Hmmmmmm, human tastes like chicken! Well in Sega's new light gun
game for the Saturn it does! House of the Dead developed by the
Australin team Tantalus. Here's the basic plot there is a mad
scientist Curien{who looks a lot like Sonny Ono from WCW} makes all these
zombies and lets them roam free. They start eating the
researchers. Now G and Rogan come in and startin blastin some zombie
ass. There are a couple modes but are the
samething as arcade except a little different. First up is ARCADE,
SATURN MODE, TIME ATTACK, BOSS MODE, and options.
GRAPHICS:
Talk about ugly! When they
say this game is scary they mean it! First the graphics are in
low-resolution. Almost everything is pixelly. All the textures
are muddy and pixelated. The color palette is the blandest I've ever
seen! Even the backgrounds look ugly. Almost everything in the
background is 2-D. Even with all this said I did expect worse than
this. Another problem I found is that I can say it is better than
STCC. I'm not saying that the graphics are so horrible that you
can't see a thing, you certainly can. All I'm saying is they could
have been way better. Virtua Cop had better graphics. Also,
there are many ways zombie can be shot so there are numerous deaths
animations.
SOUND/MUSIC:
The sound effects are very well
done. The only flaw I could find is that in arcad mode the 1P's gun
sounds like a shotgun and the 2P's sounds like a little capgun.
Also, the voice-acting is done very well and by no means is
annoying. The only flaw a lot of the voices are used over and over.
Another bad soundtrack from SEGA. Can't they put out a beautiful
soundtrack for every game? Well the soundtrack sounds like techno
music and then sometimes has an upbeat tune suited for more of a
cutesy-type game. The music should be creepy, loud, dark, and
low-beat.
GAMEPLAY/CONTROL:
This is the best light-gun
game I've ever played! This is an adrenaline rush! First off
now instead of just not shooting the innocent bystanders YOU now must save
them. The biggest innovation of this game? The multiple
paths! Chances are you'll play a different game each time. The
only problem? They are very difficult to spot and shoot.
Sometimes if you don't save a researcher and he/she is killed you'll be
put on a different path. For example if you don't save the
researcher at the beginning he is about to be thrown off the bridge you
won't go into the house, but instead go into the sewer. Also,
sometimes multiple shots are needed to put zombies away. Another
thing is some of them don't wait to be shot they jump in and out of the
screen attacking you. Like the gargoyle dog at the beginning jumps
everywhere attacking you. Sometimes there is slowdown. The slowdown
doesn't occur very often though.
This one really suprised me! I actually
preferred the control over the stunner! The control is much, much
faster in here than in say Virtua Cop 1 or 2. You don't even have to
use the speed-up button the control target is so fast! I didn't like
to use the gun because my finger started cramping up on the 2nd
Chapter! Even though I prefer the controller I think the stunner is
way more fun! The stunner is not as accurate as Namco's gun. It's no
where near the level of Namco's gun. When I played HotD with my
buddy and he had the control at the end of the first level he had about
3,000 points and I only had about roughly 500! It could be my aim,
but after my friend and I popped in Virtua Cop 2 and the gun was very
accurate. The stunner is not very accurate in the House of the Dead.
REPLAY:
This game ranks as one of my
favorite light-gun games ever. But as usual with ALL of Sega's light
gun games they are too short. I heard there are multiple endings, 3
to be exact. So far I have only seen one ending. Another problem
there are no other weapons to choose from like in Virtua Cop 1 or 2.
RATINGS:
GRAPHICS:2/5
SOUND:2/5
MUSIC:2/5
CONTROL:4/5
GAMEPLAY:4/5
BALANCE:4/5
INTERACTION:5/5
INNOVATION:5/5
REPLAY:5/5
OVERALL:****