Splatterhouse 2

On the SEGA Mega Drive, where colorful platformers and speedy hedgehogs reigned, Splatterhouse 2 felt like a dark intruder from another world. In 1992 Namco brought out the sequel to its horror beat 'em up, in which the hero Rick dons the sinister Terror Mask, a talking mask that lends superhuman strength, and throws himself into a fight to rescue his girlfriend Jennifer from the realm of the dead.

You battle through walls of pulsating flesh, rotting corridors and hordes of monstrosities inspired by classic horror films. Rick dishes out blows with his fists and with improvised weapons, beams, cleavers, a shotgun, and the atmosphere is unusually brutal and disturbing for its time and platform. The bosses tend to be a grotesque parade of bodily horror, and the game prides itself on a gloomy, oppressive tone rarely seen on the Mega Drive.

Retro gamers love Splatterhouse 2 precisely for this courage to go against the current. It's a game that doesn't want to be cute, it wants to give you goosebumps and offer raw, dense action. Part of a cult series that horror and B-movie fans regard as a little treasure hidden in the library of an otherwise colorful 16-bit era.