Review by: Jason McMaster

Splatterhouse, as a whole, is not on review in this piece, so if you’re curious as to the GameShark view on the product, please check out Jeff’s review. We’re going to take a look at the DLC, Hall of Mirrors and Heart of the Mansion, as well as the code to unlock the original games on the disc. The arenas in question were the pre-order bonus from different vendors, and are now available for purchase over the various networks.

The survival arenas are similar to Horde Mode in Gears of War 2 in that you take on wave after wave of enemies until you are overrun. Luckily, each arena provides you with a special weapon for just such occasions. This first arena we’ll look at is set in the Hall of Mirrors section of the main game, where you fight a mirror-image of yourself. In the Hall, you are given a shotgun from the get-go, which can annihilate enemies at close range but, as to be expected from any shotgun, it’s a bit ineffective at longer distances. Also, being a shotgun, it has limited ammo as well as an inconvenient reload time.

Heart of the Mansion is, well, exactly like it sounds, even more-so than you’d initially imagine. Needless to say there’s a giant beating heart in the background, which serves as a cool set piece and not much else. In this arena, you start with Biggyman’s Chainsaw, and yes, chainsaws are awesome. In fact, the chainsaw decimates anything it touches, but of course, it wears down quickly. As with the Hall of Mirrors, the enemies keep coming and your death is guaranteed, but while you’re still up and kicking, you might as well send as many of these bastards back to hell as possible.

We also received a code to unlock the original Splatterhouse games and, by far, this is the best part of the new Splatterhouse. Being one of the 12 people who owned a TurboGrafx 16 and the original, modified, Splatterhouse, I was instantly intrigued. Now, of course, you can unlock these via the story line, but if you can’t stomach playing through the entire game (and I’m absolutely sure you wouldn’t be alone), you can at least enjoy the original games this way. The originals are side-scrolling gore fests that have quite a bit of charm working for them as well as entertaining game design. This, to me, is the reason to own the latest Splatterhouse title.

The down-sides to the Splatterhouse DLC all have to do with Splatterhouse itself. Splatterhouse has wonky controls and questionable timing. The game gets by on the tongue-in-cheek, extreme gore and goofy one-liners (most of which are not even cringe-worthy), so once you strip that partially away, you find a mediocre hack and slash experience. These DLC are absolutely worth it if you already own Splatterhouse and enjoy the game, but don’t look for them to completely change your mind if you’re on the fence.