The House of the Dead franchise never caught on in the West like other light gun shooters. Time Crisis, and even Virtua Cop (both of which were from the same era) are much more widely known. To be honest I never even heard of this series until the second release which just so happens to be the subject of this review. The House of the Dead 2 launched with the Sega Dreamcast console, and that’s the only time I ever saw the franchise enter relevancy in English markets. It’s widely considered to be one of Sega’s most legendary arcade games. Today we’re taking a look at the home console launch version. This is our review of House of the Dead 2.
This is a direct follow up to the original in terms of story. Following the the Curien Mansion incident (you know, the one where everyone was turned into zombies) AMS agent G has disappeared while investigating more biological weapons. This time the setting is Venice Italy. You play as fellow agent James Taylor who is dispatched with three other officers to further investigate the incident. They arrive on-scene to find the entire city is plagued by the undead. Both zombie humans and animals alike are terrorizing the remaining population.
Already we notice that the setting is even better than in the original game. The developers did a great job at designing a dark and dreary Venice. It feels surprisingly realistic, but at the same time, conveys the grindhouse atmosphere of the game surprisingly well. You’ll go from the streets to the underground and then climb a tower to face off against the evil Goldman. Part of what makes House of the Dead 2 so great is that it’s so cheesy and hilarious. The voice acting, for example, is some of the worst you’ll ever hear in a video game. Not a single actor took their job seriously. Most of the lines are badly translated, but the off-key delivery is what makes them so memorable. This fits the B-movie motif rather well.
The House of the Dead doesn’t have a flashy gimmick like Time Crisis. It’s a very traditional light-gun shooter. You view the action from a first person view, and cannot at any point directly control your character. You’re only given control of their shot. You can use a standard controller and guide a reticule around on the screen using the joystick (which is unfortunately the only method I had to play with at this time). If you’re one of those cool kids I hear so much about then you’ve got the Sega Dreamcast light-guns. With these it’s as easy as point, aim, and pull the plastic trigger. I’ve used them before and it does add immensely to the experience. This is especially true if you have a second one and a trigger happy friend to join in the action with.
What is a little different here from your standard light gun shooter is that the enemies sort of break apart as you shoot them. They’re rotting corpses, after all. You can blow holes in them, or even remove their limbs if your aim is just right. It’s actually a pretty cool element of the game, and it mixes in some strategy elements. In addition, some encounters introduce items that block your shots. For example some enemies carry weapons and carry them in front of their bodies. Hitting these results in no damage thus forcing you to change target priorities. It’s pretty cool, and helps to keep the encounters fresh and more interesting.
Despite the fact that the game by and large takes place in outdoor environments you’re still often forced into close quarters. The House of the Dead 2 forces you to prioritize targets because enemies often pop into small areas and you have limited time before they reach you. You can also block projectile attacks by hitting them, but good luck because they’re usually small and tough to aim at. Some of the enemies, particularly the piranhas, leap through the air at you but they seem to cling to the screen for a few seconds before causing you damage. This gives you time to shoot them first. Things like this go a ways to making gameplay a little more fair and less frustrating.
Speaking of frustrating this is one hard game. The House of the Dead 2 was originally designed to eat all of your quarters, and it wasn’t really toned down for this home release. This means you’re going to be seeing the game over screen a lot. It’s not the longest game (It can be beat in less than an hour) so the mileage you get is going to mostly be from practice and perfection. The standard stages are pretty difficult, but where you’ll have the most problems is in the boss encounters. These are well designed, and are highly memorable. Long story short; they’re a real hoot. Each boss character has one (or sometimes more) hitboxes that are shown to you at the start of the encounter. You can only damage them by shooting these points, and will often need to in order to stop them from striking.
The graphics look very good. They’re a bit stale with hues of brown and gray, but the more colorful enemies and splattering blood more than make up for this shortcoming. House of the Dead 2 was clearly a step above any home console light gun shooter game of the time with highly detailed environments and characters. The framerate is also very solid and everything runs very smoothly. The only complaint I have is a limitation of the genre. When you fire your weapon the screen flashes in order for the software to track where you’re shooting. That’s fine and dandy, but with the fast and frenetic action it can be a little overwhelming. The soundtrack is very fun and bouncy which fits the grindhouse motif to a tee. I like the music quite a bit.
