We somehow always end up talking cinema here on Awesome Front Page Updates Written in a Moderately Timely Fashion don't we? I'm not even particularly fanatic about it, just the licence games keep packing in, or there's some obvious connection to draw between a game and its influences. The discerning may discern that "splatter" is a slightly different pigeonhole to that which most comfortably nestles the bones and sinew of the not-that-gorey* Virtual Console port of Splatterhouse, but it's difficult to tell whether we should be calling it a slasher (the mask and blade), supernatural horror (ghosts, possessed furniture), gothic horror (Baroque-style music sometimes echoing inside august, 19^th century halls, including one track that tries oh-so-hard not to be the Air on the G-String) or whether we should follow the stage three boss' example of double-wielding chainsaws and tear indiscriminately through the cacophonous, grubby rack liberating the doves from their compartmentalized state altogether and having simply way more fun in the process. I'm sure bursting all those bubbles in stage six has some metaphorical overtone to it.

If you can't make out, Zack 'Zallard1' Allard isn't taking things all that seriously, seeming warming the protagonist up for a Cossack dance routine which is what the college boy, no doubt, hurries off to perform at the Homecoming halftime show after the credits are through. Although Zallard is best-known for doling out merciless coups de grâce inside whatever boxing rings he's still admitted to (audiences get jaded), on his off days he may be spotted excising a handful of not-strictly-vital tissues, roundabout 5 seconds' worth, off his other records and catgutting together a 0:13:46 that somehow still kicks and screams (signs of life!). Don't be fooled, though, because such Sunday efforts, while not completely unheard-of, really are the exceptions that prove the rule all the harder. Here's what he normally gets down to:

• Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! - Piston Honda II down 2.52 to 0:41.48 and Super Macho Man down 2.00 to 0:46.48 (table time 0:13:57.78)
• Super Punch-Out!! - Single-segment down 5.82 into 0:02:43.37
• Punch-Out!! (Wii) - Super Macho Man II down 0.27 to 1:09.14 (table time 0:19:49.65)

But wait! If you just so knew what the exact SDA Individual Levels time for the Wii game was, a bewildered cry may be about to escape your lips: "Where did another 0.94 seconds go? I want answers. goddammit!" Can you hear a mischievous chuckle from within the challengers' loge (shut up I know how boxing matches work okay?!) emanating from the exercised bellows of a defiant, lithe silhouette? "Those features... that voice... no, not a clue who it is." Well, it's someone whose name doubles as their preferred level of precision in planning and execution of fights: 'FrameByFrame'. That's who. Here's something to help you remember:

• Bear Hugger down 0.18 to 0:26.70 and Bald Bull II down 0.66 to 0:43.89 (table time still 0:19:49.65)

Things are heating up! How many more records are up for grabs until they're all indistinguishable from their TAS counterparts? Hmm... I should advertise our spiritually linked sister site for a change, in case someone's too gnu-bee to know about TASing yet.

 

*Apparently, censorship was applied when porting to home consoles.