The House of the Dead III

"Same old Dead with better brains-splattering candy"

We've all been to the arcades, and so, I'm pretty sure most of us encountered one of the House of the Dead cabinets, emptying a few coins in it for mindless light-gun blood splattering in the process. The first House of the Dead was a classic to the genre - you had to embrace a mansion full to the gills with dead of all types and sorts: zombified humans, frogs, and monkeys to name a few. At the end of every stage, you encountered a boss that had a "Weak Point" that should be attacked for MASSIVE DAMAGE. Every now and then, you'd have a chance at gaining a Life-Up by saving a civilian from his (or her so as not to be called sexist) bloody demise.

Now that we're at the third stop for this series, what has changed? It's pretty much the first cabinet with the added extra of great graphics.

I'm not sure about the 360 version, but the PC version has only two meaty modes - the proper Survival mode, and the in-my-opinion more fun Time Attack mode. "AHHHH NO BOSS ATTACK MODE!?! SHOOT MEH AND END MY MISERY!" Sadly no Boss Attack my gaming pals, but you'll find good condolence in the Time Attack mode.

You start off your game 20 years after the incidents of the Curien Mansion, and instead of a measly handgun, your shooting iron has been upgraded to a fast-action shotgun, only pausing the gut sputtering for a brief while every six shells in order to reload. What first gets you, be you coming from the first or second Dead, are the rich crispy visuals and animations--limbs fly off and heads roll so sweetly, the mindless fun will last a while.

When I first played my game, the frame-rate felt real slow, so make sure you adjust your configuration for a smooth frame-rate. You can alleviate the rate if you want to take the action slow, but there's no fun like hectic shells splattering heads and decapitating limbs all over the screen.

You've probably taken notice of the word mindless: the game has little to no strategy whatsoever - you need to be fast on the trigger, and like our old buddy Nukem puts it: "I'm here to kick ass and eat bubblegum, and I'm all out of gum." The most thinking you'll put in the game is, "Who should I shoot first to save that darn civilian!? Oh wait, the one flashing red perhaps lolo." Mindless, yes, but hella lot of fun. And like most light-gun games, the fun is doubled enter two-players. You can configure your game to run on two mice, but you'll most probably be playing a mouse/keyboard mouse/controller combo--heads will be rolling on who will be using the mouse.

In two player mode, not much changes, but now you have double the manpower and double the credit leeching--both of you share the same amount of credits, but I wouldn't worry about that if you're on anything under Hard. Every now and then, P1 or P2 will need saving from the clutches of zombies, so say, if P1 is helming the shottie, P2 will be briefly put out of play and his model will be on-screen getting drawn by the dead, so like any shoot-first-ask-qs-later gaming pal would act, you'll either splatter your friend's brain and lose a life, or the more appreciable act, you'll down the walking dead, save your friend, and bag a life.

Lives are pretty much easy to preserve, but that's until you encounter the bosses. Some bosses, like the huge chimpanzee, are more annoying than others, but you're always prone to steady life loss if you're not fast on your aim and trigger. Each boss has a weak point or number of, so your mind will be set on two things: have your mouse pointer on the boss's weak spot, and click like hell. Your first run will have you dying lots, so it's nice to see yourself downing bosses with much less loss the second time through.

The game has branched roads, or at least, it tricks you into thinking so. Besides the first branching road in the game, all else is just a matter of which stage you would like to go through first. So when you reach the elevator, going to B3 before B2 won't change much, since you'll be back for B2 when you're done with 3. Alternate endings have nothing to do with the paths (or order of paths for that matter) you chose, but rather it has to do with your ranking--after every stage, you'll be given a grade depending on how well you've done. Kill anything non-human moving on the screen, shoot barrels to reveal golden frogs (+10,000 points if I remember correctly) and other goods, and lose as little life as possible and you'll be guaranteeing yourself an "S".

After you roll the Survival Mode credits, you'll be interested in trying out the Time Attack. You start out with 60 seconds, and it's up to you to maintain the count over 0 seconds or it's Game Over. You earn seconds by shooting enemies fast, shooting clock marks mostly found in barrels, and doing well in stages. I found this mode more fun than the Survival mode, but sadly, it's only for one player.

Zombies have always been about fun, and at a lot of times, mindless fun. Couple that with a light-gun game, and you have a game low on brains but high on splattering them. It'll eventually get boring, but for the five or so times you'll play it, it'll be real fun. If you find it for cheap (less than ten bucks), get it. If not, do give it a rent if you're interested in the genre.

---

People who made this game also made:

House of the Dead
House of the Dead II

If you like this, you'll probably like:

Vampire Night (PS2)

Pros

+ Mindless fun
+ Graphics and animations are sexy
+ You'll go through it a few times
+ Time Attack mode

Cons

- Not that much of a challenging game
- We've seen it all before
- House of the Dead II was more challenging and had more to do
- Time Attack mode is for only one player
- Not much to do a few runs later

Story - 5
Visuals - 9
Audio - 4

Gameplay - 8
-Fun Factor - B
-Controls - A
-Difficulty - Easy

Lifespan - 5

Overall - 7

If you're reading this, you're probably a fan of light-gun games. The game offers nothing new, but for what old it offers, it's fun for a while.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/14/07