Wii Gamers The House of the Dead: Overkill Review
The Entertaining Parts (4 out of 5)
The 70’s retro-graphics style of The House of the Dead really grabs the attention of your eyes when you first see it. It pays homage to pulp horror classic comics and films, like Grindhouse, the Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez film that inspired nightmares in generations of gore-loving fanatics.
The two-player co-op mode is the best thing since slicing and dicing zombies. The over-the-top blood, gore, and destruction is sensually immersive once you play it for awhile. It just hypes your senses and makes you want more.
The unabashed writing deserves a note as being top rate. It spoofs the genre with a brazen effectiveness and entertaining feel.
TheParts That Could Be Improved (4 out of 5)
The only thing that really stands out as a part of the game that could use improvement would be how easy the game is to beat, especially when playing with an effective partner, and using any kind of teamwork. It is too easy to provide much of a challenge for veteran Wii gamers.
Graphics (5 out of 5)
The game has a graphical presentation that mimics the grainy film quality of the 70s, perfectly masking the Wii console’s under-powered graphical capabilities compared to the PS3 and Xbox 360.
The graphical look of the creatures and characters in the game is very good, with nicely rendered smoke and green haze that looks wonderful and adds a nice touch of mystery and danger as you’re trying to walk through it. Unfortunately, when the particle effects were on screen, the action would freeze occasionally. The stops were only brief, but annoying.
Sounds (4 out of 5)
The House of the Dead: Overkill is one of the new age games with more swear words than a remake of The Big Lebowski starring Joe Pesci, but the writing is clever and uses the language to create many funny moments.
The soundtrack is a suitable collection of retro-tracks designed to create a comical gore-fest with language to match the violence and dialogue used by the writer. It’s appropriate and definitely adds to the entertainment level.
Storyline (3 out of 5)
The storyline of this game serves as a prequel to The House of the Dead. Super Agent G teams up with foul-mouthed super-Detective Issac Washington and curvaceous stripper Varla Guns to hunt down Burt Reynolds look-alike Papa Caesar, who has been associated with an outbreak of mutants in the bayou. The two will trail Caesar through a mutant-infested hospital, swamp, carnival, train, and prison on the way to taking care of business.
Let’s Play Again (4 out of 5)
The beautifully designed and implemented weapon control scheme is pretty simple in construction, but works as well to entertain as the best in its genre.
This game has a short, but sweet, campaign that can be played in co-op with a jaw dropping ending that will get your attention. Once you’ve beaten the game, you unlock a new mode called the Director’s Cut, with longer levels and a new Enforcer-type handgun that would make Dirty-Harry proud. In addition, Overkill has three fun and engaging mini-games playable by up to four that add to the variety of the gameplay and increase the entertainment level of Overkill.
Overall… (4 out of 5)
The writer is the star of The House of the Dead, with language that, while extremely on the edge, still mingles wonderfully with the music, action and gameplay to make Overkill a mature adventure that rocks the senses.
Image credits
Images included in this article are promo pictures provided by the developer, Sega of America, Inc.
