The House Of The Dead 2

An arcade classic, The House of The Dead 2, was deemed one of the most successful arcade games of its generation. It was featured in lists that placed it in the Top 100 games of all time, and that success was felt all across the world, from Japan to the United States, the game was a hit.

This success not only propelled the game to popularity but the 1998 game found its way to Dreamcast, Windows, and even a remastered version for the Nintendo Wii, years after its original release.

Zombie Apocalypse

Story-wise the game doesn’t stray too far away from other popular zombie outbreaks portrayed in modern media. Mysterious sightings and events start occurring in the city of Venice, upon further investigation you discover that a zombie outbreak is what is actually happening. It is your, and your partner’s job to investigate this outbreak and its origins. Without giving any spoilers, the conclusion to the game itself is not new, or groundbreaking by any means, but the journey is satisfying enough to make up for it.

Mindless Fun

Like the brainless zombies, The House of the Dead 2, doesn’t provide puzzles, or intellectual challenges, and that is fine because the game delivers exactly what it set out to deliver. The game moves you around either as Agent James Taylor or Gary Stewart (Player 1 or Player 2), and your job is to shoot zombies in the brain.

It is a fast-paced, gory, horror, first-person shooter that relies on reflexes and aims to be played. While the main proposal of the game, kill zombies, is pretty simple, The House of The Dead 2 keeps the experience fresh with multiple types of zombies, that pose unique challenges, and different boss fights.

Additionally, the game was ahead of its time, because it provided multiple endings of your journey depending on your choices, and specific actions. Ending change based on the game being completed alone, or in co-op, if both players beat the last boss, the number of continues utilized and the points achieved in each level, this mechanic ensures that players have a reason to replay the game.

Hit and a Miss

Ultimately, this game is fun and provides hours of entertainment. The graphics might look dated to the average gamer in 2021, but to provide a fair description, we need to look at what it accomplished at the time, and for the time this was a very good-looking game. The game isn’t a masterpiece but is enjoyable throughout, the only terrible and sore part of the experience is the disturbingly bad voice-acting, it just pops out of the screen every time you hear it, and you can’t unnoticed it.

PROS:

• Variety of Enemies
• Fun Gameplay
• Multiple Endings
• Replayability
• Graphics

CONS:

• Voice-Acting is Terrible
• The story is extremely Generic

Back in the 1970s when sideburns were in vogue, the Queen was still quite hip (hard to believe we know) and Slade had only re-released Merry Christmas three times, there was a car known as the Triumph Stag. It was a stunning car, a veritable totty-magnet if you will, and the public loved it. Loved it, that is, until a slight oversight in the design caused the engine to explode within a few thousand miles. A few fires, many returns and a lot of dented egos later, the Stag was consigned to the drawing board and only a few hundred of them survive today; the pride and joy of some bearded bloke in Essex. Had someone at Triumph taken the Stag for a serious test drive before it was launched all this could have been avoided. Enter Sega, stage left...

Forget The Mouse

You see, while House Of The Dead 2 is almost a carbon copy of the coin-op and the console version, somebody somewhere didn't play the game the way most PC players will. And that's with a bloody mouse. Games that require a light-gun are rare as rocking-horse shit, and HOTD 2 would have been the perfect light-gun/game bundle for PC players. This is coming in September, but until then we get the coin-op with all the frustration of using a mouse.

The game itself is the usual 'scary-scary-horror-brooding' affair, although the green-blooded zombies are none too impressive with little in the way of gore. If you added some stale smoke, a load of screaming school kids and some dodgy neon lights, it would feel like you were in a seaside arcade.

The game is true to its heritage, and has the same dubious plot involving a guy called G who you have to rescue/avenge (things get a little hard to follow), although there is sadly no mention of finding the G-Spot. Cue the obvious 'finding the button' jokes.

Get Your Gun

If you can wait until September when the light-gun/game bundle is out, will be a delight to play. If you have a good surround sound system and can get some mates round for a game, then a Saturday night will never be the same (you're liable to be single in no time). The boss monsters become weirder, and the onslaught becomes almost apocalyptic. It's kind ot like running through a shopping centre on acid. Apparently.

It's a cop-out, but we've given two scores to HOTD 2. One when playing with a light-gun, and one without. While we all understand the pressure on companies to release games as soon as they're ready, it is a foolish move to release it before the light-gun is available. In fairness, the light-gun is being developed by a third party, so Empire has little control over it. But discretion is the better part of valour. Something Triumph learnt to its cost - no doubt Empire will too.

Finally...our reviews of The House of the Dead 2 are here...you know, that game that's been out in stores since 9/9/99? We wanted to make sure we test drove HOTD2 with the two light guns (the InterAct Starfire and the Mad Catz Dream Blaster--both were unavailable until this ish) before making any sort of judgement. After all, a light gun game isn't the same without a light gun, is it? Some of us had a lot of hassles calibrating either gun with HOTD2. We tried it on several TVs, including a 32" Magnavox, a 19" Sony Trinitron, a 13" Samsung gx TV, a 32" Sony Trinitron XBR Flatscreen and more. Most of the gaming sessions had problems, from the occasional shot wandering an inch away from where you're aiming to not recognizing the gun at all (this usually happened when aiming for the lower-right corner of the calibration screen). Some reviewers only got the guns to work properly if they sat just right (just right meaning perfectly lined up with the TV screen being only three feet away, something we've clearly learned as children will cause nearsightedness, premature baldness and impo-tency...so don't try it at home). Other reviewers had no troubles at all. There's no rhyme or reason to any of it. No one (including the companies) could pinpoint where the problems lie, so we came up with one conclusion: If your light gun/H0TD2 combo works well, consider yourself lucky.

Sega of America has confirmed House of the Dead 2 for a U.S. release and will be available when the Dreamcast is released or shortly after. Everything from the arcade version will be present, as well as a few new modes.

Unfortunately, the Japanese House of the Dead 2 (which is currently out now) suffers from an incredibly inaccurate light gun (the calibration is really off). Sega plans on working on this before releasing the U.S. version of the game and gun.

House of the Dead 2 is another Sega arcade conversion that's sure to be a must for Dreamcast owners. And don't think this is just another lousy port--Sega plans on maximizing the Dreamcasts potential, promising that Dead 2 will have better graphics, speedier action, and a light gun, all of which were available at the games launch in Japan. Sega is also adding six brand-new levels, including stages that'll take place in an ancient medieval mansion. Gamers in the United States can expea to start shredding zombies in September.