I'm sure most of you have played at least one survival horror game. Resident evil most likely, all though of course there are many others. Alone in the dark, say. Whatever. The fact is that they all owe their roots to one game. Splatterhouse. Picture the scene. A mansion, owned by one Dr West, a parapsychologist who mysteriously vanished. Two students, Rick and Jennifer, take shelter in the mansion during a storm. Unfortunately, Jennifer is captured and Rick murdered. He is brought to life through the power of the "terror mask" and thus our game begins. Simple side-scrolling action as Rick fights his way through the mansion, killing demons with his fists or with weapons. Violent weapons. In fact, it was the first arcade game to be given a mature rating. Possibly something to do with, I kid you not, the level in which Rick walks down a giant uterus, smashing demonic sperm with a 2 by 4. Splatterhouse spawned three sequels, Wanpaku graffiti for the famicom was a Japan-only release and featured super-distorted characters. Splatterhouse 2 and 3 were improvements on the first game, keeping the difficulty level maxed whilst continuing the story. Splatterhouse3 was also notable for its multiple endings. For each level! Basically, you had to complete each level within a time limit to avoid the death of Jennifer, or Rick and Jennifer's son, or what have you. And obviously depending how the game went, there were multiple endings. Smoothly done.

Splatterhouse: violent, impossibly difficult horror fun with a character who looks like Jason Voorhees.