3RRDC HOTD 2

Zombies. They make the world go 'round. Well at least in the
entertainment industry. Each year there are movies, books, toys, and
of course games made on the undead freaks. Here we have a 9-9-99
launch title for the dreamcast, ported from the arcade, it's the House
of the Dead 2. But such a game raises some very important questions.
Being an arcade game, does the home version include enough new
features for replay? Also what if you don't have any light guns to play
the game with? With that said, let's get our guns (or controllers) ready
and prepare to kill some zombies.

The house of the dead 2 is the sequel to the house of the dead (duh).
The first game took place in 1998. If you remember there were some
zombies in a mansion. Here it is the year 2000, and now zombies are all
over, not just in one building. (Hmm this all sounds very similar to
resident evil 1 and 2). So some special agents are sent in to put a stop
to the killing and figure out what the mysterious "Goldman" (who is
connected to the zombies) really wants. Player 1 is agent James, and
player 2 is agent Gary. They are aided by agents Amy and Harry. Their
ordeal will lead them into the zombie town, and eventually into
Goldman's headquarters. The story is clichéd, with the exception of
Goldman's plans. But zombies over-running a town has been done to
death before (he he pun). The main characters are all pretty boring.
Maybe that's due to their voices and dialogue.

This is an arcade shooter in the same vein as Virtua cop, Time crisis,
and the lot. Now I don't have the gun to play with so how does the
dreamcast controller stack up? A button is fire and B button is reload.
While obviously not as cool as using the gun, the controller still works
very well. In Dance Dance Revolution you have got to have the pad.
The controller sucks for that one, but for hotd2, it ain't that bad. The
zombies initially bleed green blood. But in options you'll eventually be
able to change it red. I don't know. I kinda of like the green blood
better myself.

Shooting down the zombies is fun (if not a little same-ish) but there are
a bunch of different zombies to kill. There are about 11 different kinds
of zombies. And if you look in the instruction manual you'll note they all
have names. The boss battles are not as fun, and really boring. They
take too long to kill. I like blasting my way through zombies at a fast
pace here. Then you get to a boss and they might be cool to face the
first time, but after that you just want to get it over with and get on to
more zombies. There are 6 stages of horror to shoot through. There are
also various people in the town you can save. By either saving these
poor souls or letting them get killed, this will take you on various paths
throughout the stages. This adds replay, and keeps the game fresh for
a while, as there are a bunch of turning points but in the end you still
have to fight the same boring boss.

The graphics for the zombies are very very good. You can blow parts of
their body's off to make them look even more gruesome. The levels all
looked very good as well. Nice amounts of detail. The humans didn't
fare as well. They have less life then the zombies! They are stiff and
lifeless. Hmm matches the crappy voice acting. The stages are done
very well. The city is very detailed, and so are the other locations like
the sewers, flooded part of city…hey come to mention it, the levels,
while detailed, are also to similar minus the sewer and coliseum. Too
much action going on in the city then in the buildings. Though some
paths will lead you into some.

Now the sound is where some gamers are divided. Specifically on the
voices of the Humans. Quite simply, they are horrible. Either too dull
and emotionless, or overacted in other cases. Goldman has a very
bizarre voice that changes during mid-sentence! Some argue, hey this
is supposed to be like a cheap horror movie with bad acting. If you
want that then it does that job very well. Others argue that voices
should be given more of a priority and companies need to step up and
give us some decent voice acting. Both sides have their points, but the
voices do make this game memorable for better or worse. Music was
not very memorable. I'm thinking the normal techno rock garbage that
so many games have. The sound effects of the guns are good and I
have no problem with them.

Replay for an arcade shooter. Well there is some new modes to
partake in. There is an original mode that has all the same levels, just
new items you can use in it. There is a surprisingly fun training mode,
where you have to accomplish certain objects in a number of different
missions. Each little mission is ranked with stars. Keep playing to add
more stars which pumps up the difficulty. There's a boss mode where
you can fight all the bosses. Boring. In options you can change
difficulty, life, continues, adjust your gun's speed and other goodies.
Also your ending will change if you save every human. Good luck.

With its multiple paths and fun gameplay, I can see that the house of
the dead 2 is a winner. The zombies are the stars of the show here and
they have once again proven that don't intend to leave the spot light
any time soon. But with only 6 levels you won't play it too long after
that. As long as you got a buddy to play with in 2 players, and you have
a love for zombies (not that kinda love) then this game should be right
up your alley. One thing is for certain. David Bowie probably wasn't
thinking of zombies when he wrote "Oh! You pretty things" all those
years ago.

Review by: Orochi Sonic