House of the Dead Overkill: Guns, Zombies and Swearing...What more could you want?! (The House Of The Dead: Overkill (Wii))

Member Name: joncarey9

Product:	The House Of The Dead: Overkill (Wii)
Date:	19/07/09 (39 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Really simple to play, fun in multi-player

Disadvantages: Could have done with being a bit longer

House of the Dead: Overkill it one of the most enjoyable games I've played in recent years. The latest instalment from Sega's first person rail shooter franchise The House of the Dead, which is set as a prequel to the 1996 arcade original.

The game follows main characters Special Agent G and Detective Isaac Washington as they set out in pursuit of crime lord Papa Caesar, through mutant zombie infested Louisiana. Overkill has a grindhouse exploitation cinema visual style, complete screen burn marks and humorous missing reel segments, clearly influenced by Robert Rodriguez's 2007 film Planet Terror, and the 1970's films it pays homage to.

Like previous titles Overkill is a first person rail shooter which allows you to turn the camera slightly in any direction by aiming at the edge of the screen, using the Wii Remote or the (sold separately) official Hand Cannon gun. It's so simple to play, no need to learn complex combo buttons or worry about moving your character on screen, it's as easy as pointing and shooting the hordes of onrushing zombies. As the game goes on you can spend the points you scored by completing levels and objectives, on new guns and upgrading your current weapons. I recommend the automatic shotgun as you can rack up so many combo points with this, killing mutants without missing a shot.

Once you have completed the game you can do it all again in "Directors Cut" mode which expands all the levels in both length and difficultly which is a nice fresh challenge for you to tackle. The reward for completing directors cut is a good one as well, "dual wield mode", which allows you to use two Wii Remotes/Guns at the same time, with a different weapon in each hand. This is a really great feature but can be a little difficult to control at times, it may just be me but a found my hands got in a bit of a muddle and my accuracy wasn't great, maybe I just need more practice though.

There are three mini games you can play, "Staying Alive", "Victim Support" and "Money Shot II", which allow you to kill oncoming zombies in a timed environment, help civilians escape and a target shooting game respectively. They're all pretty basic, without much depth, but fun to play regardless.

Finally I must stress this is a very adult themed game, both the violence and language used is very graphic, in particular the latter. With an award in the Guinness book of records for the "most swearing in a video game" this starts as it means to go on, a tirade of swear words right to the very end. If you're anything like me though it just adds to the games enjoyment factor, a really fun game which doesn't take itself too seriously. Highest recommendations.

Summary: A very enjoyable Wii game, taking the best things from arcade lightgun shooters