The Typing of the Dead

released on Dec 31, 1999

The Typing of the Dead is an arcade game that was developed by WOW Entertainment and published by Sega for the NAOMI hardware. The game was released in Japanese arcades in 1999 and was ported to the Sega Dreamcast in 2001 by Smilebit. A Windows version was released in 2000 and a PlayStation 2 port followed in 2004. The Typing of the Dead is a modification of Sega's 1998 light gun arcade game The House of the Dead 2 in which the gun is replaced by a computer keyboard. The player takes the role of a secret agent in a zombie-infested Venice and must quickly type letters, words and phrases in order to kill fast-advancing enemies.


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House of the Dead 2 is a titan, having turned 25 years old TODAY. So what changes when you add typing combat, keyboard devices to every character model, and a slew of nonsense phrases and challenge modes?

Well you get a slightly worse but infinitely funnier experience that pairs well with the title without outdoing it (which it wasn't seemingly aiming to do so mission accomplished). How fast can you type the phrase "Pierre, the ambiguous hipster of 1848"? It's dadaist word vomit and Dreamcast polygons...two of my favorite things in the world and a match made in hell.

The Typing of the Dead is a clever twist on The House of the Dead 2. It's incredibly fun to type away and kill zombies, and the experience is basically just The House of the Dead 2, but with funny keyboards on everybody. Worth experiencing at least once.

Silly rail shooter with speed-typing controls that is quite fun to play through in spite of its age mostly due to the lack of similar games.
+ entertaining one-hour-long "story" mode with quick pacing
+ obviously dated yet fitting visuals featuring grotesque monster designs
+/- super cheesy writing and hilariously bad voice acting
- a little obnoxious music (which is fine for a short time)
- no space inputs or capitalization required
- unintuitive main menu
- words sometimes obfuscated by the HUD
- randomized sentences with frequently disproportional difficulty
- no persistent save data

I'm the typing GOD dude get on my LEVEL dawg

25 years have passed since the release of Typing of the Dead and it's still the best typing game ever made

i wish i had a way to play this on a real dreamcast with real dreamcast keyboards, how did they make typing so fun and only do it one other time