House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return Review

House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return Review | May 1, 2013
Nintendo Wii Exclusive Title, Wii U Compatible

House of the Dead is one of the well-known rail shooters and one of the very few that have survived the trip from the arcade to the home systems. We do not know why SEGA did not throw in the original House of the Dead. It would have been nice to see how the game series started. Having spent a long time playing these games it is as good as remembered but we were surprised on how short the games are over all.

If you are new to the series House of the Dead centers around the AMS agency that investigates zombie related infestation. You never really find out what the AMS is or who they work for but that is part of the charm of the game and the dialog. The main character is agent G. He makes an appearance in all of the games and is playable in most of them. We don't know what the G means at least not yet. House of the Dead 2 does have more gameplay than House of the Dead 3. You can save civilians that will put you on a path straight to the final boss or you can ignore all of the civilians and take the long way around. This can make the game longer but not any better. The House of the Dead 2 also has the original and arcade versions of the game, a boss mode to practice against them and mini games. Things we think are funny is that game came out in 1998 and takes place in the year 2000 and has some of the worst voice acting in the history gaming,

House of the Dead 3 is a fast pace shooter. The game is just run, shoot and reload. It is more fun than the House of the Dead 2 and is the better game. It adds a melee attack to block enemy blows. You get to play as Agent G here again and the game takes place in the year 2019 and has three endings, each kind of weird and cheesy. Voice acting is better than previous game and the story does make sense. The gameplay mechanics for both games are intact, there is no problems aiming, reloading or calibrating your controller, so you can hit your target if you are fast enough. There is unfortunately a huge problem; you can beat both games in less than two hours. Each game is only about an hour long. There is replay value here, you will want to replay House of the Dead 3 more than 2 but it is hard to spend too much money for only two hours of gameplay. Keep your buying price under $10.00, like we said two hours of gameplay first time through hard to recommend spending more than that.

7.0 out of 10
Average Game

7.0 out of 10
Average Game

Rated
M for
Mature

Rated
PEGI 16