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Splatterhouse now smearing 2010

Namco Bandai's controversy-laden revival of arcade beat-'em-up pushed to next year on the Xbox 360, PS3.

Namco Bandai's revival of Splatterhouse has been, well, kind of messy. After announcing the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game as in development at California-based BottleRocket Entertainment in May 2008, Namco Bandai abruptly pulled the studio off the project in February 2009. After a slap-hands exchange between the two companies, Variety reported last month that Namco Bandai had picked up a number of ex-BottleRocketeers to finish the project.

As could be expected, the tumult has had an adverse effect on the game's expected ship date. Originally announced as a 2009 release, Namco Bandai has confirmed for GameSpot that Splatterhouse is now due sometime in 2010. Namco Bandai declined to comment on whether the game would be an early- or late-year release.

Though it is an update of the original gross-out arcade beat-'em-up released in 1988, Splatterhouse features an original storyline by comic-book scribe Gordon Rennie (Judge Dredd, Necronauts). Players assume the role of a college student in search of his kidnapped girlfriend and subsequently happen upon a mask that confers great power--and an insatiable bloodlust.

For more information, check out GameSpot's previous coverage of Splatterhouse.

Tom Magrino
By Tom Magrino

Tom Magrino has covered the games industry since 2006. He's been compared to Steve Martin by Ozzy Osbourne and Daniel Craig by Tim Schafer. His voice, heard largely on GameSpot's podcast, recalls that of Kermit the Frog. It ain't easy bein' Magreen.

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THEGoD1 5 pts

eehh it dident impress me much

bandit7319 5 pts

Wow.. looks awfully God of War-ish

WormyTheWorm 5 pts

I hope they release the original arcade game on XBLA

Switchblade777 5 pts

looks terrible. maybe for those gore fest gamers out there though?

gryphyth 5 pts

Evil Dead Regeneration on steroids ;)

Ghoulish_Visage 5 pts

I am not going to lie. This looks great.

mightycloud 5 pts

Looking like this could be fun little gore fest like nanobreaker, and as long as I can still splat a zombie against a wall with a stick i'll be happy.

kavadias1981 5 pts

"Sold with an 18+ rating, desired by boys aged 14-16." I just thought that to myself so I thought I would share it with the rest of you.

famguyfan2685 5 pts

Awesome Anime: I can't believe you are calling the resurrection of Bionic Commando good .. Unless you are referring to Bionic Commando: Rearmed, and not the lame 3-D game, then I'm afraid you are mistaken my friend..

Awesome_Anime 5 pts

If it turns out to be a good resurrection like Bionic Commando, I'll rent it

taylormadederek 5 pts

The game would be crap if they released it today and it will be crap if they release it in a year from now.

godzillavskong 43 pts

Or if they just use the same formula as Street Fighter and keep the game simple with updated HD graphics and 2D. That would be awesome!

godzillavskong 43 pts

I miss that game on the T-16. I would love to buy a copy to add to my library. I only have 6 games for my Turbo grafyx and the copies of Splatterhouse on ebay are pretty steep. Hopefully this remake will do it justice.

DarthTall 5 pts

I'm all in favor of classic games getting the next-gen treatment, but this particular title looks like fecal matter. Also, (random rant) why can't anyone properly use the words 'awesome', 'you're', and 'too'? I'll get off the spellcheck soapbox now, but it's really annoying.

Malco_Vincenzo 5 pts

the only thing that would've made the golden axe remake better is if they had put the first 3 on an extra disc.

Malco_Vincenzo 5 pts

@ Barighm well man God Hand was the last good one in a while.

Barighm 5 pts

Hope they get this right. The beat'em up genre has declined a lot of late. A horror game that goes out of its way to scare, then jokingly throws it aside when it realizes its trying to scare a player controlling a man who is basically Jason's twin, then proceeds to execute a brawl between horror movie monsters and said twin...that would have been a pretty cool concept. Make the fighting controls solid and very responsive and easy to execute, throw in some multi-player, make it scary and add a lot of replay value...and you've got a mega-hit.

BlackBaldwin 14 pts

Wow this game looks pretty terrible. I loved the series on the sega master system and I hoped that they would of done something to that sort of caliber of survival horror but after watching the trailer it seems that the studio doesn't have a clue on what the series was like. Freakest part of the series had to be the boss fight with the teddy bear transformation in splatterhouse 3 I think. I was soo freaked out I had my mother get rid of my bear I had after playing that thing and losing several times to him lol...

Ripper_TV 10 pts

martyhavok, really? What a poor name..

Jackc8 8 pts

The environments remind me a lot of Primal on the PS2.

duke-nukem11 5 pts

oooo well old mega drive games being remade have been completly crap. altered beast? golden axe? i rest my case ok they where done by sega but its time to think up new ideas

maverick_76 5 pts

Seems promising, will look out for this as it gets closer to release.

BlueFlameBat 8 pts

And next year, you will see this headline: "Splatterhouse axed for 360 and PS3, moved to XBox something-or-other and PS4." Maybe Nintendo's next system too if Nintendo steps up to the plate.

ColonelRadec 5 pts

I do not mind waiting on the game if it will make it better.

martyhavok 5 pts

Update: Namco Bandai announced this morning that the game would be renamed Splatterhouse forever. :D

Rey_Sword 5 pts

I hope its looks better when its finished

platonhollow 5 pts

They must have an extra disc with all 3 splatterhouse games. Or put them in the upcoming Splatterhouse game disc It will kick ass

deadcowboy6 5 pts

if it comes out good than I'm fine with the wait

thpghalo3 5 pts

looks awsome and who cares if it comes out in 2010 because then they have more time to work on it and make it better.

Ranma_X_basic 14 pts

Word of advice to namco. since you're delaying the game why not use the graphics engine you used for SoulCaliber4 or Tekken 6. i liked the original splatterhouse games and want this new one to be great. oh! and i do hope the original game will be on the disk that would kick ass.

Imperator2007 5 pts

I want them to take as long as necessary to make this game great. It doesn't look too hot right now, so I hope they can crank up the juice and make it look and play great. I want to like this game so badly.

CatKickin 5 pts

When I first heard this announced, I almost danced a jig. Then I saw the screen shots and I was less then impressed. Here's hoping that some extra time will bring it up to par with what it should be.

gerudoman320 6 pts

I just hope it turn great...pleases

vickissv2 5 pts

Good, maybe they'll have time to work on those Dreamcast level graphics.

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