On rails shooter + Grindhouse movie style = The House of the Dead: Overkill (The House Of The Dead: Overkill (Wii))

Member Name: eisbrecher

Product:	The House Of The Dead: Overkill (Wii)
Date:	23/07/09 (77 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great graphical style, Catchy music, Amusing and addictive gameplay, Everything blends amazingly!

Disadvantages: Not to everyone's taste, Multiplayer for more than 2 players is poor.

The House of the Dead: Overkill...now...where to start? Everything about this game is based on the grindhouse style of film, so I believe that this must be fully explained prior to anything else. The grindhouse style of film is a strange one, very low film quality and over the top subject matter, be it explicit sexual innuendoes, gratuitous swearing and unreal amounts of blood and gore. Very much b-movie material, those who have seen Rodriguez and Tarantino's double feature film Grindhouse will know what to expect. The 18 rating is well and truly earned here, noticeably the large amount of swearing in game, mostly from one of the main characters, Detective Washington. (It entered the Guinness World Records for the amount of swearing in a videogame, with the f-word being used 189 times in the three hours if dialogue, roughly 3% of all spoken words) Now this is out of the way, you should know what to expect, (swearing, gore, sexual innuendos, an incestuous relationship between a man and his senile old mother and the verbal/physical abuse of a disabled person), if this is something that disturbs you, then you should not even consider buying this, for those who are able to see past this, read on...

Gameplay

Gameplay is essentially the same as the rest of the House of the Dead series, an on rails shooter, two agents/policemen battle against biologically engineered mutants, mostly zombies. You control Agent G (who makes a point of never releasing his name, but is on occasion derided as Agent Gwendolyn) whilst your partner is Detective Washington, where most of the swearing originates from, quite often using the f-word multiple times in a sentence. Whilst you can go through the varying levels as normal, shooting away wildly with your weapon of choice, a major part of the game is the scoring system.

Combos are required to get good scores, the handy on screen graphic keeps you aware of how you are doing, your combo requires you get six consecutive hits to move you up a 'combo level' gradually increasing from hardcore violence through to psychotic and then the beautifully named Goregasm. After achieving this, keeping it going is the hardest step, none of your bullets can miss an enemy, but the upside of going to this trouble is anything killed during a Goregasm scores 10 times as much than when without a combo. Earning a higher score will get you more points at the end, as will saving civilians scattered throughout levels and shooting the 'golden brains' also found across the level, often in hard to shoot areas. Also certain objectives are rewarded such as completing a level a certain number of times, making a certain number of leg shots or even shooting a certain amount of enemies gangster style (holding the wiimote sideways, which is not represented on screen)

The points earned during gameplay can then be spent on buying new weapons and upgrading them, there may be only six guns, including your original, but they all vary, including an Uzi style submachine gun, a 'Handcannon' magnum and the best weapon available, the automatic shotgun which is fast firing and has a wide target area, making combos much easier. Upgrading can be done to the recoil rate, fire rate, clip size, damage and reload speed, some of which are much more expensive than others (specifically when upgrading damage)

There are seven levels in total, taking place across a very diverse selection of environments, such as a city hospital (you can imagine the scene inside), a carnival (making for the best level, dozens of zombie clowns!), a swamp, and a jail. You make your way through the level, shooting the zombies (or mutants seeing as your character makes it specifically clear that his agency does not like calling them zombies) eventually making your way to a boss which is usually very grotesque in appearance, some of which cannot be described easily, especially the final boss. Overkill is good, old fashioned arcade style on-rails shooting, brought into the 21st century whilst dressed up in its grungy, grindhouse exterior.
5/5

Graphics

In a word, unique. Sega is certainly pushing the boat out for the Wii, two 18 rated games (this and MadWorld, which I urge you to consider looking into) which contain gallons of blood and, most noticeably, each with a very unique graphical style. In terms of graphical quality it is very good, bordering on excellent. Rather than giving the game a dull horror style look, it gave it a colourful yet dark and grungy atmosphere, screenshots of the game itself can describe it better than me. The aforementioned diverse environments are all good, not great, but good. Some objects can lack quality such as the plants and trees in the swamp. The same applies for the blood, which does get everywhere, walls, ceiling and the camera. It is frightfully common to see the blood become very pixellated when it hits the camera or when it pools around the body. The enemies however I cannot falter, the regular zombies are highly detailed, as are the hideous pregnant humanoids with creepy faces and long limbs which explodes acid (like most things in this game, very hard to describe but much easier to understand in the game itself) The bosses especially look very detailed and grotesque in appearance.

The game is made to resemble a grindhouse film, thus explaining the hideous enemies and huge quantities of blood and limbs spilling everywhere. This detail also applies to the look of the entire game, Grindhouse films often had poor film quality, frame skips and general degeneration of the film reel when it was damaged when taken from theatre to theatre, this is replicated in Overkill, even down to the convenient 'lost reel' prior to the boss fight. The graphics of this game, along which everything else present must be judged on stylistic merit as well as quality, though there are some graphical deficiencies in detail. The grindhouse style may put some people off but I fully believe that most gamers will accept and eventually appreciate this strange but rewarding graphical style.
4/5

Sound

The voice acting in particular leaps out in need of attention, being of B-Movie quality...purposely. Like the rest of Overkill, the voice acting takes much from the grindhouse genre of film, the very over the top voices of characters comes second to the large amount of swearing present, as mentioned earlier over 3% of spoken words in this game are the f-word or variations. This aside the voices are very good, each is very distinctive, especially the creepy voice of Clement Darling who you meet later on. The next point to bring up is the music, which is very catchy indeed, each level has a song played during it, and each song is perfect for its appropriate level, especially the very catchy music during the carnival level. The sound effects are very appropriate to the game, there are occasional noises from enemies but nothing too loud, which is good because of the large number of enemies on screen at one time. The weapons fire is surprisingly realistic and the sound of decapitating enemies will be commonplace, especially in the later levels. The sound is very good in Overkill, and whilst in no way setting any new standards, it is appropriate to the game.
4/5

Longevity

The main problem with on rail shooters is longevity, it can be difficult to obtain any real replayability value. The other on rails shooter for the Wii, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles did not have this problem due to the series huge success and equally huge fan following. Overkill does not have this luxury (I am aware House of the Dead is an old series but it cannot be compared a series to the highly successful Resident Evil), luckily the game is great fun and most replayability value will come from the players ambition to fill the high score table and just playing again for fun. Following the main story mode, directors cut version is available, with has the same levels and bosses but each level is extended through extra rooms and enemies. The high scores table are much in the same style as arcade games, and as such require multiple good scores to fill it. Dual wield can be unlocked after completing directors cut, this allows you to use two Wiimotes yourself, thus allowing you to be holding your two different weapons. There are many extras available to unlock, though none of these have an effect on gameplay, these are music tracks, 3D models of enemies/characters and other objects, images including pre game sketches and unlockable videos. Some of these are interesting and some of them require some good gameplay skills to unlock. For those who enjoy the game a lot and its unique style, the game will have plenty of replayability value, however for normal gamers they might struggle to get more than 12 hours of gameplay out if it, which is by no means bad, compared to some games. Those most likely to buy the game though are very likely to keep playing this long after there is anything left to unlock.
4/5

Value for Money

Seeing as you can now pick up a sealed copy of House of the Dead: Overkill on a certain auction site for less than £15...it cannot fail to be value for money. Those who buy the game because they know they will like won't fail to be disappointed, and those who buy it because they want to experience this...very unique game will also not be disappointed. The makers have said they came up with the odd style when they were indeed watching Rodriguez and Tarantino's double feature film Grindhouse. Naturally not one for the squeamish or those easily offended, but a quick glance of the box should make that more than clear. The fun to be had here completely overwhelms any other factor, a pure indulgence purchase and I have to say its top notch value for money.
5/5

Multiplayer

Multiplayer can essentially be split into two separate parts, two player and three-four player modes. Two player mode is where single player mode is played through by two Wiimotes, each with their own weapons, life bars and combo meters. This mode is fun, and the 'meatiest' of the multiplayer options available, as essentially it is just as good as the main game, and someone gets to share in the fun! The other option is the mini games, which can be played with one, two, three or four players. There are three minigames, all are well thought out and fun but you won't find yourself being drawn to them too often due to the lack of any real substance. For two players there is much fun to be had, but for more than this there is not much to do, stick to taking turns on single player mode.
4/5

Overall

The House of the Dead: Overkill is very different to anything I have played before. The unique graphical style and very over the top voicing lend it an unusual tone, spicing up what may of otherwise been another on rails shooter. This was certainly needed due to the much smaller following it has compared to the (earlier released and very well selling) Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. For those who are squeamish or easily offended, don't even consider this game, you will only play it, likely be disturbed or angered and send an angry letter to the Daily Mail about how its disgusting. However for the open minded fellows who this game is aimed at, I fully believe you can fully enjoy this game, everything fits in perfectly, the very diverse level design works very well, directors cut feels like a totally different game, and trying to unlock everything should take you a while.
5/5

Thanks for reading, any comments you have will be gratefully received. Also on Ciao.

Summary: A great addition to the series, and the Nintendo Wii! A must for anyone who isnt offended.