House of the Dead 2 & 3 Review

Sega has gone all out with their support for the Wii. Granted, not every game is good, but as a business, Sega is going for whatever makes them the most money. It only makes sense that a system that is practically made for light gun games would be an ideal choice for a House of the Dead 2+3 games.

House of the Dead has become Sega's major light gun franchise. While they've made plenty of others, including tons of arcade games that never made it to the consoles, the HotD series has become one of Sega's signature franchises. The original House of the Dead reminded most gamers of Resident Evil with the whole dealing with zombies and giant mansion you have to navigate through. In that one, you controlled either G or Rogan who were two AMS agents sent to investigate what was going on with the Curien Mansion and save Rogan's girlfriend. What they found was a mansion filled with zombies created by Curien who, like other crazy scientist, was looking for a way to bring someone back to life.

House of the Dead 2 takes place not long after the original with two more AMS agents working to find out why zombies have taken over the city. They'll have to work through a city killing zombies and other enemies while attempting to save the lives of some of the people around town, just like Resident Evil 2(the evidence just keeps building).

House of the Dead 3 lets some time pass after the HotD 2. Zombies have come back and an aging Agent G along with the daughter of Agent Rogan, Lisa Rogan, set out to stop the zombie madness once again. This time around, little cinematic sequences are shown who this whole abomination began before the Curien Mansion incident of HotD1.

Both HotD games have the same standard gameplay being the light gun games that they are. You progress through the level killing monsters with your gun then dispose of a boss at the end of the level. Zombies, like always, are vulnerable to headshots with bosses having varied weak spots on their persons. Two players can team up to destroy the enemies with each player having a set amount of health that translates to taking a few hits from enemies or a reduction because of an innocent being shot at. Both games offer the choice of how to progress through the game with HotD2 featuring the same find alternate paths concept of the original game. Finding these paths will require shooting doors, locks, certain enemies, and saving certain people. Differences in paths vary with no real reward except possibility of a few more treasure or enemies to kill. HotD3, on the other hand, lets you choose what level you want once you reach the elevator in the lab. You will still have to complete all levels, but it's still a choice.

Arcade mode can be beaten in less than an hour for more players, but it's not that easy. After playing the game enough, you'll memorize the enemy patterns and able to kill the enemies quicker yet still, a little help is needed. With a limited amount of health and continues, it's not surprising that beating the game will take plenty of tries, just like in the arcades. To assist the gamer, more health and continues will become available after you do a playthrough and get the "game over" screen. There's also the Original mode alternative to the Arcade mode. Original mode lets you pick a variety of options such as more credits, extra damage, or replace your bullets with some awkward alternatives. You can even make the game tougher in Original mode if you think you're a Billy Badass.

While incredibly short, although it makes perfect sense since it's an arcade game, House of the Dead 2 & 3 have other modes available such a Training mode and Boss Mode. Being that the game is an arcade game, the game is about getting the highest score and the game rewards you accordingly. There's a lot of unlockables making it worth while to beat it over and over again.

Normally, I'd write a significant amount of detail about graphics and audio here, but why bother? The game looks just like the damn Dreamcast version of the game, so that means utterly dated graphics that were good when it came out in 1999. Audio has always been a downside to the series because there is such bad voice acting. Yes it's trying to play up the B-movie style, but it's still pretty bad.

So we have a short game, last gen graphics, and bad voice acting, but still, I enjoy the game. Sega makes a great light gun game, simple as that. For the sake of nostalgia, it's worth to pick up the game. I still can't give the game great marks being that it's simply dated. If you feel like going back several years, pick up House of the Dead 2 & 3. Prefer something new, and then go get House of the Dead Overkill.

- O.G.