I cant tell any of you how many quarters I sank into these machines. Whether it was at the boardwalk or at the movie theater or at Six Flags, it didn't matter, House of the Dead 2 was my go to game. Then came House of the Dead III (now called House of the Dead 3).
To be honest with you. I did not play much of this game in the arcades. For whatever reason it did not appeal to me as much as HOTD 2 did. Still the game was quite fun and again I spent a decent amount of money. Then nothing. House of the Dead 4 came out and was around for a little while, but then silence in the House of the Dead series. House of the Dead 2 and 3 would be remade for a few different platforms, including the PC and Sega Dreamcast, but then in 2008 The House of the Dead 2 and 3 returned to glorious form on the Nintendo Wii.
When I saw this game shortly after getting my Nintendo Wii, I nearly fell over with excitement. I hadn't kept up with was going on with the Wii/PS3/Xbox-360 at the time, so once I got my Wii and was looking at games I really couldn't contain myself. I always felt that the Wii could really excel at these rail shooting games. So I booted up The House of the Dead 2 to start and basically relived the glory that the game was back in 1998.
The game takes place in the year 2000, roughly 14 months since the Curien Mansion incident of 1998 (the events of The House of the Dead). The game starts off with AMS agent G missing in Venice, Italy. The city has become overrun with zombies created by a man named Caleb Goldman and it is up to the AMS agents to stop him. The game has multiple ending depending on if a player 1 beats the game, player 2 beats the game, if both players complete the game, if you used continues, or if you collected a certain number of points.
There are a couple game modes for The House of the Dead 2 portion of the game. Arcade Mode is the version of the game that was seen in arcades. Original Mode is a deeper version of the game. The voice acting is hilariously bad and unchanged from the arcade. Memorable quotes such as "suffer like G did?" just scratch the surface of how bad the lines in this game are. Still it's easy to put the story together despite the terrible acting. The graphics look dated, but the original game came out in 1998, and this is a port of that game with no graphical improvements which is actually a welcome sight in my eyes. The levels of the game can actually be quite interactive. Zombies will pick up and toss objects at you, you can shoot the bulbs out of lights, shoot objects to open new routes, etc etc etc.
The soundtrack is pretty good and holds up well in this port. The Wiimote acts as a perfect light gun. I mean I feel like the Wii was literally designed with games like this in mind. Pretty sure that's not the case, but still, the calibration in this game is spot on and the Wiimote is a wonderful controller for this game. Overall the House of the Dead 2 on the Wii is just as good as the arcade original. The House of the Dead 2 and 3 Return was originally priced at $30. Many people felt that this was too much for a port of two older arcade games, but I've easily poured more than $30 into the arcade machine of House of the Dead 2, let alone 3. Speaking of 3...
The House of the Dead 3 takes place 16 years after the events of The House of the Dead 4. AMS agents Thomas Rogan and Dan Taylor infiltrate Curien's EFI Facility Center to figure out what brought an apocalypse upon mankind. Along the way Rogan's entire team, besides himself, is wiped out by a massive mutant security guard, "Death". Two weeks after, Lisa Rogan sets out with AMS agent G to find out what happened to her father and rescue him while uncovering Curien's secrets.
Similar to the House of the Dead 2 port in this combo of games, the House of the Dead 3 has a couple different game modes including Arcade Mode and Extreme Mode. Arcade mode is the direct arcade port while Extreme Mode features an increased difficulty and quick motion slices.
Graphically, the House of the Dead 3 looks overall better than the House of the Dead 2. That being said, on the Wii these graphical improvements and the Wii's limited abilities cause the game to slow down when large groups of zombies are on the attack. The soundtrack is the same as it is in the arcades, but personally I think the House of the Dead 2's is actually better despite being older.
Similar to the second game in the series, the House of the Dead 3 allows the player to choose a variety of directions to get to the end of the game. Much like 2, there are several different endings for the game depending on the choices of the player along the way. Unlike House of the Dead 2, the third game does not always feature a boss battle at the end of a level. In fact, the security guard I mentioned before, "Death", basically chases the heroes throughout the level. Later "Sun", a massive plant, attacks the player throughout the level until the heroes finally discover it's layer and destroys it. After it's defeat, the players must continue through the bio-research plant. Lastly "Fool" is found towards the end of his level. I always found that to be pretty cool about this game.
Overall though I do prefer House of the Dead 2 to 3. I've had a lot more experience with the game and on the Wii, the game performs much better than 3 does. The random slow downs is a reminder that this is a port of an arcade game on a system that apparently couldn't muster enough power to run the game with no issues. The story of both of these games are by no means spectacular, but again I liked House of the Dead 2's more. In addition I prefer the boss battles of 2's as well. I felt that in some cases, 3's boss battles were quite long and drawn out. In particular the fights against Fool and Death seemed to go on forever in comparison to the fast paced fights in 2. Either way I think this combo of 2 classic games is worth the price tag. This was one of the first things I got for my Wii and it is still one of my most played titles on the console. Looking around on ebay it seems like the price of this game is now between 15 and 20 dollars. That is more than fair I think for the price of the game. Especially considering when one play of 4 hits costs 50 cents in House of the Dead 2 alone... You can easily blow through 15 to 20 dollars after a couple playthroughs. If you've never given these 2 classic games a chance, I strongly recommend this 2 pack for the Wii. In my opinion this is the best porting for these two games together and it will help to preserve these two games for another generation of gamer!
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