House of the Dead Overkill - Extended Cut

Review from Barry - Monday, 28 November 2011 @ 9:05pm

So you want to shoot zombies? But you want to shoot them with a bitching grind house 80s vibe? Boy have I got the game for you - House of the Dead Overkill - Extended Cut.

Originally refused classification in Australia due to the excessive violence / gore (the zombie babies that occasionally pop up to freak the shit out of you probably didn’t help either), its now been set loose on the market and is shuffling its way to a ps3 near you with a hunger for brains! The Extended cut comes with all the content that was included on the Wii version of House of the Dead Overkill, with with a few new weapons and two new levels fleshing out the story of two strippers.

No brains for you - come back one year!

So what do you get for your money? You get a deliciously arcade-like four player zombie shooting game - and boy is it fun! I’m not going to sugar coat it for you though - HotDO-EC is a zombie rail shooter where zombies come on the screen and you shoot them until they are all dead or you run out of lives.

There is not a hell of a lot of tactics in this game, there is no Time Crisis style duck/reload - you simply stand and deliver your righteous fury. Well placed head shots give you a nice gorey head explodey animation and yield a few extra points.

So why bother with points? Points = cash and cash = weapon upgrades. At the end of each round / ridiculous chapter of the story before proceeding to the next chapter you are given the option to visit the gun shop and upgrade your weapon - or perhaps purchase a new weapon.

Weapon upgrades take the form of things like increasing the damage done or faster weapon reload speed, larger magazines etc. Each option has multiple levels of upgrade to keep you coming back for more, however you can of course just buy a new weapon like a shotgun or a sub machine gun - but these are expensive.

He is a zombie - you need to shoot him

It's the age old question - do you spend your cash on improving your current weapon or be underpowered for the next round but come out with mad stacks of cash to buy a new more powerful weapon, that is of course a decision for you to make.

The story is just plan over the top stupid awesome with each chapter of the game presenting a three to four min cut scene where the story plays out like an over the top 80s grind house flick. The shooting of the zombies is actually treated as the intermission between the “movie”. My only real gripe with this is that the cut scenes are unskippable.

This wouldn’t be that big issue if they didn’t nearly go for longer than the sections of gameplay. It is also painful when you don’t give a toss about the story and want to quickly get amongst the zombies and helping their heads to be free from the rest of their diseased body.

Wicked 3D - Put on your glasses now to get the full effect.

Pros

• Fun arcade style rail zombie rail shooter
• Awesome grind house / blaxploitation humor
• It's a zombie rail shooter - YOU SHOOT ZOMBIES!

Cons

• Unskippable cut scenes
• Some cut scenes are so bad they are almost good
• Probably not much fun on your own
• It's a Rail shooter - dont expect much more