House of the Dead 2
Reviewed by Dale Kulas
The Game
This is the sequel to the big arcade smash hit, The House of
the Dead, this title was originally scheduled to be one of
the final released titles for the Saturn, but Sega decided
to scra* it, and make it come out for the Dreamcast. Will it
be just as good as the original? Let's get onto the review
and find out.
The Story
You are 2 AMS agents, Gary and James, the two agents from
the previous House of the Dead play minor roles in this
game, if you see the opening intro for the game agent Rogan
dies in the opening game movie, the other agent, G, is
severely injured in the beginning of the game. The new date
for the setting of this game is February 26, 2000 and chaos
happens all over game. The boss is named Goldman, some rich
guy who sort of wants to destroy the human race. Gary and
James are the two that do all the hard work, plus two more
AMS agents, Amy and Harry help you along the way, by coming
to the scene RIGHT after you beat a boss. I guess you can
say they sort of help out somewhat until you have to start
helping them because around the 3rd level Harry gets injured
and Amy's taken hostage, and you got to save them from the
4th level boss, who is a chainsaw wailing maniac!, you'll
have to figure out the rest of the plot by playing the game
because I don't want to spoil anything for you.
Graphics
The arcade version of The House of the Dead 2 was made by
using the Naomi software, and the Dreamcast console also
uses the Naomi software. So do you know what that means?
Yes, Indeed, a true arcade perfect translation. Everything
looks great, the levels you go through look great, and
pretty loaded with detail, like Goldman's tower for example,
with the elevators and zombie chambers all have a high-res
type of feel to it, but it isn't high res, its just the
normal power of the Dreamcast. The bosses are the most
impressive in the visuals, they are loaded with just about
an infinite amount of detail, and look like they came right
out of a horror movie! The game runs at a smooth rate, with
no slowdown at all. I only got a couple of minor complaints
with the graphics, the first one, the games main four AMS
characters, all look pretty bland, the only main different
between the three male AMS agents is the color of their hair
and outfits. They all are about the same size and have the
same shape. And the only other complaint is that some
animations seem to be missing a few frames, like when a
zombie dies the just fall straight back, nothing really
impressive. But that's about it for complaints, everything
else is pretty good.
Sound
The sound effects are really good, like the gunshots and
death groans all sound appropriate. The background music in
the game also fits the game properly, and is dimmed just
right during the fast paced game play so it doesn't distract
from it. There is however one major flaw in the audio
department, and that is the voice acting, which is very,
very, CHEAP! Whenever Gary and James talk, they just sound
so bland, and talk without any emotion whatsoever. Another
example, is right when you save a hostage after nearly being
eaten to death by a Zombie, they say in a nice, calm, voice,
'Thank You for rescuing me. ' Thank gosh there are
subtitles so you can mute out the sound in this game.
Game play
The controls are pretty easy for this game if you have a
light gun, (funny how this is only one of two games to make
use of the Dreamcast Light Gun after the Dreamcast being
released for 13 months, the other game which makes use of
it, is a special hidden mode, in a racing game called
Demolition Racer.) where you just point and shoot, and what
is really convenient is you can have them set to auto fire
and reload so you don't have to bother shooting outside the
screen. If you don't have a gun, you gotta use the control
stick or pad to move around a cursor and keep pressing the A
button to shoot, and B button to reload. Really tedious. So
make sure you got the Light Gun before you buy this game.
To beat the game is pretty simple, just destroy all the
zombies and bosses throughout 6 levels. The Magician (main
boss from the first game) makes a return, and right after
you beat him you gotta take on another hard boss named The
Emperor. Heck, to even make it here on your original amount
of lives is a challenge, and you'll be really lucky if you
beat the game, heck I had to use an unlimited lives cheat
just to beat it, to let you know how hard it is! There are
plenty of extras as well, like new items exclusive for the
Dreamcast version that the Arcade version didn't have like
now having 8 or 14 bullets in a magazine instead of 5 and
new health power ups. There's Arcade mode and Original mode
where Arcade is just like playing the Arcade game all the
way through, but in Original you can pick to start off with
two power ups you collected from playing the game before,
plus you get all the new power ups that the Arcade version
didn't have. There's also a couple of other modes like
training where you practice shooting zombies in a certain
amount of time with a certain amount of ammo, rescuing all
the hostages in a certain level, etc. Plus there's boss mode
where you can go against all the other bosses in the game
for some training.
Replay Value
1 or 2 players can play so a friend can tag along. Saving
hostages in certain situations opens up new paths like if
you're going to a bridge in the second level and you save a
hostage he'll point you out to a shortcut to it, so you can
take many different paths throughout the game. Plus the
Original mode is pretty cool with exclusive items in the
Dreamcast version. Plus training mode and Boss mode, also
Dreamcast exclusives, are a lot of fun to play too. The game
also makes use of the Jump Pack to get real vibration
feedback, and really shakes the hell out of your controller
when you get shot! But after you beat the game and play the
bonus modes to death, you'll get a bit bored of this game.
In Brief
+: Stunning arcade perfect translation, great background
music, 3 exclusive Dreamcast only modes
-: Hard to play without Light Gun, Horrible Voice Acting,
Just like most shooters you'll be done with this game within
a few months
The Final Ratings Rundown
Graphics: 9. 0
Sound: 5. 3
Game play: 8. 7
Replay Value: 8. 5
Overall: 7.8 out of 10
Comments
If you're a fan of the arcade series, you'll really love
this game, especially when you get all the extra modes and
items. It's a thrill to play, as long as you don't get
annoyed by that dang voice acting and you got a Light Gun (I
strongly recommend getting the Mad Catz version of the Light
Gun, much more durable), you'll love this game. And even if
you're really not a big fan of arcade shooters, this one is
at least worth a rent.
OR
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