).

I have never actually finished the arcade game. Sad to say, but I usually get stuck on Stage 6 (the TG16 version is a lot easier on you in that stage) - and that's even when I have a controller to use, rather than just the keyboard like I'm using now. I'm confident that I will finish it at some point... it's the one SH that I've played which I have yet to finish, but its time is coming. It doesn't help that I've never really had a decent PC to run it on, and the one time I found the arcade game in the wild turned out to be the only time I found it.

[GaijinPunch]

This is rather embarrasing, but I never knew this was an arcade game.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the FM Towns version came out first. It is by far the closest to the arcade, although not arcade perfect from what I remember some 13 years ago.

[Ed Oscuro]

This is rather embarrasing, but I never knew this was an arcade game.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the FM Towns version came out first. It is by far the closest to the arcade, although not arcade perfect from what I remember some 13 years ago.

FM Towns owners got arcade or PC ports, generally, and that version came out a couple years later. So nope.

You can see on the back cover scan on the page you posted that there's two copyright dates - (C) 1988 Namco, and (C) 1992 Ving, just like a Sega release of a Capcom game on the Genesis.

[GaijinPunch]

So what year did the PC-Engine version come out?

[Dire 51]

1990. Both the PCE and TG16 games were released that year, although several months apart.

Here's a quick SH timeline:

arcade - 1988
LCD game - 1988
Wanpaku Graffiti - 1989
PCE/TG16 - 1990
FM Towns - 1992
Splatterhouse 2 - 1992
Splatterhouse 3 - 1993

[Neil Koch]

I forgot to add my favorite part of the game -- the sound, especially when you whack a guy against the wall with the pole. The TG16 retained most of the graphics from the arcade, but the sound (that one in particular) lost a bit of punch. And the TG16 version censored some stuff.

[Azazel]

This is rather embarrasing, but I never knew this was an arcade game.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the FM Towns version came out first. It is by far the closest to the arcade, although not arcade perfect from what I remember some 13 years ago.

Nope it came out June 92 to be a little more exact.

[Ed Oscuro]

The TG16 retained most of the graphics from the arcade, but the sound (that one in particular) lost a bit of punch. And the TG16 version censored some stuff.

Dude, it's Neil Koch!! Been a while since I seen ya, how are you? (Bit of PM material there, but I think this is an occasion worth celebrating). May your avatar never change.

Getting back on-topic; I assume each sound sample takes up more space than a grapic, correct? Haven't run across any sound clips ripped out of the game pak, but even if it's sub-PCM quality (the PC-Engine does do some form of PCM, I know that much) that adds up in a hurry.

[Dire 51]

When I first played the arcade game, I was amazed at the amount of background and foreground detail, animation and sounds that were cut from the TG16 game, but I figured that memory limitations is why they were cut.

[Arqueologia_Digital]

Very nice game in arcade, but i prefer all genny´s versions...

Matías

[Flack]

Very nice game in arcade, but i prefer all genny´s versions...

Why? Are they different? Better/worse/easier/harder?

[Dire 51]

*tries his damndest to keep his mouth shut*

I have to give Matias a chance to answer Flack's question, after all.

[Icarus Moonsight]

I used to play this one at a rental shop that had a small gameroom. One of my favorite cabs they had along with Gate of Doom. Funny thing is I remember being able to at least get to the second stage on one credit. Playing it for the first time on MAME and I can't get by the leech-boss things at the end of the first level. No matter how many times I try (watch out for the last leech that sneak-attacks you from the hanging corpse!). I also haven't been able to finesse the keyboard well enough to pull off one stinking slide kick... I know this game is a challenge to the point of being frustrating, but that doesn't detract from the fun of playing. It combines a simple control scheme (exception: slide kick) with difficult gameplay, real twisted graphics and creepy-yet-mood-inducing music and sound. I think I'll keep 'er to play more later, after I get a arcade stick set-up. Then me and Rick will be on speaking terms again

[Flack]

*tries his damndest to keep his mouth shut*

I have to give Matias a chance to answer Flack's question, after all.

I take it you don't agree -- why not?

I've still yet to play this game. My MAME cabinet is a'callin this weekend!

[Hamsnibit]

Mmmmm, splattering monsters against the wall with the stick. My favorites. I loved this game. Back in the day when I first played this I was shocked by the grphic violence. Now it's really nothing in comparison to some games out now. I really liked this game and got a rush playing it because i knew it was something my parents wouldn't like. HEH

[-hellvin-]

I also haven't been able to finesse the keyboard well enough to pull off one stinking slide kick...

Hmm...I didn't know you could do this move in the first game. I can't do it in splatterhouse 2 on the keyboard either. In fact, I can't do it with a genesis controller on my cart version of SH2. It's just a move that's kind of a mystery to me ;D.