The PS3 game "Splatterhouse" is taking up a bit of my time. Its a 3d brawler with Quick Time Events (Think Dragon's Lair/Space Ace type PRESS X AND LEFT NOW sort of gameplay) for boss/"Splatter Kills", and 2d with 3d graphics gameplay sections. 2 College students go to the mansion of Professor West who has nefarious things in mind, capturing Jennifer, and leaving her boyfriend Rick to die. Yet an ancient mask makes a deal to save Rick. All he has to do is put the Terror Mask on and power will be his..)
And considering this is his girlfriend I can completely understand our hero Rick willing to put his very soul on the line to save her, even if the Terror Mask takes great glee in reading his mind and egging his dark side to take control, killing and slaughtering monsters in massively horrific and bloody ways..
While playing the game in story and survival modes you find picture fragments, many of which I am unable to show on my blog as they are very R rated. This one even comes close to being too risque. I had to play one Survival mode arena like 3-4 times to get all the fragments for this one. But when you complete it, you get more information on Rick & Jennifer's relationship so its possibly the first time in my 3 decades of videogame playing where I am actively trying to unlock everything even fanservice pictures. Just so I can know more about them.
You also unlock journal entries of the Bad Doctor, excellently voiced over in case you can't read the cursive script. It even makes him a bit of a sympathetic villain, describing what turned him into the vile killer that he is.
You also unlock 3 of the 4 previous Splatterhouse games! The arcade original which had a port on the Turbografx and one of my favorite videogames of all time and the reason I bought this disk, and the 2 Genesis sequels. (This game is basically a remake of the first, but far more graphic.)
The emulation seems pretty good. If its got a filter on the graphics I can't seriously tell. I think it does but its done in a way to not be blatant. It doesn't look like the games have Vaseline smeared all over the screen. Its not widescreen so there are black bars to the left and right sides. But the picture takes up most of the screen so you shouldn't notice it. This is from Splatterhouse 3 which turned the side scrolling platform gameplay of 1 and 2 into a TIMED Double Dragon/Final Fight/TMNT styled brawler with multiple cutscenes and endings based on your performance.
And the 30-45 minutes or so Survival mode in action. 20 waves of enemy monsters, a picture to collect in each of the 6 arenas you unlock through the story mode, and even a ranking for completing it. The purple bar is your life, the red your blood meter which charges as you kill things. It can be used to cause super kills, regenerate life, or go into a powered up super mode which even kills lower level bosses fast and without the need for the Quick Time Event kills you normally need to do. At least when the game doesn't bug out. Which it does from time to time sadly. Not often but now and then. Not too bad in story mode which saves you at checkpoints every 5-10 minutes or so, but when you play in Survival for 40 minutes having it bug out REALLY SUCKS. Yes I am a sad dork for wanting all the pictures but.. I need to hear everything about Rick & Jen's relationship. Its just.. half of them are R rated ones. Though my favorite is one with her fully dressed hugging a stuffed mascot dog. Rick is such a dork. A dork with a Mastodon Tee shirt. (The game has music by them and Five Finger Death Punch among other modern metal bands. The kinds some of the local 40K crowd listen to. Who say nothing is music unless it has "Breakdowns" whatever the hell that means...)
In story mode once you complete the first level and if you survive a Survival mode arena you can use your score to buy improved powers for Rick. More life, new combos and attack moves, extended weapons use, ect. In story after level 1 you can hit Select and upgrade at any time, your points constantly upgrading. Sadly Survival only gives you points or allows upgrading AFTER finishing the arena. You probably won't be getting far in any of the arenas without Health, Mask, and Weapons charged way up. Roughly around the 3-5th story mode level. A nice thing though is your points accrue in story even when you die so it does help make things easier. Which is good because I died a LOT on Level 1 till I understood the mechanics and the game introduced me to how to regenerate health.
And my birthday gift to myself. From 3 different hopefully not radioactive (donate to disaster relief charities of your choices folks. Between the stuff going on in Japan, New Zealand & Australia, Mass, and the midwest there are a LOT of communities that could use a helping hand!) places in Japan I got a model kit of Phantasy Star Online's favorite maid/tutorialbot (what is it with Japan and maids anyhow? I guess it beats a schoolgirl outfit at least..) Elenor since I am a total whore for anything Phantasy Star.
And 2 TurboDuo/Pc Engine CDROM games. The 4th or 5th remake of Valis, and the PC Engine version of Valis 4. Both of which are apparently the best versions of these platforming action games where you take a Japanese schoolgirl and kill demons in a fantasy land. I chose the third game (Valis 3 DUH), and Star Control as my birthday game choices when I was 16 waaaay back in the early 90s and it just seemed appropriate to finish up the series collection. Though I do need the superdeformed remake of part 2. (There is also a Japan only cellphone game and thus unobtainable. And sadly a computer game that does what Japan normally does with high school girls and demons in it. Turbografx and Valis fans don't like talking about it. Thankfully it went away quickly as such disgusting garbage should. Way to go Japan. Sicko stuff is why their entertainment industries are taking a pounding on the world stage. Make stuff for creepy perverts and normal people run away screaming.)
Whenever I finish my Order of the Griffon Let's Play I might cover either the model kit or the Valis series as my next project.
You know, provided I quit playing the "Good" but flawed Splatterhouse. If you can find this game for 20 its worth it, though the bugs and minor gameplay irritations might be a factor. But I loved the original on the Turbografx and enjoyed to varying levels the 2 Genesis sequels so I have some nostalgia for the property. Mainstream sites were REALLY hard on it, but fans seemed to enjoy it.
I'm easily distracted AND work has me busier this last year than I have been in close to a decade. But the next LP installment is already 8 pages long and only about 2/3rds done. So work is progressing.
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