Wacky Game Gifs

 

O Ye of Little...

In the words of the the great Youtuber Christopher Odd, "Just in time for Xmas, we're going to [look at] something a little bit spooky."  To keep it spiritually appropriate though lets examine the subgenera of religious themed horror games (specifically Christian ones).  The film industry has been at it for over half-a-century with some of the better movies being "Rosemary's Baby" in 1969, and "The Exorcist" in 1975, all the way up through the "Paranormal Activity" series and, more recently, "The Witch".  When it comes to video games though, there really isn't a whole lot to choose from.  In most cases, the small number of games that do touch on this subject matter tend to skirt around the edges of it (like the Silent Hill franchise) or else are comedic, quickly-made game jam efforts such as The Salvation Project.  However, there are a few video games out there that really make an effort to maximize what this particular brand of horror has to offer.  One IP, in particular, is Faith: The Unholy Trilogy.

Before continuing, I have a confession to make.  While made up of three chapters (as the subtitle of the game implies), I've only played the first to completion.  On top of that the third chapter isn't actually out yet (although a demo is freely available for download).  Even so, I'd like to say a few things about what I've played thus far.  Let me start with the visual style.  If you've ever played the original Oregon Trail (specifically the hunting mini-game), Faith will seem oddly familiar.  The game's sole developer, Mason Smith, has made several other indie titles, all with a retro look.  One of his games (Earl's Day Off) has a very N64 feel to it, while two others (Extra Ordinary and The Wind) seem like they could have come out for the Apple II home computer back in the early 80s.  Faith shares styles and to some extent themes with these two other titles, but distinguishes itself by occasional injecting rotoscoped cutscenes (something that is very out-of-place on the hardware it seeks to emulate) to punctuate key events in the story.  Having these anachronistic bits of presentation is strangely unnerving.  Adding to the general unease is a (sometimes distorted) Speak and Spell style narration for dialogue scenes.  On top of that, creepy chiptune music plays in the background. 

Set in Connecticut circa 1987, Faith tells the tale of John Ward - a Catholic priest in search of redemption.  The previous year, John and a senior colleague attempted to banish an evil spirit that had taken possession of a young woman (Amy Martin) .  The attempt was a complete disaster.  The older priest and Amy's parents were killed.  Worse still, Amy's siblings (a pair of younger twin brothers) vanished without a trace.  Returning to the scene of the crime, John Ward is determined to set things right.  

Sufferrrrrrrr...!

The gameplay is simple; the Martin family home is remote and surrounded by woodland.  So, the player needs navigate their way through a forest in order to find the house where everything went wrong.  Armed only with a crucifix, our priest-turned-hero can expel evil in particular places to earn awards in the form of notes or pictures that help flesh out what is going on.  The crucifix can also be used to drive off a lurking pale, hairless spider-person out for blood.  Once inside the home, things become eerily quite.  Down in the basement, John finds sinister ritualistic marks on the floor which leads to a protracted battle against a ghostly version of Amy that still inhabits the house.  The fight come to a conclusion in the attic.  Amy is driven out of the Martin home and John finds a loaded rifle on his way out the front door.

Depending on how John uses his new acquired firearm, players can unlock five different endings: one of which is particularly hilarious and features an on-the-nose reference to the aforementioned Oregon Trail.  Speaking of references, Amy Martin has more than a passing resemblance to Sadako from the Japanese horror movie "Ringu."  Another example is a corpse of a fox that utters the phrase "chaos reigns!" which is a nod to the 2009 arthouse film "Antichrist."  Unlike that motion picture, it's nice to see that Faith is willing to set pretentiousness aside for the sake of a good joke.  These little bits of levity are what makes the storytelling in the game work for me.  Well...that and a nice layer of ambiguity in the form of an optional side quest in which the player can discover a note that casts a shadow of doubt over John Ward's actions.  Specifically, it makes mention of him being discharged from a psychiatric hospital after spending a fair amount of time there following the failed exorcism.  This helps explain why it took John so long to return to the Martin home, but also begs the question "Is all this really happening or are the stresses of priesthood too much for our protagonist's dubious mental health to endure?"  My understanding is the second chapter fails to give a definitive answer, but perhaps the third and final installment will.   

The Hávamál for Gaming

I've been devouring a lot of books lately and one that inspired me more than I thought it would was the Hávamál.  If you haven't heard of it, the Hávamál is essentially a collection of Scandinavian insights that were composed around 700 years ago (though they probably existed to some extent long before then).  These pearls of "Viking" wisdom are surprisingly applicable even to this day.  What came to me after reading the book was "what if I could emulate the themes and style but with an ultramodern perspective?"  I doubt anything I'm going to write will be relevant in a millennium from now (let alone a century), but for the moment here are a few words adapted from people much wiser than me.

• The first rule of game design is make it fun.  Remember though, fun is not the same as fulfillment.

• A delayed game can eventually be good, but a bad game at release will forever be viewed as bad.

• Blockchain is a solution in need of a problem.  Crypto is what happens when libertarians get religion.  NFTs are for people who launder money through art, but then ask themselves "what if we get rid of the art?"

• People who say every game is every other game play too many video games.

• Sometimes an original failure is more interesting than a successful rehash.

• If you want to be original, be yourself.  No two people are exactly the same.

• Every developer has his blind spots.  Every game has its flaws.  Every critic has biases.  And every player is a sucker for their favorite franchise.

 

 

Neither Faded nor Cursed

I'd like to start by saying how nice it is to finally see some real footage of Elden Ring in action.  The graphics, from a technical perspective, aren't exactly next gen.  That said, the art direction more than makes up for it.  I've noticed quite a few people who have played the preview build, mention similarities to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.  It's certainly not hard to see where they're coming from.  Even back when Demon's Souls had just come out, I picked up on how much the moment-to-moment combat was like Wind Waker and Twilight Princess.  Ocarina of Time, after all, is the first big three-dimensional action RPG with an open world for players to explore.  Elden Ring, true to it's roots, has a bit more grim and gritty vibe to it, though not without some of the signature whimsy the Souls series is known for.

If I have one reservation with Elden Ring, it has to do with a return to the overused medieval European fantasy aesthetic.  For quite some time now, I have hoped that From Software and Hidetaka Miyazaki would consider a more sci-fi theme along the lines of Returnal.  If one were to ditch the rogue-like elements, place greater emphasis on melee combat, and spice up some of those enemy designs, Returnal would be a Souls game in all but name.  As is though, the setting in Elden Ring feels a bit generic even with (or perhaps because of) George R. R. Martin's input with respect to the story and background.  It's almost as if some of what made From Software's action RPGs some unique has been diluted for the sake of a broader scope.  As Patrick Klepek joked over on the Waypoint Radio podcast, Miyazaki probably told his design team to dig out all their rejected creature concepts from previous titles in order to meet the monster type quota needed for a game of this size.  That's not to say the enemy design is bad...just more eclectic than in the highly focused Sekiro and Bloodborne.

Regardless of those nitpicks, I am very much looking forward to playing this game when it launches next year.  In particular, I'm really curious to see how the plot unfolds and what kind of surprised are in store throughout the as of yet unrevealed parts of the map.  In a first for From Software will we get a proper desert environment?  Only time will tell... 

2021 Awards

Avant-garde Award:

There are quite a few games about the Cthulhu Mythos, but The Shore stands out for having the pretty much all the big hitters of the pantheon on resplendent display. Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth, Dagon, Shub-Niggurath, Nyarlathotep and Great Cthulhu himself all make noteworthy appearances.  Other than deities, there are Deep Ones, Elder Things, Shoggoths, Dark Young, Insects of Shaggai, Xothians, and probably some more that I missed or failed to recognize.  Every single one of these horrors is modeled in exquisite detail.  A lot of the environments they are found in are also pretty surreal.  

Backlash Award:

Where to begin...?  With over 11,000 reviews and only a nine percent approval rate, eFootball is the lowest rated game in Steam history.  Despite Konami's boasts that this soccer game surpasses FIFA in quality, it's a bare bones sports sim that has bugs, glitches, and weird character models (especially when it comes to people in the stands) with plenty of videos and screen caps around the internet that might elicit some good chuckles.  Free and worth every penny.

Brutality Award:

Playing like a polished up greatest hits compilation of the first three games in the series, Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection is old-school hard.  The designers, for whatever reason, chose to preserve the feel of the classic game right down to Arthur's awkward movement and unforgiving jumping mechanics.  It is possible to finish the game in under two hours if you're a pro, but chances are it will take a lot longer than that assuming have the patience and determination to finish the game at all.   

Canvas Award:

The genius of Narita Boy lies in its utilization of old CRT displays.  The game even goes so far as to copy the slight blur and lensing effect these old monitors had.  The "trichroma" (red, blue and yellow) color scheme perfectly suit the Digital Kingdom both in terms of visuals and lore.  There have been many attempts over the years to copy the style of the 1982 film "TRON," but (in my opinion) this game marks the first attempt that has actually improved on the aesthetic.  In truth, I feel like the look of Narita Boy is so strong, the non-visual elements of the storytelling actually detract from the overall experience to such as degree that I would have preferred if this game had no text at all and instead relied entirely on images to tell its tale.  In other words, this game is too good for its own good.

Ecology Award:

It stands to reason that when exploring the same alien sea for a second time, one would use the same equipment and encounter the same (or similar) sea life.  That said, this stand-alone expansion of sorts feels like a small step backwards for the franchise.  This is mostly because the best parts of Subnautica: Below Zero were already in the original game.  What little new there is, doesn't add much and, worse still, some of the best bits of the original are missing in the new game. 

"Engrish" Award:

The product of a lot of creativity and hard work, Highfleet is a Russian-developed strategy/air-combat sim.  It also hails MicroProse return to game publishing after a more-than-decade-long absence.  Sadly, they seemed to have stumbled a bit out the gate.  An untranslated lever marked "ДЕСА́НТ" isn't a problem, but somewhat oddly worded tips like "if a serious repair is applying, docking will speed up" are the reason this game wins this award.  Overall though, the localization work is free of weird grammar issues.

Esoteric Award:

Part H.P. Lovecraft inspired horror game, part third-person bullet-hell shooter, Returnal has a mind screw storyline that has yet to be unraveled by even its most dedicated fans.  Some much ambiguity exists with regards to major plot points, it is practically impossible to separate hallucinations from reality.  Tantalizing clues abound, right down to the labels on bottles of prescription medications, but no matter how deep people dig they are left with more questions than answers.  Is Helios the protagonist's son or her brother?...or is it just the name of a spaceship?   What's the "White Shadow?"  Is it a allusion to the moon?  A ghostly astronaut that appears periodically throughout the game?...or is it just the name of a rock song?  Nobody knows...and maybe nobody ever will...

Lemon Award:

An ambitious design with a high asking price, this sequel to a twenty-two year old proto-RTS has about as many issues as the real life "Gerald R. Ford" aircraft carrier had launch.  A.I. pathfinding problems remains the biggest one, while some smaller bugs have since been patched: aircraft that crash on takeoff, helicopters that explode on landing, and phantom sea currents.  However, unintuitive controls and an inadequate tutorial typify why this carrier wasn't ready enter service just yet.    

   

Testosterone Award:

While the main character doesn't exactly exude masculinity, the "lycan" enemy type certainly does.  Not only are they extremely muscular, highly aggressive and covered in copious amounts of body hair, these wolfmen are in a perpetual state of roid rage and shrug off gunshot wounds the way an ordinary person would react to having a small rock thrown at them.  The leader of the werewolf pack brings new meaning to the term "mass monster" and he's got an epic beard to boot.  Oh...and there are absolutely no female lycans to be found anywhere.

Underdog Award:

This blog's 2020 awards came out a bit early and as such Suzerain (being a December release) just missed the cut.  Even so, it's raised the bar so much in terms of both political simulators and visual novels I feel like I have to give credit to what I'm sure passed under many people's radar...including mine.  Therefore, I'm bending the rules a bit for this one in order to give it this award.  As a fictional slogan of the game goes "A Morgna her Coren!" or in English, "The Morning has Come!" 
 

Untitled Game by Section 9 Interactive

 

Like CJ Says...

There's been a lot of talk recently about the Grand Theft Auto Definitive Edition Trilogy.  Needless to say it hasn't been good; missing music, poor collision detection, graphics glitches, removed features, and some odd typos (caused by an A.I. algorithm upscaling in-game textures) are just a few of the issues.  Far more frustrating than a lack of proper quality assurance though are a bunch of cease-and-desist notices sent out to mod makers attempting to fix some of the bugs.  Adding insult to injury, the original version of these three entries in the GTA series have been delisted from console webstores.  If you want to play these games and don't have a gaming PC you have to purchase the "definitive edition" which is ironic because it is (in many ways) inferior to the originals.  Overall, the entire attempt to remaster this trio of games has been disaster.  It also makes the publisher (Rockstar Games) and the developer (Take-Two Interactive) look rather inept.  There's also the simple fact that older GTA games haven't aged especially well.

Don't get me wrong, when GTA III bumped the franchise up to three dimensions it did a lot to pioneer open-world game design.  Vice City made few minor improvements, such as adding bikes and watercraft, but basically copied its storyline from the film "Scarface."  Then came GTA: San Andres which had an interesting and original story complete with sympathetic protagonist, as well as rural regions between cities and even a proper swimming mechanic.  Because San Andres basically got what we nowadays call the GTA formula firing on all cylinders, it went on to be the most played game on PS2.  Despite all the success though, the gameplay felt a bit dated (even for the time) with sloppy third-person shooting and clunky character controls.  These were (and still are) weak points found even to this day in all of Rockstar's open-world games, as are semi-pointless minigames.  When it came to San Andres and the character of CJ, I simply got him as buff as possible in order to maximize his effectiveness in combat.  The whole eating and exercising thing felt like nothing more the annoying obstacles impeding that goal.  The dating sim aspects also seemed rather pointless.  Having said all that, I still enjoyed GTA: San Andres because I was invested in CJ.  Plus, the driving has always been fun for me.  The most interesting challenge the GTA games have ever presented, in my opinion, is procuring all the car collections.  True to the name of the game, Grand Theft Auto is at its best when you are doing just that.  The actually storyline missions, on the other hand, are very hit and miss.

Perhaps the way missions play out is something that could have been fine-tuned in a proper remake.  Sadly, a janky remaster is all were are ever getting (at least for the foreseeable future).  It's a shame because we as players already have to endure the indignity of unfinished games being pushed out to market on a regular basis.  Here though we are experiencing finished games being reverted back to an unfinished state.  Somehow things continue to get worse.  Also, sorry CJ...you deserved better than this.

Environmental Storytelling

Traditionally, the way video games tell a story is in the form of cutscenes.  In more recent years audio logs and text documents have become an increasingly common alternative.  However, neither are particularly elegant approaches.  Thankfully, there is another option in the form of pure visuals.  Games like Journey, Gris and Abzû excel at this, but they are also abstracted; relying on metaphor and allusion to communicate meaning.  Another variation in this vein is (for lack of a better term) armchair detective mode.  Games such as Dead Space and the Souls series use this method a lot in conjunction with more traditional storytelling techniques.  There is a game that recently came out though which uses visual clues to tell a surprisingly personal tale...but only one players will pick up on if they are paying close attention.  Appropriately enough, it's called Unpacking. 

As the name of the game implies, Unpacking is all about deciding where to put things when moving into a new home.  At its heart, Unpacking is a simple puzzle game.  Players have a fair amount of leeway as to where they can put things, but cannot advance to the next challenge if (for example) clothes are scattered all over the floor.  So, a certain amount of tidiness is required.  The game begins with a child's room.  Observant players will quickly deduce that they are in the roll of a girl who is somewhere around that age when one transitions from primary school to a secondary education.  Initially, players only have a bedroom to focus on.  As the game progresses though, more areas (including bathrooms, kitchens, living rooms and a foyer of sorts) are presented.  Added to this are stage unique conditions such as accommodating for roommates when the timeline advances to our female protagonist's college years.  Based on various items the player has to sort through and organize, it quickly becomes apparent that she is an artist and into fitness.  This leads to a stage where the player must decide where to put things in an already very masculine themed apartment.  It seems that she has moved in with her boyfriend.  Based on his stuff, it's not hard to conclude that he's a gym bro who likes wine, coffee, movies and video games.  It's here that we see some of the more subtle nuance seeping in.  Unlike the roommates situation, players can move his stuff around to some extent in order to make room for her own things...and yet there really isn't enough space for everything.  Her framed diploma, for example, has to go under the bed (out of sight) for lack of wall space and there really isn't a place for her art supplies or even all her personal hygiene products.

After clearing this stage, the next finds players back in the starting room of the game; the bedroom from their childhood.  A photo of a couple from the previous stage is still among her personal possessions (complete with thumbtacks), but the lack of a display surface means that it has to go in a drawer or some other out-of-the-way location.  On top of that one tack is stuck directly in the face of the male in the photo.  Presumably, things didn't work out and she is back at her parents home.  On the plus side though a stack of business cards implies that she is finding employment for her artistic talents  Unfortunately, the presence of some kind of backpain medicine indicates that she might need to change up her fitness routine due to age or injury.

There are more stages after this, but I think I have spoiled enough of the game as is.  Unpacking is a clever little game in terms of design and presentation despite the actual gameplay being nothing remarkable.  Even so, I hope other game developers take note because this indie gem demonstrates very clearly how details in an environment can say just as much (if not more) about characters and events than the written word or expository dialogue.  

From Paper to Celluloid to Digital

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World might be the greatest movie ever made....provided that you grew up in North America during the late 80s and happened to be into indie rock or video games.  As you can probably see those are some pretty major caveats.  In fact, I think the film being a theatrical failure had a lot to do with it being specially tailored to a rather niche demographic.  Certainly, the cinematography is not lacking.  So many shots throughout the film have a creative density that practically necessitates multiple viewings in order to fully appreciate.  The dialogue is also chalked full of humorous wordplay...the kind of thing that is practically impossible to convey in another language.  As if killing any potential for international success wasn't harsh enough Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a tricky film to categorize in terms of genre.  Is it a comedy?...an action film?...Fantasy?...or romance?  One of director Edger Wright's previous movies, Shaun of the Dead, is often described as a romantic comedy that just happens to have zombies in it.  Edger Wright himself described Scott Pilgrim vs. The World as a musical with the songs replaced by fight scenes.  Much like how each song has its own theme, it does feel like each fight in the film has its own flavor:  Bollywood, Pro Skater, Rock Band, Chinese martial arts, kaiju and chambara to be chronologically specific.  Since this is a blog about video games though, lets focus in that particular aspect of the movie.

References to video games in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World range from obvious to so obscure they might not have been intentional.  One of the most overt tributes is to River City Ransom in that defeated opponents transform into coins.  Some of the martial arts moves in various fight scene are taken directly from Street Fighter Alpha 2 (particularly the "K.O." announcement).  The sequential nature of the one-on-one battles mixed with the girl-in-peril trope is a common thematic pairing for games like Karateka, Kung-fu Master and Double Dragon (the last of those three also makes a visually symbolic appearance toward the end of the film).  Somewhat less obvious is the name of one of the fictional indie rock bands - Clash at Demonhead.  This is actually a direct reference to a little-known 8-bit era NES game released in 1990.  During the "Bass Battle" the character Scott Pilgrim plays the bass line from a Final Fantasy II song (actually IV) for the SNES.  The Legend of Zelda is refrenced is several places: music from the series plays during the opening and during a dream sequence, Ramona's three different hair colors (pink, blue and green) are based on the three goddesses from Ocarina of Time, and Nega Scott is a spoof on Dark Link.  I've also seen it suggested that the indoor pyramid structure at the end of the film is a reference to Zelda 2: Adventures of Link.  What isn't clear though is whether or not it was intentional.  Another example is the importance of speaking in rhymes during battles.  The Monkey Island series by now-defunct Lucas Arts often featured swashbuckling sword duels wherein players had to select rhyming dialogue options in order to progress.  Some of the shots in the film use comic book style framing composition but few are actually taken from cutscenes in the original Ninja Gaiden.  Speaking of ninja...I think it is pretty obvious where the fictional "Ninja Ninja Revolution" arcade game got its inspiration from.  There are also numerous instances of video game sound effects being used from titles such as Sonic, Tekken, Smash Bros., and Super Mario 3.  In a more general sense, there is the appearance of health bars, 1UPs, leveling up and dialogue bleeps lifted from Commodore 64 bootup noises.  

Getting points for defeating foes has to one of the most universal aspects of classic video game design, but I wonder how many young people would understand the reference?  Even the "Continue?" countdown sequence at the end might be lost on someone who has never set foot in an arcade.  Regardless, I think Scott Pilgrim vs. The World will be a time capsule of sorts for future generations and for the foreseeable future the very definition of a "cult classic".

A Rocky Start

Some of these heroes look like they
were hitting the gym between games...

It's interesting that the sequel to the Darkest Dungeon is built around the idea of a road trip because, from a design perspective, it still has a long way to go.  To the studio's credit, Red Hook is trying to do quite a few new and innovative things.  These range from full polygonal character models to an entirely different approach as to how players manage their roster of adventurers.  Many of the subsystems that the current early access version of the game boasts certainly have potential, but are also in desperate need of refinement.

By far, the most bizarre and arbitrary mechanic has to be the five turn road combat limit.  The original game experimented with various consequences if battles dragged out for too long, such as sanity loss or enemy reinforcements.  Having combats simply end though after a predetermined number of rounds seems kind of weird and, frankly, an inelegant way to deal with potential problems.

Fan reactions seem decidedly mixed with the single most common criticism being the game is too punishing.  If you ask me, the sounds about the same as the original.  In fact, I was only able to complete the titular "Darkest Dungeon" with the aid of mods...nothing drastic in terms of adjusting difficult so much as reducing the grind.  Having to fight each of the game's bosses multiple times felt repetitive enough as is.  Needing to send expeditions in with the exact same tasks over and over just to get experience points and loot was a bit more than I could stand (especially when bad luck would result in a net loss).

It's not entirely clear how things will turn out for Darkest Dungeon II.  Unless you have an Epic Games Store account your going to have to wait until version 1.0 launches to actually play it.  Honestly though, having to hold off might be good thing because it's pretty obvious that this game need a lot of work before it can truly shine.   

Spooooooky Games

Guy in a Mask

The Splatterhouse series originally started off as an arcade game before being ported to the TurboGraphx-16.  Two sequels were released on the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive), and a final fourth game for Xbox360 and PS3.  Looking at screenshots for the various entries in the franchise, it's easy to see where the IP draws its inspiration from...namely a plethora of slasher flicks that came out during the 80s and 90s.  The series protagonist, Rick, starts off looking like Jason Voorhees; right down to the white hockey mask and imposing stature.  If there is one film franchise that influenced Splatterhouse the most though, it would have to be "Evil Dead".  I'll elaborate on that a bit in a moment, but for now lets look at Splatterhouse in more detail.

The first two Splatterhouse games are 2D side-scrolling action titles distilled down to rawest form of gameplay.  The player can walk, jump, crouch, punch, and kick, as well as use weapons found in the environment (such as 2x4s, meat cleavers, shotguns and simple throwing implements).  In the original arcade game it's also possible to get an axe though, somewhat counterintuitively, this is the only time such a weapon appears in the entire series.  The levels themselves are set in and around a large mansion; quite literally a house of horrors.  The first game begins with Rick and his girlfriend, Jennifer, taking refuge from a storm inside a seemingly abandoned country estate.  In classic horror movie fashion, the couple are soon ambushed by a collection of monstrous inhabitants that dwell within.  Jennifer is kidnaped and Rick is incapacitated (or possibly killed) only to be revived a short time later with a mysterious mask fused to his face.  From here he must do battle with a variety of foes including ghouls, zombies, "boreworms", and poltergeists.  Eventually, Rick finds Jennifer.  Unfortunately, their happy reunions is cut tragically short when she transforms into a grotesque abomination determined to murder Rick with weirdly long retractable claws.  Having no other option, players must defeat the monster at which point it reverts back into the form of Jennifer only to disintegrate or evaporate moments later (which one depends on whether it is the home console version or arcade game respectively).  Rick, determined to get revenge, enters the fleshy innermost sanctum of the house.  After fighting through a bunch of half-formed bubble-like creatures, he finds and destroys the source of evil - a giant beating heart.  Once outside though he has one last showdown with a huge fleshy golem that partially rises out of the earth beneath his feet.  The first game then ends with the mask shattering into pieces while the mansion burns down in the background.

The second game takes place three months after the original.  Haunted by nightmares and a sense of guilt, Rick (at the behest of the now reformed and apparently sentient mask) returns to the location of the house under the belief that Jennifer may actually still be alive.  Counter to reason, the mansion and its denizens have reformed on an island in the center of a lake.  Gameplay is mostly the same although the story is much more hopeful in that down in the depths under the titular Splatterhouse, Rick finds Jennifer and brings her back out.  The two then take a ride on a motorboat and make it to shore after shooing away one of the lake's more hostile inhabitants.  Like the original, there's a final showdown against some sort of floating flesh monster before the house sinks into the water as the sun rises.  Like the film Evil Dead 2, Splatterhouse II feels as much like remake as a sequel.  In particular, I like the addition of the very thematically appropriate chainsaw as well as the new bosses and monsters.  Much like the third movie in the Evil Dead series, Army of Darkness, Splatterhouse III deviates from the formula of the previous two entries...in a good way, of course.  

A non-linear beat'em up in the same vein as Streets of Rage (Bareknuckle) or Double Dragon might sound like an odd choice of genre shift, but it actually does a lot to keep the gameplay fresh and engaging.  The mask plays a much more prominent role this time out, as well as getting yet another redesign.  In the original the mask was white, but changed to red in the American console port so as to avoid copyright infringement.  In the sequel, the sports theme is dropped in favor of a more skull-like appearance, though the Japanese version features a more elegant design.  In the third entry the developers split the difference and created a mask that is neither beautiful nor terrifying...and yet still possess a disturbing quality to it.  Unlike the brief time skip between the first and second game, Splatterhouse III takes place around half-a-decade in the future.  Rick has become a successful businessman and Jennifer has given birth to a son, David.  For some reason this family of three decided to buy and move into a big house out in the countryside.  What follows is a home invasion story of the supernatural variety.  Players are tasked with fighting through a series of monster infested rooms in order to rescue Rick's wife and son before a sequence of countdown timers run out.  Because of this it's actually possible to get four different endings:  

• Neither of Rick's family members survive
• Jennifer survives, but David doesn't
• David survives, but Jennifer doesn't
• Both family members survive

Regardless, the final battle this time is against the personification of the mask itself, revealing itself to be the mastermind behind all these terrible events.

I have to admit that, despite not being a fan of gore, the initial three Splatterhouse games made a lasting impression on me.  I can still hear the shrieks of the leaping "mimis", still see the red horror that disguises itself as a teddy bear in Davids bedroom, and still remember the Biggy-man who has saws for hands.  Oh, and about the remake...I never played it, nor any of the quirky spinoffs.  Supposedly, the voice acting in the remake is quite good, but the laconic prose of the earlier games set a mood that isn't well suited to verbosity.  Trying to introduce a proper antagonist to the franchise simply distracted from what's great about the series.  The heavy metal soundtrack didn't really work for me either compared to the eerie tunes from previous three games.  As is often the case in the horror genre, simple is the most effective.  

If Horror Movies were Games...