The House of the Dead

 

Ah, this brings me back to my youth.

As a kid, I have gone to Spain for vacation with my family for many years, to the point that I got sick and redundant from it, reflecting back on it as a teenager. Still, there were plenty of reasons to find enjoyment in the south, such as beaches, food, girls and arcades.

That last one in particular filled me up with excitement with regards to my eyes getting visually stimulated of all of the machines performing their magic, such as pinball machines, fighting machines, racing machines and shooter machines, or more specifically, light gun machines.

The House of the Dead is one of two on-rails based shooters from the arcades of which I have fond memories, the other one is Time Crisis. The first part is your typical entacklement onto the zombie phenomena in that there is a mad doctor who wants to unleash his hellish experiments.

Two agents track down his mansion and basically walk through it and the subsequent areas in order to rescue and to stop the madness. Gameplay consists primarily of shooting your enemies on screen, while reloading with the gun controllers off screen.

There are multiple routes to takes, and the game has alternative endings. It's a modest and fun attempt at combining horror with on-rail shooting, and I like it. The sequel towards it however remains the most popular, and even now, I discovered it being playable in Tokyo, Japan.

2's plot takes us beyond the horror of the first, by introducing more variants of zombies, and new enemies and bosses such as Strength and the Emperor, while the final boss The Magician returns for more challenge. Goldman as the villain is infamous for his terrible voice acting, actually the whole game is.

It remains my favorite to replay through as there are again multiple routes to take, and I felt that co-operation mode in here is the most entertaining and engaging, as The House of the Dead 2 is easily one of my most cherished arcade memories.

The House of the Dead III is set in a post-apocalyptic future and features different implementations of branching paths, reloading and obtaining bonus points and extra lives. The art style and graphics aren't as effective as the previous two.

III feels more faster paced and removes the concept of saving civilians, which is too bad, but on the other hand it features a final boss where my thumbs would literally go numb from hitting the shooting button so much, which makes it an endurance fight.

As for part 4 however, I have never played it, as I don't own a PS3, and I have never seen an arcade machine for it save for my trip in Tokyo, but I simply had no time for it then. I'm sure that it's a fine addition to the series.

Finally, there is also The House of the Dead: Overkill. It takes a new approach regarding style and substance, and it really felt like a grindhouse movie, except in the form of a video game then, with elements reminding me of Quentin Tarantino movies.

Overkill has easily the most enemies to kill and a high score system to accompany that, but it also made it a very repetitive game despite the game's various locations you will undertake. It's still the standard on rail shooting formula.

The game's vulgarity and black comedy jokes make up for this redundance though, and since it feels so different from previous entries, Overkill remains a recommendation, and for some it is a favorite in the series.

The House of the Dead as a franchise is experienced the best at the arcades, but can also welcome players back at home with platforms such as the Personal Computer, the Nintendo Wii and the PlayStation 3. I'm also aware that there exist bizarre spin-offs such as The Typing of the Dead.