HOW MANY BITS, MERCER? 6/8 Bits
Just an FYI, my friends, the rejuvenation of this goblet of video-game-holiness will soon be upon us. Thus is foretold by Ye Olde Gaming Magazines. And it looks effing awesome.
I enjoyed both Splatterhouse, and Splatterhouse 2; but neither of them spoke to me quite as...aggressively...as Splatterhouse 3.
Now, there's only three levels which is a complete bummer, but atleast they are timed, and you get like 10 minutes on each level. That's 30 minutes of complete and utter awesomeness. The green gore, and topless cartoon animation in a Jason Mask is what did it for me, I think.
The last time I saw this game played was on an emulator on my boyfriend Scott's brother Dale's computer. They took turns trying to beat each level on the large screen computer, while myself and Dale's roommates urged on in the background. I mean, the intensity in this room was worse than at the World Series between the Red Socks and Yankees. Also, just an FYI, I know nothing about sports, so that analogy could have been completely incorrect.
Anyway, this game is awesome. Both of the boys reminisced about the times they had had fighting the bosses, the excitement climaxing when the time for the "penis monster" (a big tubular worm type thing) arrived at the end of the second level. At that point one could almost see the sweat pouring down the joy sticks. I'm totally not kidding, either. These guys had already had an intense session of NBA jam, and were not fooling around. And you should have SEEN them when this guy got full power and went into rage mode. I mean who wouldn't be excited by this?
I mean, do you see the VEINS on that guy? Good graphic work by Namco on that one. See also: the detail on the headless zombie creatures, only one of the daunting foes to be found by Rick in the Mansion.
Alright, I should probably get to the story, so that those of you who are completely and utterly lame and don't know this game can get a feel of it's awesome-osity. And yeah, I totally just made that word up JUST to describe how great this game is.
So, Rick (since Slaughter House 2), has married his sweetie, Jennifer, and had a kid. Apparently he's gotten like, wicked affluent or something, and had bought a mansion (the self-same haunted one mentioned above). So, a bunch of monsters decide that they want to invade his mansion, because the "Terror Mask" (that white mask on Rick's face), has come back to life, or something. (I'm beginning to realize that the plots of most of these old games make no sense whatsoever, but I loved them as a kid, so whatever.) Rick's wife Jennifer gets taken by the monsters, and gets implanted with a boreworm. I mean, the player has absolutely NO idea why/how this happened, but I guess it's called "Willing Suspension of Disbeleif" for a reason.
We don't see much of Jennifer, or of their son David except for in haunting cut-screens that look like actual photos of people. Scott claims that this is what scared him the most as a small boy, the black and white photos that make the game seem all-the-more real.
In his attempt to save his family, Rick dons the terror mask once again, and begins to wreak havoc on the monsters who have inhabitted his living quarters. The player controls Rick's treks through all three layers of the house, only navigatable if the room has been cleared by monsters. On the way, you can pick up cinderblocks, baseball bats, etc. The question that this brings up in MY mind is: "If Rick is so affluent then: 1. Why is he wearing a denim jumpsuit? and 2. Should he have like, candlesticks or something, to beat these bastards up with?". This didn't come up when I was playing earlier in my life, probably because I was like, 5 years too young to actually be playing it.
In the end, Rick (of course) saves both his wife and his son, but not before fighting monsters that look like Jabba the Hut on crack-cocaine, a giant monster that looks like a penis (including radioactive semen), and a giant real-life-photo teddy bear that turns into a writing alien blob. Pretty interesting stuff. I'm interested in seeing how this all gets turned into one of our modern video games. I'm pretty sure they'll probably ruin it by adding a bunch of different options, and moves and button-mashing techniques (before it was just punch, kick, and walk) just like they do with every other game.
But, I guess we can all have hope that it will be just as gorey and glorious as Slaughterhouse 3. I mean, we can dream, right?
Go Buy It!
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