House of The Dead: Overkill (Review)

House of The Dead: Overkill (Review)

Rated “M” For “Mature”

Guns + Mutants + (Blood x Violence x Strong Language)= House of The Dead: Overkill

You can already see why it has a Mature rating.

=====Story=====

If you’re familiar with the House of The Dead series, this is the prequel to them all. If you need to have a deep story…you’re not going to get one. Crazed man has crazy idea and it creates crazy chaos. Crazy chaos breeds menacing mutants. Menacing mutants munch mammal mandibles and meaty muscles. It’s as deep a story as a horror movie can be (Grindhouse inspired). Agent G and Issac Washington are “blessed” with the task of taking care of the mutants and putting a stop to the mutant uprising.

=====Gameplay=====

Overkill is like its predecessors and is a traditional arcade rail shooter. The Wii has proven a few times that it easily compliments these types of games and Overkill does not disappoint. Take your guns, point it at the thing that’s trying to kill you, pull/push the trigger a bunch of times, and have fun. Out of bullets? Shake your gun to reload and get back in there. You found grenades or you want to switch guns? That’s what the buttons on the nunchuk are for. It would take a lot to mess up with such a simple formula of gameplay and thankfully Overkill did not tamper with it.

=====Difficulty=====

Waves and waves of mutants come after you. They’re everywhere you go and everywhere you were. If you aren’t seasoned to pulling the trigger a lot, that could be your main concern of difficulty. However, if you are wanting more, beat the game once to unlock Director’s Cut and travel to a few different paths in the levels of the games that will no doubt contain more mutants. The graphics may add to the difficulty a bit since some of the environments are too dark to see what there is to shoot. And there are always large bosses to tackle at the end of each level and those may serve as a tough task to endure.

=====Content=====

Ah…the reason for the M rating, the content. Where to start, where to start? Well, there is A LOT of blood. The use of guns is a violent act. Mutants attempting to harm innocent civilians isn’t all that PG. The story is off the track at times in the matters of killing, humans in situations against their will, mutations, sexual under and overtones…and…the overusage of the F-Word. Sure, Agent G and Washington use almost all explicit words there are to be said, but the F-Word sure gets used as much as you use bullets.

=====Final Thoughts=====

House of The Dead: Overkill delivers well as an arcade rail shooter. It brings a great mode of gameplay that was very popular in the almost non-existent arcades. It’s simple for anyone to pick up and play and it has a good amount of replay value. Unlocking of new guns, Director’s Cut, dual-wield mode, and item collection add on a few more hours of play. Mini-games can be played with 4-players, but are too simple to remember and do not vary in how they present themselves. The mini-games, the sometimes dark backgrounds, and the few frame glitches make up the majority of Overkill’s flaws, but that’s not so much of a big thing. The main game is what you are here for and that is well worth the cost of a few blood stains. It’s mindless fun and can easily be one of those games you pull out every now and then to entertain yourself and a few friends with for a good time.

Rated 4 out of 5