The House of the Dead

"Super-challenging Light Gun game with major gripes somehow..."

Since Resident Evil/Biohazard came out, Sega's AM1 decided to take the concept of zombies and to make the concept more interactive by having you blow zombies to bits. Such a concept is called House of the Dead, a light gun game that has you blow up the zombies before the zombies get you.

Graphics

The animation isn't that bad and although some of the polygons are rather blocky to my tastes, the polygons move really smooth. The action moves at 30FPS and there could be some slowdown at certain points of the game. With smooth animation paired with decent detail within the texture-mapped polygons, I'm wondering why AM1 couldn't use Model 3 for this game. The polygons would benefit from the Model 3 Board because with the Model 3, the polygons are virtually gone and replaced by better texture-mapped detail. Otherwise, the Model 2 detail in the game is just fine.

Mechanics

Two players can play at once in one screen. You use a gun similar to that in Virtua Cop and Virtua Cop 2. Like most gun games, you are required to point and shoot the gun away from the screen to change your magazine once you run out of bullets. I think that the reloading by shooting outside of the screen is pretty much overused as of this review because there are even better and even more innovative ways to reload your gun other than shooting outside of the screen as with the past days.

Control

Since the game is derived from Virtua Cop 2's model, the gun doesn't aim too well and requires you to twist and turn your wrist at certain times in order to get shots at certain points of the screen. Sometimes it's really hard to aim at the bottom without having to lay the barrel near the cabinet ''hood''. If I were one of Sega's light gun testers, then I would work on this category so that the gun would be more accurate and that you don't have to overtwist your wrist just to get some calibration in effect. Poor calibration is what plagued this game from the very start.

Story

House of the Dead doesn't score high on originality points as the concept was borrowed from Capcom's Resident Evil. The plot is somewhat weak because you're up against a criminal who's trying to kill everybody inside a mansion using undead creatures and to avenge those who you loved the most. Although the game's story is basically a theme of chasing after a criminal, some better twists to the game's plot would be nice.

Sound and Music

Although the BGM is crisp and fluid, some of the sound effects and voice acting needs some improvement. Sometimes the voice acting winds up to be a bit cheesey at times (No seriousness within the voice acts). However, the pain cried out by the zombies are well done, though the voice actors need to work on their seriousness through their acts.

Difficulty

House of the Dead isn't for those who have a weak aim because you're required to kill the zombies before they kill you. You are basically judged on how well you can go without losing a single life. To get through the game means to find the life-conserving way to kill the zombies, and you do have to watch out at times because innocents lurk around the screen.

Overall

Although House of the Dead spots gore, cheap bosses, fast and frantic gameplay, and smooth graphics, it definitely needs a lot of work basically on the voice acting and controllability categories. If AM1 really took more time tweaking this game up as far as controls are concerned, then this game would really rock.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 07/24/00, Updated 04/07/02