MurderHouse (Switch)

Murderhouse by Puppet Combo is a homage not only to survival horror but B-movie nasties and the glorious PSX era of gaming. Does it successfully provide nostalgia and scares like sweets on Halloween night?

Murderhouse chronicles the tale of The Easter Ripper, notorious serial killer who dons an Easter Bunny outfit and has a passion for slashing, while the main narrative sees a news crew investigating his abandoned home there is a prologue chapter in which you play as one of their victims in rather chilling circumstances.

The acting is brilliantly cheesy as you would expect for a throwback B-Movie title, over the top voice acting and plenty of secrets to discover alongside your genre standard twist. 

Coupled with the prologue chapter, Murderhouse presents you with a gripping narrative that is deceptively dark, even for a game about a serial killer Easter Bunny!. Certain environmental touches and notes you can find really draw you into this depraved killer’s world and helps keep the tension throughout.

Visually Murderhouse looks just how you remember titles like the original Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Clock Tower and the often forgotten about Alone in the Dark.

The game features brilliant use of that early 3D polygon look and still manages to create a feeling of tension and dread like the best of the genre.

As a huge bonus you can tweak your visuals too, make it smoothed out or as if it’s running on a CRT, you can even make it look like it’s played off an old VHS and simulate the classic PlayStation experience with a disc loading sound, a little feature but by god did I love it. 

The gameplay is standard survival horror through and through including the often divisive Tank Controls and limited saves which are handled with pencils instead of Ink Ribbons.

What I did enjoy about the core gameplay was it felt like the Easter Ripper could literally appear anywhere much like a certain Mr X from Resi 2 and this put me on my toes more than I would like to admit. 

There is combat with weapons such as guns and melee items but they are only here to afford you the time to run away from the Easter Ripper who stalks the halls, the idea is to hide long enough for them to disappear allowing you to continue to progress.

Of course being it’s a survival horror you have the usual plethora of puzzles to solve throughout, these usually require you to pay attention to notes and your surroundings to solve but fortunately there isn’t anything too obtuse to impede your progress.

Murderhouse isn’t the longest of games clocking in at around 4 hours with the main story and prologue chapter, with the price point seeing it under £10 it’s perfectly reasonable and offers a scarily good time for fans of classic survival horror.