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Ladies and gentleman, today I want to talk about something that has been bugging me since I've heard about it. What is that particular thing that bothers me? Well let me tell you about a beloved game franchise that finally got a revival after twenty years or so. What is the name of that franchise?

SPLATTERHOSE


Splatterhouse for those of you uneducated about it was an Arcade game made by Namco back in 1989. It was known for it's gore and for being one of the major steps towards horror theme games (in America that is). You played as Rick Taylor, who's forced to take refuge in The West Mansion along with his girlfriend Jenifer after a storm starts in the middle of the woods. Of course in typical fashion you get killed and Jenifer gets kidnapped. However a mysterious mask (at the time resembled Jason's Hockey mask) brings you back to life and grants you supernatural strength and it's up to you to make your way through the nightmares of the mansion and save your girlfriend. I don't want to give too much away but two sequels were spawned from this arcade smash and both were released on the Sega Genesis. Splatterhouse 2 in 1992, and Splatterhouse 3 in 1993. There was also a Japanese Nintendo game but since it wasn't released here state side I'll push it aside.

Now let's get one thing clear, I didn't even play those games during my younger years when I stayed away from the horror genre. However as I grew older and read the August issue of EGM of 2008 and was more into horror, there was a huge article talking about the development of a reboot of the classic franchise. Of course I read the whole article out of sheer curiosity and needless to say it caught my interest and I became HYPED for this game. I was so hyped I did my best to try to play the original games of the franchise to get a better understanding of it's revival and I was rewarded for my hard searching for getting exactly what I was looking for. And so I waited for the spring of 2009 for it's release only to find it it got pushed back to Christmas of that year, then the spring of last year...needless to say I was worried it might end up the same way as Duke Nukem Forever (Though I can't use that joke anymore cause Duke Nukem Forever is APPARENTLY HAPPENING. Yes I know I'm shocked as you all are). The point was that this game was promising to actually explain a lot of things that were not explained in the original and of course over the top B-Movie violence and some severe a** kicking.

Though out that entire time of waiting, there was really bad a** artwork that I found online through one of the main people working on it through Deviant Art. Needless to say, the more I saw the more excited I got. Also during this time of waiting there were events that were promoting this game such as a few heavy metal concerts who's names have slipped my mind for now, and it even got an article in a horror magazine though once again the name fails me.There was even an issue of Playboy that had nudey photos of Jen, but to me that doesn't even compare to what the boys over at Namco did for E3. They created a LIFE SIZED RICK STATUE DESIGNED BY SOTA! Now this to me said "aw man this game is going to be big! There's going to be action figures, comic books, shoes, man I can't wait till November!"

Unfortunately, when the release of the game finally came to full circle, none of that came to pass. That's not to say the game itself was bad, granted it has it's flaws but in my honest opinion after playing through the classics, it was a successful homage to it's original source material. I could tell that the developers put a lot of love into this game and where doing there best to make sure fans of the series got what they wanted. It was nothing revolutionary, and the game play is repetitive but at the same time I personally wasn't expecting anything like that. I played this game and I got exactly what I was expecting, and that is taking on monsters and riping them apart in b-movie fashion until the end of the game and you know what the game delivered. It did it's job, and I was happy. However a lot of other people such as these so called "professional" game critics didn't see it that way. I was looking up reviews and saw scores such as 4/10 or worse than that. It was then I learned that it has been confirmed that such game critics and or sites are in fact PAID to give good reviews on certain games. I'm looking at you IGN, Gamespot, GameInformer, Gamestop....etc...
Granted the game wasn't "perfect" but is any game ever perfect? I wouldn't give the game a 10 because like I said it has its issues but a four out of ten is just freaking unreasonable.

That didn't stop my hopes though that this game would pick up eventually because there have been games out there that have had bad reviews, be bad games in general, and yet still manage to sell enough to get a sequel *cough*50centbulletproof*cough*thatgamesucked*cough*. But that's when I heard about what Bandai Namco Japan did. To keep a long story short, a new big shot took over and basically said that Namco's future was making I-phone games and importing games that they have had over seas for years but now just getting them to us. When asked about a possible sequel for the recent Splatterhouse game he just laughed and said that it was "supposed to fail". So with that in mind, there was little to no advertising put into the game and therefore nobody but the fans of the game new about it. In a word they killed this re-birth before it even got a chance. Not only that but a lot of people were laid off a few weeks after Splatterhouse's release including a majority of people responsible for making it such as the director, producer etc etc.

So where does this leave me? Well I can tell you that after all this time of waiting and anticipation there's only a few questions that come to mind such as "is classic gaming dead?" or "what the hell?" or "that's bulls***" And it also makes me question the gaming community as a whole. I mean why would a company kill one of it's own franchises? I guarantee that Namco wouldn't pull that kind of stunt with Tekken or any of the Pac Man games. But why Splatterhouse? It's like if Blizzard Entertainment where to release Star Craft 2 and then pretend that they never made it. My point is I was sad,and to this day I'm disappointed and hurt. If people where to just give this game a try I'm sure they'd like it to some extent, but it just tears me apart to see all that love put into a game go right down the tubes, up again and then back down to the darkest abyss. To all the guys that worked on the Splatterhouse remake my hats off to you. You not only drew in a new appreciator of a great franchise, but a supporter of this game. You know what the worse part about all this though? The worse part is that we probably won't see another Splatterhouse game in another twenty years if even. Who knows though, with the Duke coming back, maybe there is still a chance for Rick. Until then I can only dream.