"An average arcade shooter"

Gameplay 9/10
The main thing you do in this game is kill zombies, demons, and other ungodly creations. Since the main and pretty much only aspect to this game is killing things they are very varied and react differently depending on where you shoot them. For example: if you shoot an ax wielding zombie in the arm he will temporarily be stunned giving you the opportunity to blow his head of before he attacks you. You can also shoot jars and crates in the hopes of finding an extra life or something of that nature. There are no upgrades in this game excluding the ones you get in original mode. The game is really simplistic in terms of interaction because it is an “on rails” shooter meaning that the computer moves your character while all you can do is shoot (Keep in mind that it is a port of the arcade game). There are however various branching paths you can take through the city usually depending on whether you saved someone or not. For example there is a part of the game where a man is riding in his car when a zombie ambushes him, if you kill the zombie in time he will swerve out of the way of a store and you will go on your merry way up the street, but if you let the zombie kill the guy he will crash into the store and you will go in and kill off the zombies inside and exit through the back of the store. The game has quite a few of these different situations giving this game considerable replay value. There are also two gameplay modes, the arcade and the original mode. The only difference between the two is that in the beginning of the original mode you are able to pick some upgrades. There is also a training mode and a boss mode.

Controls 10/10
This game uses the mouse to aim, the left mouse button to shoot and right mouse button to reload. It also supports the light gun (yes there is one for pc). If you get the chance to purchase the light gun it would make the game a lot more enjoyable at least in my opinion.

Graphics 8/10
For the time this game came out the graphics were breathtaking, they are still pretty good by today's standards. The city is well detailed and looks like a real city with shops, cars, signs and other decor. The indoor environments have all the home furnishings. The latter lab levels look futuristic and a bit cheesy. The monsters are well detailed and some show damage depending on where they've been hit. The problems with monsters is that they only used one model for each type of monster meaning that there are a lot of generic zombies or chainsaw zombies or demon birds.

Sound 4/10
This game has no music whatsoever. The sound effects are good but nothing to rave about. All in all everything sounds as it should. Now we come to the voice acting. The voice acting in this game is so horrendously bad that it becomes funny when your character says “oh my god” in an absolutely flat voice as he sees a helpless person get mauled by a gang of zombies.

Story 2/10
If you're looking for a deep story this unfortunately isn't the game for you. There is a story in the game which ties in with the original House of the Dead, but as with most arcade games the story is just an excuse to play the game. There's something in there about an evil guy and zombies and so forth, but ultimately it was very undeveloped, uninteresting and was done in with an even worse script.

Replay value 7/10
This game has pretty good replay value because, as I mentioned earlier it has a lot of alternating paths to take. Also there are the boss and training modes. So if you like arcade shooters you might want to play through the extra modes or go through the main game by taking different paths.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/07/04