House of the Dead 4 – Sega dropped the (Monkey)ball on this one
Matt posted in Games, Wii, Xbox 360 on May 2nd, 2006

I am a big fan of the House of the Dead series. Firstly, I’ve been hooked on light gun games since Duck Hunt. It’s a crying same that the apogee of their popularity was when the Zapper came with the NES bundle. I have a light gun for almost every system that they were available for, and it’s unfortunate that they won’t work on my HDTV. One of my favorite things about the House of the Dead series was it is exactly like living through a bad B horror film. From the deadpan line readings of the ludicrous amalgamations of one-liners that comprise a cutscene, to the absolutely ridiculous plot complete with stereotypically insane villains, it captures that campy fun feeling of the horror movies that are my guilty pleasure. Needless to say, I was salivating over the prospects of another installment to the series that I love to indulge, so I made a pilgrimage to GameWorks in the hopes of finding my much coveted arcade cabinet. Sure enough, they had it, and I couldn’t wait to play! It was quite expensive, but I expected it to be worth every cent. In the end, I dropped $24 for me and my significant other to attempt to stop the zombie invasion, only to run out of credits before my girlfriend could purchase more. We did however get to what I believe to be the final level. I haven’t had time to make another pilgrimage, but rest assured I won’t let the undead get the best of me! When I have time, I’ll make another trip and stop the invasion. So, what are my thoughts on the game?

Well, let me start from the beginning. When I was first thrust back into the House of the Dead setting, I was happy to reenter the B horror world that I so greatly enjoyed in previous installments. Just like all campy horror films have a ton of unnecessary sequels, so should campy horror games, right? The voice acting is still horrible, the one liners are frequent and appalling, so fans of the series won’t be disappointed in that regard. The light guns were no longer the auto reloading shotguns that we were spoiled with in House of the Dead 3. I of course did not read the directions, so I assumed shooting off the screen would reload. It did most of the time, but upon closer inspection, shaking the gun was what actually triggered the reload. I guess pointing the gun off screen quickly is enough of a jolt to reload it. There were several moments where you had to shake off a zombie, so the new shaking mechanic was a pleasing addition to the already enjoyable light gun experience. But, why do I say Sega dropped the ball?

There was no gore! For emphasis, let me repeat that. House of the Dead 4, the next iteration in the horrifically gory game, had no gore! The zombies just faded into ash! This was the game where in earlier iterations you could blow the top off of zombies and they would still relentlessly chase you! The exaggerated gore was one of the things that made the game so enjoyable! Now, I’m not one for overly gory video games. On the contrary, I don’t think gore adds anything to MOST games, but come on! COME ON! This is House of the Dead! It is viscerally satisfying to blow off parts of the grotesque figures that limp slowly towards the screen. On top of that, the fun and campy B horror films all have plenty of gore, so instead of feeling like I’m playing through the next Romero movie (no, not John Romero, George Romero, father of the zombie film) I feel like I’m living through a PG rated episode of Buffy, and Buffy is definitely NOT something I enjoy. On top of that, a lot of the locations and enemies are straight copies from the earlier games, so I felt like I’ve “been there, done that”. The next gen graphics (supposedly, it ran in HD) were a step up from HotD3, but didn’t seem to match my Xbox 360.

Although, I’m disappointed, I’ll still pick it up if it gets a home console release. I’m guessing Wii would be a good choice to port the game to because it has the light gun and shaking functionality built into every controller. The graphics might have to be watered down, but I won’t complain because I can’t resist an opportunity to replay House of the Dead over and over, even if it is the low point in the series. Well, to be honest, this was better than Pinball of the Dead, but I don’t know if that counts. Hopefully, they’ll redeem the series by making another Typing of the Dead since Xbox 360 works with USB keyboards.

Update: I did a bit more snooping around about House of the Dead 4, and according to Sega, it features ”Two violence and blood settings let operators go from mild to extreme, gaining greater location and community acceptance.” I imagine the Gameworks in Long Beach set their gore setting to mild (foolishly). If anyone knows an arcade in the Los Angeles area that has it with all the gore, please let me know.