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At New York Comic Con, I caught up with the producers of "Splatterhouse," and they explained how they're wholly "embracing" their M rating, why we won't see it on the Wii and how they're hoping for a sequel and maybe even a movie starring Paris Hilton.
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During the big comic book convention over the weekend, I stopped by Namco Bandai's booth to talk to "Splatterhouse" producers Dan Tovar and Mark Brown about the re-make of the beat-em-up arcade classic. The game wasn't playable, but they did tell me about what we can expect, and their hopes and dreams for the future of the franchise.
MTV Multiplayer: So let's start from the beginning...
Producer Dan Tovar: It's basically for the Xbox 360 and PS3, and it's a reimagining of the original game that was in the arcades and the Turbografx-16. It revolves around main character Rick Taylor, who goes with his girlfriend go to West Manor to do a story on this professor, Dr. West. Rick gets mortally wounded by a monster and his girlfriend gets kidnapped. Rick puts on a mask that he finds which gives him demonic powers, healing his wounds, giving him the power to regenerate, and basically turns him into a monster.
Producer Mark Brown: Right, it gives him super strength and the ability to regenerate. These monsters can bite chunks out of him and rip his arms off and things like that, and they grow back in real-time. With this game, you don't have a life bar on there because the character actually shows you the damage he's taken, and he'll heal. The mask itself is an actual character too; it talks to Rick, and so you have a banter going back and forth there, and you're basically chasing after Dr. West trying to get his girl, Jennifer, back.
MTV Multiplayer: How did the project come about?
Tovar: Mark and I have been working at Namco for many years, and we've always considered "Splatterhouse" to be the crown jewel, and we've been talking about it for years. Somebody came to us and said we need projects for the next couple of years, so we just looked at each other with that knowing grin. We got hard at work on the concept, got the OK from the executives, and we went out to get a developer and that was it. Everyone got off and running and this was all about 18 months ago, so we are going to ship this year in 2009.
We're getting close to having a playable demo this year because we already have the technology ready. Like Mark said, Rick's arm will get ripped off and will grow back in real-time. First the skeleton, then the blood, then the sinew, and also the skin on top of that. The cool thing is that, as soon as you have the skeleton back, you can throw punches again, but you can also remove limbs off of the enemies. You can run up to an enemy, rip his arm off, and start swinging it like a baseball bat, or rip their head off and chuck it at another enemy.
MTV Multiplayer: So this game is rated "E" for everyone, right?
Tovar: Oh yeah! No, we got a big fat "M," and we're embracing it. There are drug references, gore and violence, partial nudity, and language. You know a little bit of everything. We basically said, 'Well what can we do with an "M"?' and we checked everything off. Like Mark said, though, the original games were very important to us. We went back and studied them, we played them when we were kids, and we loved them.
But we broke these games down and said what makes them so awesome? The brawler action, the blood and gore, the levels, the environments, the mood, the atmosphere, and so we took all these components put them in this game and just kept pushing them and pushing them as far as we could. It is an action horror game. The environments come alive, and they are almost characters as themselves, but at the same time the punching and kicking still means something and you can jump around just like you would. The move-set is compounded and much deeper now, which calls for a much gorier environment because you can do all these crazy things to the monsters.
Brown: They're evil; they deserve it! On top of what Dan said though, there are also weapons you would find in slasher movies and things like that. Such as the meat cleaver, the chainsaw, the machete, all those signature weapons. These are weapons from the original game and we wanted to have those weapons in this game and just make it as much of a spectacle as we possibly could.
Tovar: The gore really helps that. We put a lot of our technology into that, with the blood sprays, and when you rip a guy's arm off he'll fall down very realistically. You can pick up the busted parts of the enemies and chuck them around. If you're into that kind of over-the-top horror, it's everything you want to see.
MTV Multiplayer: Were there any fan-favorite things in the original game that you left out?
Brown: Not really. The things that people always talk about, like in blogs and forums, are the weapons, the reactions the enemies have from the weapons and the characters. I don't want to say "easy" but it was straightforward for us. The map was very clear to us, and we knew what everybody identified with. For example, in the original game there was an enemy called Biggy Man who had chainsaw blades for hands and had a bag over his head. It was a no-brainer to include icons from the games like this. We did our own thing with him, but he's still the same guy with chainsaw blades for hands.
MTV Multiplayer: Do you feel like more old games should be remade for this generation, or is there a certain criteria that games should have before being considered to be remade?
Tovar: I think the original "Splatterhouse" is the kind of game that still holds up today. Other games being remade lately are really great games. "Bionic Commando" was a great game and the idea of remaking that was awesome. It was funny because we were already kind of getting started on what we were doing, and we found out that [Capcom was] doing the same thing in their own way. I like the idea; I think if the original material is treated with respect and the feel of the original is retained, remaking a game could be great. That's what was most important to us, to make it feel like the original.
MTV Multiplayer: There seems to be a push for more hardcore games on the Wii, such as "MadWorld." Was there any particular reason you didn't make "Splatterhouse" for Wii?
Tovar: The technology on the PS3 and 360 allows us to push it further. The Wii is still limited. I have a lot of respect for the Wii, but for us it just made more sense to concentrate on those two systems. There would have to be another game completely.
Brown: Right, not a port. Another thing about it is that that would change the game so much that we would hardly be able to recognize what it used to be. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but we felt it would be a better home for it on the PS3 and 360 and the audiences are more mature, which is who we want to appeal to.
MTV Multiplayer: Have you guys looked at other gory games like "Fallout 3" or "Dead Space"?
Brown: We played all of them.
Tovar: They weren't really influences though, because they came after we started out. But "Dead Space" has a lot of good gore in it. The decapitation is nice. "Afro Samurai" has some great decapitation, limb removal and blood system...
Brown: The "Bloody Mess" perk from "Fallout 3," I never get tired of it. It's just so funny, and those are the kind of moments we're really looking for. We want all our friends to go, "Oh my God, you're not going to believe what just happened in this game!" And we have a had a ton of fun just putting our heads together just thinking up crazy scenarios like that that we could have Rick do.
MTV Multiplayer: Are there any other remakes that you guys have been cooking up?
Brown: Unfortunately, we have to leave that as a "still to come." There's stuff that we're looking at. To be honest, both of us want to keep working on the "Splatterhouse" franchise as long as we can.
Tovar: We definitely have a long list of elements that we could draw from and keep this thing going for a while. We've been working on the story with Gordon Rennie, the writer of "Splatterhouse," and we designed it with some open-endedness on purpose because we would love to work on a sequel, assuming it does well out on the market.
MTV Multiplayer: Can we look forward to a "Splatterhouse" movie? Perhaps starring Paris Hilton?
Tovar: [laughs] We would love to see that happen. We don't know that it will right now. But we certainly have no problem with that. With or without Paris Hilton.
Brown: As long as it doesn't end up in the hands of a certain German director that has made a few video game movies.
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"Splatterhouse" will be out for Xbox 360 and PS3 this year.
[Note: This interview was conducted before the Namco Bandai confirmed that the company is no longer working with the game's developer Bottlerocket Entertainment.]
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