The House of the Dead

"Awwww, look at the cute little hell hound!"

The House of the Dead is an awesome shooter. You can compare it to others like Time Crisis, etc. and it does rather well in all categories.

Game Play

So the game is a shooter, I mean all you do is fire the neat little gun. But the game is great because of the features and variety. The levels themselves are nonstop action as you move through the house shooting all of the zombies in your way, I mean blink and you might take a beating! A great feature is the ability to take short cuts through the house if you kill the right zombie or do something specific to get the shortcut. Shortcuts can save you a lot of time and energy. If you don’t take shortcuts you’re in for blistered fingers and extra quarters down the machine. Plenty of different zombies and bosses in the game too. The bosses are pretty challenging. In one player mode it's quite challenging to stay alive while fighting the bosses. You may have to jam on that trigger pretty fast if you want to avoid losing a life. And as if they weren't hard enough the first time, you have to fight them all
over again at the end! A great feature of the game is the scientists you can save. There will be scientists cowering in corners of rooms with zombies coming right up on them and if you shoot the zombies in time without shooting the scientist they may give you a free life for saving them, however if you accidentally blow a scientist away you’re going to lose a life. Unfortunately, the majority of the free lives are given to player one, leaving player two dead most of the time. The game is also somewhat realistic in that if you shoot the zombie in the head or chest you may be able to kill it in one hit, but if you shoot and knock it’s arm off, it may still be coming after you.

Story

I think the house is some sort of testing facility with a bunch of scientists working on genetic alteration. One of the scientists is evil though and starts making zombies to do evil things with. One of the people at the house is your best friend so you go to save her, save the scientists, and also stop the evil guy from making more powerful and dangerous zombies to unleash upon whoever he wants.

Audio/Video

This category is great. The zombies make a bunch of weird grunts and groans and scream and make weird noises when they are shot. When you rescue scientists they say thank you
and things of that nature. Your character also talks when you are close to your friend you yell for her and she talks back. And I love the cool chain saw sound!

The graphics draw you in to the game. If you didn’t know you were playing a game, you would assume the house is real. Statues and streams in the house and background. And
you have to pay attention to the backgrounds because if you don’t something will jump out at you. It's almost scary how realistic they made it because of all the detailed blood
and gore.

Replay

Definitely a replay factor because it's challenging and beautifully done. And with all the different ways to go in the house, you might just see something new every time you play. I always pop a few quarters in the game when I go to the arcade, especially with friends. Who wouldn't love to run around a house shooting zombies over and over again with their friends?

Overall

The great audio and video, game play, and replay really get this game a nine. In fact the only real reason this game didn't get a ten is because of the bosses being so hard in one player mode, a few small glitches, and the damn scientists giving all the lives to player one. A definite play at the arcade!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/20/00, Updated 12/20/00