Splatterhouse, the legendary arcade game and console series, rocked its way onto the TurboGrafx-16 in 1990.  The series was one of the trailblazers of the horror genre, which has evolved into today's survival-horror genre.  Featuring loads of blood, ooze, guts, and other unknown noxious fluids, along with monsters that make you say "What The H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks!?!?", Splatterhouse made mincemeat of the squeamish as well as parents who caught their kids playing this stomach-churning classic.  Now, you can relive (and hopefully survive) the horror on your Wii™ Virtual Console™!



In Splatterhouse, you are Rick Taylor.  Rick and his lovely girlfriend, Jennifer, are college students majoring in parapsychology (man, if only you could do that in real life!).  The two decide to stop by the West Mansion to visit the former home of the parapsychologist Dr. West, who had mysteriously disappeared years before.  Unfortunately, the mansion is nicknamed "Splatterhouse," as nobody who has entered has ever escaped and lived to tell the tale.  When they get to the mansion, a sudden storm hits, and they're forced to take shelter in the house.  As soon as they do, it goes dark, there's a sudden flash of lightning, and something kidnaps Jennifer and knocks out and nearly kills Rick.  When he regains consciousness, there's an ancient mask (the "Terror Mask") attached to his face, which gives its user unknown power.  Rick resolves to use this power to find and rescue Jennifer.



The point of Splatterhouse is simple and supremely satisfying: walk to the right and obliterate anything that gets in your way.  Rick's got some powerful basic attacks, such as punching, kicking, jumpkicking, and even a cool slide kick.  However, the destruction doesn't stop there.  As you progress, you'll come across different deadly weapons: 2x4's, golden cleavers, stones, wrenches, spears, and even shotguns.  Thrown weapons (stones, wrenches, and spears) can only be used once, but the melee weapons (2x4's, cleavers) can be used repeatedly, and each shotgun comes loaded with 8 shells.



So who or what do you get to use these weapons on?  Mostly on bizarre creatures that are pretty darn hard to describe, are just plain gross, and will give even the supernaturally-powered-up Rick a run for his money.  Basic enemies include horror mainstays such as bats, zombies, and chained-up corpses (which vomit up dangerous sludge, so watch out!)  Some of the more unusual (well, even more unusual than the way-unusual zombies and whatnot) enemies include sludge monsters, poltergeist-possessed knives, and bosses that you really have to see to believe (no, seriously, we mean it.  Have you ever seen a boss with chainsaws for arms?  Didn't think so.)



The gore and violence of the game was way ahead of its time. Splatterhouse was an instant creepy-classic and is still a romping gorefest to play.   Grab your Wii™ controller and get Splatterhouse for the Virtual Console™ today!

Hudson