As peripheral-based games go, House of the Dead and its sequels are some of the best ever made. In my formative years, it was something I would make a quick pit stop for after a trip to the movie theater, making it rain like I was at the strip club during the mid-week day shift where the talent was less than thrilling. Maybe that would be making it hail instead? Even now, I make sure I play a few rounds when I stop by the bar arcade establishments. Now, decades after the initial release, House of the Dead Remake is here to try as hard as possible to replicate the experience on modern consoles. Well, as much as it can without the use of the light gun style controller, at the very least.

If you’ve never played the series, it’s pretty straightforward and works as an on rails shooter that tasks you with shooting down zombies, bats, and other varied creatures while saving some scientists, culminating with a boss battle or three at the end of each level. Much like any of the others on the long list of remakes from the era, aside from the upgraded visuals, the gameplay feels a bit dated, and any enjoyment you get from this will hinge on whether you loved the original or not.

These visual upgrades are substantial enough to make you forget that this was released on arcade twenty years or so ago, but not on par with what you find looking elsewhere on the current generation of hardware. That is, not consistently, as some of the character models have better facial features and greater detail than the original release, but a lot of the textures in the backdrops look blocky and overly muddy, actually looking worse in 4K on the Series X opposed to playing on a regular HD monitor with an Xbox One. At its best, it’s comparable to the re-release of Doom 3 from a few years back, and at its worse, it looks like it did when it came out in the arcades.

Since there aren’t any widely released Gun-Con style controllers for the Xbox, you’re limited to aiming a reticle with the left thumb stick, and then shooting with either the trigger or one of the face buttons, with plenty of options to customize your experience. You can even adjust how quickly the automatic reload feature comes into play, essentially allowing unlimited ammo without negatively impacting your score.

The game comes in two flavors: the traditional story mode as it originally appeared with the visual upgrades, and then the hoard mode, which is essentially the same with more enemies. Each offers multiple difficulty settings allowing you to really customize how hard or easy you want the game to be. Sadly, there is no free play option. If you’re playing with someone who isn’t as skilled, you not only have to share credits, but if they burn out all of the shared continues, you must trade in huge chunks of your score for additional attempts.

With three unique endings based on your score, as well as multiple paths through each area, there is a lot to see here if you want to put in the time; however, you will have to work for it or be doomed to repeat the same four levels over and over again. I knew going into this that was what was offered, but after the series was released in bundles for the Wii and PlayStation 3, this feels kind of lacking, even with the fresh coat of paint.

The game runs as it should with minor hiccups I have encountered consistently across my five or so playthroughs prior to writing this review. While minor, the game stutters here and there at the exact same spots, which are typically non-combat areas, but still jarring nonetheless. The only other issues I encountered were the hit boxes of a few key enemies. Even when I knew exactly when and where the enemy was going to show up for a quick jump scare/attack with my reticle dead to rights on his forehead, the game would ignore the fact that I domed him with pinpoint accuracy, mashing the shoot button as quickly as humanly possible with the auto-reload on.

House of the Dead Remake is a great way to spend an afternoon at home if you’re a fan of the original, even if it has some minor issues. This goes double if your alternative option is spending that Wednesday afternoon throwing quarters at middle-aged, overweight strippers. If you ask me, both of these options sound enjoyable while we wait for the rest of the series to get the same treatment.

8 out of 10

Pros

• As Good as a Light Gun Title Can Be Without the Light Gun
• Remastered Visuals Hide the Fact that this is Older than Most Gamers
• Tons of Options to Customize How You Play

Cons

• Minor Glitches
• Feels a Little Light on Content
• No Freeplay Option

House of the Dead Remake was developed by MegaPixel Studio S. A. and published by Forever Entertainment S. A. The game is available for NS, PC, PS4, and X1. The game was provided to us for review on Xbox and played on Series X and Xbox One. If you’d like to see more of House of the Dead Remake, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

 

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