Splatterhouse in Australia?

[Levethian]

I'm salivating at the thought of such a game, Yahtzee. Add the arsenal of 200+ weapons from 'Aeons of Death' and you'd be set. Variety when inflicting deadness (in weaponry & bestiary) is vital, surely.

Shoot, cast, summon, trap, hack & slash your way to victory. Why not throw in a cash/xp element to allow the upgrading of weaponry or minions in-between survival phases? Starting to sound like a 3D shooter-tower-defence...

Someone MAKE IT!

 

[8-Bit Grin]

I think something like this could be immensely satisfying.

Best stress relief game ever? Probably.

Something akin to the intro scene of Heavenly Sword.

Unstoppable, infinite health, no recoil, fully powered weapons, and a hoard of enemy's.

Include Yahtzee's blood effects, and you're set.

 

[redisforever]

So...Rune mixed with Serious Sam?

 

[CopperBoom]

I completely agree with the silly sound effects and the constate state of gore.
Since Goldeneye had the bodies stain I have wanted that on everything. The way blood disappears instead of maintaining its stain is weak.
MORE GORE!
CONSTANTLY!

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

The entire second page of this article could be replaced by three words:
MOAR LIKE PAINKILLER

 

[Lord Amazing]

A bow and arrow type weapon should be included, limbs detached via arrow should remain attached to the arrow and should dangle from the wall the arrow eventually lands on.

Enemies should react appropriately to seeing their chums get slaughtered, because what's the fun of murder if others aren't enjoying your handiwork. (This should only be attempted if the designer is willing to include plenty of responses)

Innocent critters should be in the game, there shouldn't be any reward for killing them, they are their own reward.

 

[EightGaugeHippo]

Not that he'll read this but:

Spoiler: Block o text

- Enemy models should be modular. Heads are one segment, each limb is divided into three, and each torso into, say, six. If sufficient force is applied, segments will detach. Enemies should have animations to compensate for the loss of one limb or part of the torso (with one hand fastened to the wound, maybe), but loss of two or more limbs is fatal. If one segment sustains sufficient damage in one go, it should explode into small squidgy bits.

- Enemies should also appear moist and weighty rather than dry and bony. Bloated with muscle and fat, glistening with greasy sweat, like a big moist birthday cake that yields satisfyingly to the knife. Since human beings hate themselves (see previous column on zombies,) humanoid enemies are the most satisfying to kill, especially exaggerated ones that seem like ugly parodies of humanity (as with many of Painkiller's enemies.)

These two points would not go well togeather asthetically.
Segmented character meshes experience trouble supporting such visual agumentation while being animated. Coupled with the dismeberment, gore at this level, done in this manner is just not possible.

With all in one character meshes, point 2 would be less prone to visual failure. But dismemberment would be difficult to achieve.

We're looking at a good few years before the kind of gore specified is possible, without looking ugly as shit. Very impracticle to have gore at this standard ATM, when devs need time to focus on more important things.

Most, if not all the other points, would work.

 

[mjc0961]

I also find it odd that Splatterhouse was allowed in Australia.

One as side note:

I wander if he is ever going to review Civilization 5, like he said he might do in case he started to explore more generations.

Coming to think of it, does he ever review anything that isn't a shooter, platformer, RPG, or a racing game?

He reviewed Halo Wars that one time. And some Zelda games which don't really fit into those four things very well (Zelda is NOT an RPG). There are probably others too but really, what you said are pretty much the four basic types of games that get made these days.

 

[Blanq]

Didn't feel like reading all the comments, so I apologize if this is a repeat.

I think what would make these games more appealing to the horror fan base - since most of these games seem to have a pseudo-horror feel to it - is to have a boss monster go against that coloring and dismemberment scheme Yahtzee is going for.

Ideally for me, I was thinking of a much larger than human, reoccurring boss monster, who I suppose looks like you pulled Andre the Giant inside out; and let me explain why this works at least for me:

- Reoccurring because if the first few appearances lead more to a survival feel to it, you get both the greater sense of accomplishment for killing it later, but you also get that nice "Oh, god, now I have to try and kill this thing? I'm gonna die!" mentality on the last encounter, whereas the first two encounters (cause any more is overkill to me) that really is the case if you try to kill him.

- Design because its a nice contrast to the rest of the enemies. You hear the gore, you know you're hitting it, you should be hurting it, but you can't tell. He should seem damn near invincible until, I would say, about a third of the way through his health when you get the first physical signs that he's mortal and hurting. Then of course about the 66-80% point when he starts crippling about in disbelief that something so insignificant can hurt him, but at that point we're getting too far into my personal taste I would think.

Anyway, that's just what I'm thinking.

 

[Freechoice]

Is it the gore or watching something writhe about on the ground as their senses are bombarded by mind-shattering pain? If it's the latter, I would like to toss in impalement, fire and acid effects, some kind of crushing mechanic that pulps enemies and... I ran out of ideas.

 

[Kenny Doyle]

Severance: Blade of Darkness uses a sensible use of gore without it getting boring and unsatisfying.

Just think of it like Rune: Viking Warlord, except this was first.

 

[reeper4444]

I know that this is unrelated but for some reason my steam download speed always seems to peak when I'm reading extra punctuation

(Use it as advertising if you will)

 

[Azaraxzealot]

sounds like he's talking about an improved version of Prototype
it basically hit all the points he discussed (if you think about it)

 

[coldfrog]

This type of game should also allow for visual differentiation in the damage caused by bashing weapons, slashing weapons and piercing weapons. Crushed bone deformities from bashing, more severing and cuts from slashing weapons, and probably piercing weapons would have to all be disposable throwing knives and such that stick in the body causing sores and wounds. It'd be cool to see a boss fight in which, if you hurl throwing knives at him, he pulls each one out separately, leaving various wounds all over him. Possibly crushing them in his hands because he's a gigantic steroid shaped like a man.

 

[Dobs141]

That one Peter Jackson movie is Dead Alive. Campy gory fun.

More games should do that.

 

[runedeadthA]

:uts on pedant hat::

It's not "Attorney Generals." They aren't the Generals of Attorney. They are the Attorneys General. Think in terms of, say, the three Billy Goats Gruff. They aren't Gruffs, they're Billy Goats who all bear the name "Gruff."

::Takes off pedant hat::

I think a problem with making the gore and violence more involved a la Fruit Ninja is that it's difficult to pull that off with the given means. A controller would make it hard enough, even if you basically just tied slashing movements to both analog sticks, but the third person perspective chosen for the vast majority of games in the action-splatterfest genre fails to make things super-conducive to a high degree of control. Which isn't to say you can't have magnificent control in action games, but the controls will almost always be within the context of canned animations, because you simply couldn't exercise the kind of control needed to pull that off. I hate to say it, but a better means of this might actually be a ::gulp:: motion control interface of some sort.

Anyway, these are still pretty neat design concepts. Maybe they'll make it into Splatterhouse II: Splatterhouser.

Maybe for the the accurate control it might be hard for consoles with their controllers, But Penumbra did a kind of mouse controlled swing. As I recall it was a little unwieldy, but that sort of worked in the type of game it was (i.e survival horror).

As for the inclusion of gore, Left 4 dead 2 seems to have dropped out of peoples skulls (though for the Aussies its understandable, Poor bastards). The gore in the game is probably one of the more detailed I've seen. Limbs blow off at different points leaving bloody ragged stump. Chests can be blowned open, stomachs ripped out and leaving the zombies staggering with their intestines trailing. Heck even the head has deformable features. Shoot them in the face with a highish, but not to high, powered gun (like a weaker shotgun) and instead of blowing it off you leave a blood messy crater where their face used to be.
Makes pipe bombs fun *Beep Beep Beep BOOM* Body part rain!

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

You've described my dream game. That said, I like Splatterhouse. It's gory, and it's fun. But there's definitely room for solid improvement, and should such improvement be made in a sequel - a masterpiece would appear.
I definitely agree with Blanq and generally think such game should have lot of bosses. That's a bit of a problem in Splatterhouse - not enough bosses. And don't recycle it. For a 15-20 hour game take your time and create 10-15 different bosses with 100% unique animation and models. Surprise is always welcome "Yay! It finally lost it's huge missile-firing arm! Shit, it picked it up and now firing rockets twice as fast..."

Another idea (Painkiller did that to a small degree) is enemies using other enemies. For team attacks including sacrificing an enemy. In Painkiller certain skeletons decapitate others, making them go berserk for a short time and then die. In Splatterhouse Teratiod picks small monsters up with his tentacle and throw at you. In Dragon Age the Harvester rips off it's own arm and use it as a club and tears bloody skeletons from it's own body, resurrecting them. What I suggest as the best thing for a gory game is an enemy who picks up others and ters them to pieces, using those pieces as projectile weapon.

 

[ewhac]

That one Peter Jackson movie is Dead Alive.

Only if you're American and fat [/videos/view/zero-punctuation/57-Painkiller] (seek to 2:20).

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

The surprise with Splatterhouse, quality aside, is that it was even released in Australia, what with our notorious problem with a lack of an R18 certificate for games (meaning games that need them have been refused classification and essentially banned.) The gore could be written off as "fantasy horror," but then there's the tits, and if there's one thing that terrifies the puritans at the ratings board more than violence, it's a sexual thought entering their chaste, self-flagellating heads.

You might have it a little backwards there, the OFLC themselves have acknowledged that there is need for an R18 classification, and that a lack of one is only hurting us long term. They have stated that they themselves hate how constricting the classification rules are.

Over the last few years, more and more games have made it through largely because the OFLC have loosened their interpretation of the laws.

 

[proghead]

Cannibalism to restore health, obviously. *coughfallout3cough*