THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 2 & 3 RETURN

I kid you not, I recently broke out my Dreamcast and hooked it up to the TV for my boys to have a little fun with. Well, when I found out I was getting the new Wii release House of the Dead 2 & 3 (HotD), I whipped out my Dreamcast copy of House of the Dead 2 and locked and loaded myself for some nostalgic fun. Fast forward a couple of days later and I received my copy of HotD for the Wii and while I can't seem to get tired of blasting zombies I was really surprised to see how little has changed in such a long time.

Now I will say once again, that I really dig zombies. Movies, books, games, Halloween, you name it, if it has anything to do with the walking dead, I probably own it. In the House of the Dead series of games you deal with zombies - a whole lot of zombies, not to mention all sorts of other nasties that fly, crawl, slither and spew forth green gloop. The whole point of the game is to battle your way through the branching adventure that has you blasting your way through parking garages, genome labs, offices, sewers, morgues and pretty much every other place you would not want to face monsters.

 
 "Whoa, the Olsen twins have really let themselves go."

Now when I say branching, I really had to analyze this otherwise random series of events. In both games, you eventually end up in the same place throughout the game, but getting there may be the difference of going up in an elevator or down. Of course not always do decisions like this come down to such a simple choice. In fact, I finally understood how some events unfold when I turned my brain on and paid attention rather than slip into a state of consciousness not much higher than the zombies I was killing. How it works in the second game though is dependent on who you save; in an early part of the game, an annoying child is seen running from some zombies - if you save him, he tells you to save his mother and points you to enter a doorway which takes you along another path. If he is killed, you continue along your original path. This of course is all well and good, but in this game, saving people can sometimes reward you with instant health or health at the end of the game. Most of the time saving people does not yield immediate rewards, but still, the best way to gain those "A" grades is to save everyone and never use a continue during the level.

 And of course at the end of these levels, is the prerequisite boss battle. At the beginning of each battle, your informative monster book opens up and tells you where the critical point is on the monster - sometimes its the head, sometimes its the gaping chest/mouth that opens up and other times its the hands and feet. One thing is for sure, the monster boss battles are really interesting and enjoyable. Yes, I realize this game is pretty old and many of us have walked this path prior, but to those who are new to the series and are playing it for the first time, you can expect to be quick on the trigger in literally every second of the game.

 
"Pro-active skin treatment really changed my life for the better. I used to look hideous, now I am full of confidence."

I take for granted that everyone reading is familiar with the HotD games. This is a light gun-style game shown from the first-person perspective minus the normal view of the gun you are carrying. You have a finite amount of shots in your gun before you have to reload, you do this by shooting off screen, then its back to blasting away. You can find weapon upgrades by shooting any and everything around you, but you are trapped on the "rail" the game takes you, meaning you get to walk along a path already determined by your original choice and until you come to a scenario that leads you one way or the other, you will stay on that path. Essentially it is called a rail, you can shoot anything that comes on screen, but sometimes, whether you like it or not, your character may turn around, hang a left or jump down into a hole, you just need to be ready with a hot trigger because often times quick moves like this put you face to face with a bad guy that is within striking range and sometimes already in mid strike. Playing through the game several times helps to memorize when and where these types of attacks happen.

I suspect that the original developers were big fans of zombie and monster movies, and whether it is a translation problem or a script problem, the dialogue that occurs in this game is utterly wacky. Characters say all sorts of strange things with inflections on the wrong word most of the time, for example "That WAS a really strange creature, I wonder who could have made such A thing?" To go with this goofy dialogue is some of the worst voice acting this side of the original Resident Evil. Characters admit that they have never seen such horrors surrounding them, but still have time to say really bad one-liners or start talking about a past memory that involved a family member. I can't say that I wouldn't be saying all sorts of strange things if the dead rose from the grave and brought all sorts of other monsters with them, but I can say it would involve plenty of four letter words. If a mouse running by my garage makes me swear like a merchant marine on shore leave, imagine what a nine-foot-tall mutant would cause? As the game is already rated M and contains lots of gore and killing the developers should have thrown in some adult language. Anything would have been better than the poorly written material we are given.

 
America's best dance crew, "Street Meat."

It is an old series of games and the graphics were not improved upon in any way. Sure, there is some slight color changes between this and the original Dreamcast version, but it only involves some coloring and shading - probably just a result of the port onto a more powerful gaming machine. Otherwise it looks virtually identical, and even though this is somewhat of a "B" rated game, that doesn't mean that Sega couldn't have given the game a good once over and cleaned up some of the really dated graphics. I can forgive the monsters, since you just blow holes through them and destroy them until they are puddles of slop, but the cut scenes with the human characters are very blocky and dated (duh).

If there is a really shiny spot in this blood-soaked frag fest, it has to be the accuracy of the Wiimote; I have the Wii shooter attachment and it really does make all the difference in the world having two hands to steady your shots. Most of the time, close enough is good, but during those boss battles, oftentimes you only have time to get one well-placed shot into a vital spot. And normally this is the difference between getting injured or sending the boss reeling in pain. Since you only have so much health, accuracy is key and fortunately the game responds well.

Gameplay: 8.0
Thanks to a completely dialed in and accurate Wiimote, playing the game is pleasurable and completely effective.

Graphics: 5.8
While really outdated and shoddy, they do get you by and can produce some unintentional laughs.

Sound: 4.5
While really poorly spoken and written, they often produce unintentional laughs, a theme that rears its head often.

Difficulty: Medium/Hard
You only have so many credits, and there is an awful lot of things to shoot.

Concepts: 5.7
The game is 10-years old. I beat it on another system two generations ago; since the gameplay is solid, how about a whole new light-gun adventure featuring monsters?

Multiplayer: 6.4
Having a second gun is certainly handy especially with the limited number of credits, but it isn't anything new.

Overall: 6.0
Those parents who bought the Wii for there kids may get a kick out of it, and it is only $29.99, but it is old and dated and we deserve something much newer.