“Suffer, like G did!”

-Judgement, House of the Dead 2

Light gun games feel like a relic of the past. Growing up as a teenager in the late 90s and early 2000s, light guns were everywhere. Our bowling alley had Virtua Cop, and I spent quite a few quarters there. It wasn’t until the Dreamcast was out that I was able to get my hands on one to play more frequently. It was House of the Dead 2, a game that I wasn’t familiar with, but I knew from friends and video game magazines that I should pay attention to it. I played that game so much, learning all of the ins and outs, dishing out pain so the zombies could “suffer like G did.” Now we have the second installment in the House of the Dead remake series, and it is none other than HotD 2.

MegaPixel Studio, the developers behind the House of the Dead remakes, is a company I am very familiar with. I really enjoyed the first HotD remake on the Switch, but I had plenty of mixed feelings about their Front Mission 3 remake. To be fair, I had no previous experience with the Front Mission series, but I have a special place in my heart for this house and its dead inhabitants.

Night of the Living Dead

This sequel picks up two years after the events of the original game. Two AMS agents, James and Gary, are looking for G, one of the original protagonists who went missing after trying to clean up loose ends. Lo and behold, a massive incident occurs, and all manner of zombies, monsters, and mutants appear. Over the course of the next six levels, a thin plot ripped straight from a B-horror movie plays out. It gets the job done, and the cutscenes never stay too long. If you don’t care about it and just want to shoot zombies, you can skip every cutscene. For those who want a story, like the previous game, there are multiple endings available based on your ending score.

The gameplay is simple: you move the cursor with either control stick, and then you have a button to shoot and reload. Going for headshots is the name of the game, and it usually takes down the enemies much quicker. Other variants of monsters will sometimes have helmets or weapons that block cranium poppers, so you will have to take down their limbs, which is aided by some funny ragdoll physics. Seeing a zombie fly backwards always gave me a chuckle.

Zombie-Bossed Too Hard

At the end of each undead-filled level is an imposing boss of some sort. The bosses usually have a rather easy-to-recognize pattern, but some of them would be better to fight with the help of a light gun. Some boss fights did feel like a slog, I’m looking at you, Magician and Emperor, as the timing to hit them was very specific. I felt like I kept losing the crosshairs as well, but thankfully, there are some accessibility options to make it less likely to get lost in the mix. I was able to make it thicker and change the color, as well as speed up the movement of it, because the standard speed felt like trudging through molasses.

There are a significant number of modes as well, including Arcade, Original, Boss Rush, and Training. The Arcade mode is what it sounds like: the base game with limited continues. If you do run out of them, you can trade your accumulated points from that run to buy more. Even as rusty as I was, this system allowed me to reach the ending with ease. Original mode allows you the ability to select up to two items that make adjustments to the gameplay. These items are found throughout the game and can range from extra lives, more damage, less damage, and new guns. I found quite a few of these throughout my playtime, but did not get all of them. Boss Rush pits you against all the level bosses, and the Training mode puts you in specific scenarios that teach you the basics of the game. These micro challenges turned out to be pretty fun and frustrating at times, but it does give the package more heft.

Art of the Dead

The visual design is something that could be improved upon, as the game does have a very dark and muddy look to it. It was not a deal breaker, but it has been a talking point amongst fans since the remake of HotD 1 was released. The music never got my attention, which may be a good or bad thing, but nothing was grating or annoying, so I’ll take it. The voice acting, though, felt like a step down from the absolute camp that the original release had.

Sadly, I did encounter one instance in which the game froze on me, and I had to close it out. It was on my first playthrough, and I just started level 5. Thankfully, once I restarted the game, my progress was saved, and I was able to restart from the same level.

Conclusion of the Dead

Coming into the House of the Dead 2: Remake, I had a good idea of what to expect. If you enjoyed the first remake, chances are you will also enjoy this one. That doesn’t mean it has a clean bill of health either. The colors can be muddy, the voice acting is worse, and the music is just there. The gameplay makes up for it. Like a hot, fresh pizza, it’s something you have had plenty of times, but you know it will still taste just as good. Just not something you want every day.

Thank you to MegaPixel and Forever Entertainment for supplying us with a copy of The House of the Dead 2: Remake for this critique.