The House of the Dead III

Review by Ofisil

"The House Of Boredom 3"

The House Of The Dead 2 is a Rail Shooter developed by Wow Entertainment and released by SEGA. Those of you who have played the previous games expect nothing more than better graphics and nothing, those of you who are new to the series beware that this is a game that no matter how much you'll like it you won't play it much after 3-4 playthroughs.

Story: 5/10

The world in 20-Something- is near its end and the reason seems to be something in a great tower. A group of commandos with –enter the name I don't remember here- has entered the building and after a short fight an unknown enemy captures them. After some days the daughter of –enter the name I don't remember here- and his former partner whose name is G, I thing, (Geez!), have come to the tower and start killing stuff in order to find where their bodies are. A couple of cutscenes give some details about the story of the game, but more or less everything is very similar to the previous games plot. A bad guy wants to destroy the world and you must stop him.

Graphics: 7.6/10

The major difference between this and the previous games is the eye candy factor. The first game was bad even for its time, the second was ok, but the third is very good, even if the Arcade version is much better. First of all, monsters have increased polygon count and great animation, smooth and fast and have great skinwork. Especially bosses are quite large and have great design. Of course don't expect to be frightened or something, all HOTD games have more of a comic style, for example the first boss is a giant cop who still wears his hat, has a club made of skulls and runs like moron, if that isn't ridiculous I don't know what is. Stages are quite large and highly detailed and textures are quite good. I can't say there is much variety in the game areas since I remember only two. Of course there are more in the game but they are so similar that in my memory the game is split into two, the old\destroyed normal building stage and the lab\high-tech stage.

Sound: 5.8/10

Ahhh… the sound of House Of The Dead series… first of all let me get over with the easy stuff. Weapons sound good but not too powerful, so what? Monsters make simple moaning sounds, no problem here. Sound effects are ok but nothing special and finally music is simple but fits with the game's fast action gameplay, but what about voice acting? Well after playing any of the HOTD games I've always had the urge to kill the main characters because of their horrible voice acting. It is as if the characters are competing about who will say the cheesiest line with the most irritating voice. Especially when after killing a giant sloth monster the female character says, “When a lady says no, she means it!”, I almost cry from the fact that the sloth was no longer able to hurt her!!!

Gameplay: 5.5/10

Being a Rail Shooter, House Of The Dead 3 has very simple gameplay. You view everything from a first person's perspective and you automatically move around in the stage so the only thing you have to worry about is to be fast and aim right. Monsters pop up from everywhere and you must kill them as fast as you can while being careful not to leave your gun empty. Instead of a handgun you now have a shotgun, which has no difference from the handgun since it shoots with the same speed. Too bad that you won't find any weapons along your, (short), quest. The game is extremely repetitive since you only shoot, shoot and shoot… and reload of course. Once or twice the first or second player looses control, (if you are playing a 2-player game), and he is surrounded by a couple of zombies. If you manage to kill them before he\she gets hurt you gain a life. The famous branching system of the series, that allowed you to change your path in some specific parts of the game is still here but I wouldn't call it a branching system, because you just choose which stage to play first but you'll eventually play the second one too.

The Boss Attack Mode unfortunately is not here and I wonder why since usually in a new game in a series you add stuff, not delete them. There is a Time Attack Mode, which in my opinion is much better than the Story mode, since you have a 60 seconds counter that you must keep it from reaching 0 leading your game to end. You add more time by killing enemies and shooting clocks that are hidden most of the time. There game has 2-3 different endings but none of them is something special and most likely after playing each mode 1 or 2 times you most likely leave this game to collect dust.

Positives:
-Good graphics
-The Time Attack Mode

Negatives:
-Terrible voice acting
-The Branching system is fake
-No additional weapons\items
-No Boss Attack Mode

Also Play:
The House Of The Dead 4 (Arcade)
Virtua Cop 3 (Arcade)

Overall: 6/10

This game gives you an hour of mindless zombie-blasting fun, irritates you or makes you laugh with its voice acting, is not very challenging and is definitely not worthy of buying even if it was the cheapest game in the world. Save your money and play it in the Arcades instead.