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| Source // PlayStation |
Usually, video games on this 1001 list fall into one of two broad camps, those that I have played already and those that I haven't. I mean, that's pretty much a given and not worth talking about, but what is worth talking about is that I have played The House of the Dead: Overkill, albeit in the form of The Typing of the Dead: Overkill, the closest I could get to playing The Typing of the Dead.
Now it's time for me to actually play the game that typing spin-off was based on, The House of the Dead: Overkill, which is an added extra in The Typing of the Dead: Overkill.
Confused yet? Let's wade through these mutants and see if we can work out what's going on.
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| Source // MobyGames |
Frustrations
The House of the Dead: Overkill was first released on the Nintendo Wii, with a version coming with an oversized plastic Hand Cannon to strap your Wiimote into to give you a more realistic experience of shooting zombies in the face.
I don't have either of those, but I do have the PlayStation 3 port released a couple of years later, an Extended Cut version with some extras and enhancements, but otherwise the same, using Move controllers instead of Wiimotes, and I've got a few of them.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Unfortunately, they're linked to my PlayStation 4 where they are just as unused as any other bit of motion control kit, and after a few minutes of having multiple consoles turn on at once, I finally found myself with a Move controller in front of the PS3 camera - another bit of kit I had to find, unbox and plug in - and a short while after that, a calibrated Move controller.
Very important, that bit. Follow the directions carefully, otherwise, all hope is lost, and when you think you're set up and ready to go, you can fire up The House of the Dead: Overkill Extended Cut and get your rail-gun zombie shooting going.
After an in-game calibration, of course.
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| Source // PlayStation |
The game looks pretty good, great even when compared to the Wii version, but there is one glaring problem that I was facing - even after going through two rounds of calibration settings, one at the system level, I just wasn't having a good time with the Move controller.
It'd point in the right direction, don't get me wrong. It wasn't like I was screaming at it to move in any direction, but when I got to roughly where I needed it to be, it'd be a twitchy little thing and bounce around an uncomfortable amount.
Could that have been influenced by how I was sitting and holding the controller? Sure. Was it resulting in lots of zombies getting within striking range and slashing my health bar away, one swipe after another? Yes, indeed.
Having played all through The Typing of the Dead: Overkill, I knew what I was in for, but that knowledge wasn't really helping me. I suppose I could have had some fun here, but how much set up would I have to do beforehand to get it to work nicely?
Wouldn't it be far easier for me to experience this zombie shooter with a mouse?
Fun Times
Yes, it is, so that's what I did. Back into The Typing of the Dead: Overkill we go, only this time we'll switch over to The House of the Dead and play it with a mouse instead of a keyboard. It's the same game, only my motion controller - my mouse - doesn't twitch.
Inspired by Planet Terror, one half of the Grindhouse film, The House of the Dead: Overkill aims to use every trick in the exploitation movie book to sell itself as a must-play game. Its loading screens are intermissions, the staff are credited over a pole dancer with a revolver, and our protagonists swear profusely in the X-rated film that forms the first chapter of the game, Papa's Palace of Pain.
This old plantation is swarming with the undead, and it's your job to clear them out as your character is lead around the place on invisible rails. Some zombies will run, many with shamble, all will splatter in ways that you expect for a game that cranks the blood and violence notches up a little for the sake of appealing to the over-the-top nature of exploitation movie.
Perhaps it's better, at the start at least, to go for points. Rescuing civilians from a grizzly end will net you big points, but combos of successful hits will also net you some bonuses, and shooting the slow-down powerup when you see it will give you all the time in the world to line up those headshots for big points.
As our heroes descend underground, still swearing and wise-cracking whenever they get the chance, we get to see the enhanced visuals, especially when it comes to the lighting. The whole screen is then covered with grungy film filters, dust and scratches and the like, but it doesn't seem to get in the way too much - the game still makes the gamey collectables pop out and glow, though some are still quite hidden for the completionists to keep an eye out for.
The main story that carries through these films is that of Papa Caesar, an all-around bad guy doing bad things, and he doesn't pull his punches in insulting everyone. If there's one thing to admire about this genre, it's that you don't need to know a whole lot to follow what's going on, and the whole game is written like this.
Papa Caesar has finally crossed the line with Jasper here, who injects himself with some kind of serum to turn himself into a giant-brained floating horror, a sort of zombie Psycho Mantis, all because his sister was threatened.
The target of his ire has run off, however, and the only people foolish enough to have not followed are Agent G and Isaac Washington - us. So that means a boss fight. Lots and lots of shots, anywhere will do, as you make sure to have enough left in the clip to shoot down the incoming projectiles that serve as Jasper's only real attack.
As an arcade game, deaths aren't the end of your run unless you can't pay the points penalty to try again. The House of the Dead: Overkill is not too hard a game at all, from what I can remember, and it isn't too long either, so you can blast your way through it in a sitting if you want to.
I've played all the way through it typing out my attacks, not that I can remember much of the story, though. It must have been fun or easy enough to finish, but not remarkable enough to remember. It's not like these characters will become stand-out figures in video gaming. They're as stereotypical as you can imagine, and by design. Even the voice artists are the same, delivering lines in the way that you could only get away with in a property that knows it's not going to get any awards.
I don't know how intentional much of this is. I'd like to think everything was meant to be like this, and that The House of the Dead: Overkill is a masterful pastiche, rather than a joke, but I don't know for sure. What I do know is that I've got some cash to upgrade this handgun and another film to fight through.
Thanks to some DLC we've got a new zombie-slaying duo this time, and the game will flop back and forth between the four of these folks, with Varla Guns, Jasper's sister, and Candi Stryper, his girlfriend, picking up the shotguns and assault rifles for their own fight for Papa Caesar's head.
Not that we actually get to use those weapons until we buy them in the gun shop, but still, they're there.
Each boss has their own thing going on. Coco and Sindy here work together, requiring you to get rid of the little one for a while before chipping away at the larger of the two, dodging her luminous green bursts of toxic spew. Once again, there's not much to it. It's almost like it's been designed for the spectacle, rather than the difficulty.
Final Word
And that's very much the point of The House of the Dead: Overkill. It's not a game that will revolutionize the video game landscape. The highest it could hope to achieve is to be a stellar example of the rail shooter and a modern update to the old House of the Dead titles, and it most certainly is that.
With its exploitation stylings, everything can be dialled into the absurd and still work. You don't need to care about any of the characters, you don't need to worry about subtext or anything, you just laugh (or not) at the jokes, and dump an awful lot of lead into whatever looks like it needs a face full of lead.
The House of the Dead: Overkill is true to its name. It's overkill. It's too much. But it's not bad at all. Short, yes. Somewhat forgettable, perhaps, especially the story, but entertaining for the time you put into it? Definitely.
If you want to just sit back and blast away at zombies, there are countless games you can do so in, but for that old-school arcade light gun rail shooter feel, you've simply got to head to The House of the Dead.
I ought to include Overkill there, but it rhymed, and I liked it. I've ruined it now by explaining that. Just have fun with it, already.
Fun Facts
The slow-motion pick up to make your life that little bit easier (and more gruesome) is called the "Slow Mo-Fo", because obviously.
The House of the Dead: Overkill, developed by Headstrong Games, Modern Dream, first released in 2009.
Versions played: The House of the Dead: Overkill Extended Cut, PlayStation 3, 2011.
The Typing of the Dead: Overkill, PC, 2013