The House of the Dead: Overkill Review

If you ever took a stroll through an arcade house then chances are you saw someone play The House of the Dead. Sega’s rail zombie shooter has inspired five games and two awful film adaptations and managed to stay somewhat relevant. Now the house full of zombie is in the hands of a new developer, Headstrong Games from London. The House of the Dead: Overkill is the fifth game in the series, and with Wii-mote in hand you would think that you were bringing the arcade to your home. Does The House of the Dead still have any scare in it, or did it become irrelevant like arcade machines in the U.S.?

The House of the Dead: Overkill is a prequel to the first game and stars, rookie AMS Special Agent G who is teamed up with a Bayou City detective name Isaac Washington. Their on a revenge mission to kill Papa Ceaser, who is responsible for the zombie outbreaks. The entire game has a grindhouse movie feel, with a narrator, grain and the grimy look. The duo of Agent G and Isaac can be comical at times but becomes downright cheesy especially when Isaac decides to say, Fuck! For instance, this is a line from the game “You have the motherfucking right to motherfucking remain motherfucking silent” like c’mon that doesn’t natural sounds more forced which ends up making it cheesy.

Overkill has pretty easy and basic controls, especially since you don’t do the actual moving in the game, with 3 buttons you pretty much learn all the controls. Shoot, reload, and GRENADE! I find it funny that a game like this only implemented the Wii’s motion controls once (to stop an enemy from holding you) Why not use the motion controls to throw a grenade or melee zombies out of your face. What was the reason to putting this game on the Wii if you’re not willing to think outside the box?

For Wii title, Overkills graphics are decent, although for my taste the cutscenes look like they belong on a playstation 2 game. The game tries to adopt the grindhouse look by adding a grain, ripped footage, and the classic grindhouse feel ‘ Missing Reel’. Unfortunately, frame rate issues take away from all the in game action at times. The music in the game fits in well with the game, considering some of the music isn’t the typical scary/horror music. Overkill offers very little replayability, the single player game runs at about 2-3 hrs long, and comes along with a director’s cut of the game and a couple of mini games. It might last a few weeks at most.

The House of the Dead: Overkill is a solid game for the Wii, but it just lacks overall. This was Headstrong Games first attempt, and for a first game created it was a good try but it seems like they tried too much to capture the grindhouse-esque with the visuals. As for Sega, I’m sure they knew this game wasn’t ready but I guess they wanted to make a quick buck. Overkill is geared towards the hardcore Wii audience so for the people who want an ok shooter this is it, but I recommend holding your money for future Wii titles like, Madworld.

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