There's a SEWER LEVEL in the House of the Dead now. I'm fucking puking, what happened to the game I love?
My experience with this one as a kid was pretty simple: I thought the graphics looked amazing, the cabinet was the most threatening arcade cabinet I had seen, and I couldn't figure out the stupid gun waggling. No matter how much i shook that stupid uzi it would not reload.
BUT you CAN still play this one in an arcade. Which I did. At the Round One in Mentor, Ohio when I was staying in Cleveland a while back to be precise. If I remember correctly it's also at the Round One in Lincoln, Nebraska so if anyone wants to play HOTD4 with me, you know where to find me.
House of the Dead is an interesting franchise in that it really follows the trends of the time with each entry: 1 being haunted house horror a la Resident Evil 1, its sequel expanding to a full city as Resident Evil had, and the 3rd going for a more bananas science-fiction plot in accordance with the Resident Evil movie, really. 4 expands on the dumbass science-fiction stuff but now adds in the million billion zombies on screen that Dead Rising was teasing. Now, let me be clear, these are a LOT of zombies to shoot, and it was pretty crazy to see, and judging it specifically as a shooting gallery for you and your friends? Yeah it's good!
BUT, as a House of the Dead enthusiast there is a lot here that I think makes this the worst entry in the series by a country-mile. Yeah we have a ton of zombies on screen at once now, but we have lost the beautiful and detailed gore, which is a pretty fucking big thing to lose if you are House of the Dead.
Look, zombies are the only enemy you can blow apart limb from limb and not look like a total psycho doing it. All of the nation's freakazoids need this outlet or else they might start funding more Soldier of Fortune games.
So not only do you lose the gore, but also the enemy variety. As you'll mostly be fighting the same few humanoid zombies from the previous games, with none of the designs from 2 that made it such a memorable game. The booger monster returns though, thank fucking God. Might as well not even call it House of the Dead if you don't have the booger monster.
I also kind of like the waggle bullshit nowadays. I understand wanting to mix the gameplay up, so now instead of civilian rescues you shake zombies loose or shake open doors and the such. Honestly, this is a good fit as trying to pinpoint hit zombies to rescue civilians with an UZI would be a troll move. Your hand is gonna be SORE after playing this though. Unless you play Xenoblade Chronicles 2 you fucking pervert, your hand is sore enough already, christ, you make me sick. Really though, if you are gonna play an arcade game that vibrates your arm so hard it goes numb, I think LA Machineguns is the VASTLY superior game, but HOTD4 is just fun enough that I think it's worth it. (You remember LA Machineguns, right? Has the mounted guns that vibrate like fucking crazy when you shoot. Game rules. 4 stars.)
I'm spending this entire thing bitching! Bitching! About House of the Dead! What have I become? Anyway, the levels are also not as fun. 3 already had a downgrade due to it being in a very bland facility, but even once you escape the sewers and subway into the city, HOTD4 never hopes to look even an OUNCE as colorful as 3. It's most apparent when the final 2 levels are just the final 2 levels of HOTD2 again: journeying to Goldman's building in the same car from 2, battling the same enemies from 2, and it all feels like nostalgia-bait for a game that wasn't even THAT old when 4 came out.
Bosses are also a continuation of the step-down from 3, but thankfully not as time-consuming. The stupid secondary bar for staggering them still persists, not a mix-up in gameplay but a hindrance and a distraction on the UI. The final boss is a TOTAL time-sink though, as he has a god-forsaken SECOND PHASE. Oh my GOD Miyazaki, enough with this shit. The only boss that raises an eyebrow is the Kingdom Hearts villain you fight at Goldman's building. Not a joke BTW check this guy out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3qUUqQFLtQ
His fight is just The Magician but with a worse design, essentially. But it is cool how his stupid Organization XIII coat gets riddled with a million bullets as you fight him. Those graphics, baby!
Actually, while the graphics were mind-blowing at the time, this is one of the instances where the visuals from this specific generation in gaming (360/PS3) looks really fugly in this day and age. You end up with a scenario where House of the Dead 2 looks BETTER because it has inspired art-direction and cleaner textures, while HOTD4 looks muddy and brown as everything from this era did.
While I think a lot of the personality and flare has been erased from the series, its penchant for historically Doofy dialogue somehow comes as naturally to House of the Dead as breathing might come to you and me. Even after years of jokes about it, Sega still manages to crank out the most baffling writing and voiceovers and thank Gosh In Heaven they do because this game has some gems from new AMS Agent Kate Green.
"When in doubt, turn left!" - Kate after the player chooses the left path.
"Aw, I used to love this shop!" - Kate observing a decimated store in the ruins of a city.
"Looks like you failed the test!" - Kate to Ansem
"You're paying for my dry-cleaning." - Kate to James after battling a sewer monster.
Special mention HAS to go to James Taylor's baffling sacrifice at the end of the game, where he sets his PDA to self-destruct and runs into the final boss to explode him. Couldn't he have just thrown the PDA at him? No matter, it's a VERY funny scene so I'm glad James committed to the bit.
I find it hard to hate this game, as the important stuff still matters: shooting zombies is fun, those SEGA arcade sound-effects still make me feel young and not old and unhealthy and needing to be put down like a Dog, and the more active gameplay means it IS an incredibly fun game to play 2 player, so highly recommended if you have friends. So, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 fans don't play.
My experience with this one as a kid was pretty simple: I thought the graphics looked amazing, the cabinet was the most threatening arcade cabinet I had seen, and I couldn't figure out the stupid gun waggling. No matter how much i shook that stupid uzi it would not reload.
BUT you CAN still play this one in an arcade. Which I did. At the Round One in Mentor, Ohio when I was staying in Cleveland a while back to be precise. If I remember correctly it's also at the Round One in Lincoln, Nebraska so if anyone wants to play HOTD4 with me, you know where to find me.
House of the Dead is an interesting franchise in that it really follows the trends of the time with each entry: 1 being haunted house horror a la Resident Evil 1, its sequel expanding to a full city as Resident Evil had, and the 3rd going for a more bananas science-fiction plot in accordance with the Resident Evil movie, really. 4 expands on the dumbass science-fiction stuff but now adds in the million billion zombies on screen that Dead Rising was teasing. Now, let me be clear, these are a LOT of zombies to shoot, and it was pretty crazy to see, and judging it specifically as a shooting gallery for you and your friends? Yeah it's good!
BUT, as a House of the Dead enthusiast there is a lot here that I think makes this the worst entry in the series by a country-mile. Yeah we have a ton of zombies on screen at once now, but we have lost the beautiful and detailed gore, which is a pretty fucking big thing to lose if you are House of the Dead.
Look, zombies are the only enemy you can blow apart limb from limb and not look like a total psycho doing it. All of the nation's freakazoids need this outlet or else they might start funding more Soldier of Fortune games.
So not only do you lose the gore, but also the enemy variety. As you'll mostly be fighting the same few humanoid zombies from the previous games, with none of the designs from 2 that made it such a memorable game. The booger monster returns though, thank fucking God. Might as well not even call it House of the Dead if you don't have the booger monster.
I also kind of like the waggle bullshit nowadays. I understand wanting to mix the gameplay up, so now instead of civilian rescues you shake zombies loose or shake open doors and the such. Honestly, this is a good fit as trying to pinpoint hit zombies to rescue civilians with an UZI would be a troll move. Your hand is gonna be SORE after playing this though. Unless you play Xenoblade Chronicles 2 you fucking pervert, your hand is sore enough already, christ, you make me sick. Really though, if you are gonna play an arcade game that vibrates your arm so hard it goes numb, I think LA Machineguns is the VASTLY superior game, but HOTD4 is just fun enough that I think it's worth it. (You remember LA Machineguns, right? Has the mounted guns that vibrate like fucking crazy when you shoot. Game rules. 4 stars.)
I'm spending this entire thing bitching! Bitching! About House of the Dead! What have I become? Anyway, the levels are also not as fun. 3 already had a downgrade due to it being in a very bland facility, but even once you escape the sewers and subway into the city, HOTD4 never hopes to look even an OUNCE as colorful as 3. It's most apparent when the final 2 levels are just the final 2 levels of HOTD2 again: journeying to Goldman's building in the same car from 2, battling the same enemies from 2, and it all feels like nostalgia-bait for a game that wasn't even THAT old when 4 came out.
Bosses are also a continuation of the step-down from 3, but thankfully not as time-consuming. The stupid secondary bar for staggering them still persists, not a mix-up in gameplay but a hindrance and a distraction on the UI. The final boss is a TOTAL time-sink though, as he has a god-forsaken SECOND PHASE. Oh my GOD Miyazaki, enough with this shit. The only boss that raises an eyebrow is the Kingdom Hearts villain you fight at Goldman's building. Not a joke BTW check this guy out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3qUUqQFLtQ
His fight is just The Magician but with a worse design, essentially. But it is cool how his stupid Organization XIII coat gets riddled with a million bullets as you fight him. Those graphics, baby!
Actually, while the graphics were mind-blowing at the time, this is one of the instances where the visuals from this specific generation in gaming (360/PS3) looks really fugly in this day and age. You end up with a scenario where House of the Dead 2 looks BETTER because it has inspired art-direction and cleaner textures, while HOTD4 looks muddy and brown as everything from this era did.
While I think a lot of the personality and flare has been erased from the series, its penchant for historically Doofy dialogue somehow comes as naturally to House of the Dead as breathing might come to you and me. Even after years of jokes about it, Sega still manages to crank out the most baffling writing and voiceovers and thank Gosh In Heaven they do because this game has some gems from new AMS Agent Kate Green.
"When in doubt, turn left!" - Kate after the player chooses the left path.
"Aw, I used to love this shop!" - Kate observing a decimated store in the ruins of a city.
"Looks like you failed the test!" - Kate to Ansem
"You're paying for my dry-cleaning." - Kate to James after battling a sewer monster.
Special mention HAS to go to James Taylor's baffling sacrifice at the end of the game, where he sets his PDA to self-destruct and runs into the final boss to explode him. Couldn't he have just thrown the PDA at him? No matter, it's a VERY funny scene so I'm glad James committed to the bit.
I find it hard to hate this game, as the important stuff still matters: shooting zombies is fun, those SEGA arcade sound-effects still make me feel young and not old and unhealthy and needing to be put down like a Dog, and the more active gameplay means it IS an incredibly fun game to play 2 player, so highly recommended if you have friends. So, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 fans don't play.
3 Comments
honestly i played this in full in the arcade and i have basically no recollection of it besides the empress fight, the final boss, and generally thinking the game was so easy it was unengaging. outside of boss fights, it feels like the game defaults a lot to "waggle to avoid damage!" rather than just outright damaging the player, but that could just be my decade+ memory of the game being wrong (likely tbh).
also yeah, the game really does look fugly compared to earlier entries. everything is so samey and unremarkable. i didn't really think of it until you mentioned it, but it lacks any sort of variety and everything feels like this homogeneous brown-gray.
also yeah, the game really does look fugly compared to earlier entries. everything is so samey and unremarkable. i didn't really think of it until you mentioned it, but it lacks any sort of variety and everything feels like this homogeneous brown-gray.
@averypaledog this was a pretty bleak era for graphics and FOVs in gaming. don't miss it even a little!
gruel
1 month ago