House of the Dead: Overkill

Review from Matt - Thursday, 14 May 2009 @ 7:12pm

Dear Matthew and Guy,

My name is Millicent Filchard, and I would like to write to complain to you about a so-called game.

My 14 year old son Michael listens to your "podcaster" and heard you recommend a game called House of the Dead Overkill.

Normally when I hear a game like that I would immediately dismiss it, what with all of the killing and dead. But this one clearly would be suitable for someone of Michael's tender age. After all, it's on the Nintendo Wii.

The Wii has been a godsend for us, allowing young Michael to enjoy his videogames without the risk of overstimulating him and without any risk of anything violent or sexual, or any of what Michael refers to as "fun". And thankfully, as there are so few releases there's little or no pressure from Michael to buy him anything.

So we recently bought him this "House of the Dead Overkill" for his birthday, and then left him in his room for the remainder of the week to play it.

Then one night I got out of bed to pop down to powder my nose, and I started to hear some terrible language. I immediately assumed that it was my husband Harold. My husband Harold used to occasionally watch some quite inappropriate movies, some of them even R rated, before I put a stop to it. I assumed he'd fallen prey to those vices for Tarentino and Jackie Chan nonsense and gotten out of his bed to watch some, but my husband Harold was still soundly asleep in his own room!

No, the noises were coming from Michael's room!

"What's a brother gotta do to pacify a bitch?!" Imagine my shock when I heard such filth emanating from the previously Nintendo Wii!

I immediately burst into his room (which was thankfully less embarrassing for both of us than a previous time I'd burst into his room after hearing strange noises) and confuscated his Wii.

To get to the root of the matter I began to play it myself. Right from the beginning I was appalled. The introductory video was of a scantily clad woman grinding herself all over a stripper pole! How is that appropriate for a 14 year old?!

You see this?! This isn't even the worst she does!

The game itself starts with long cut scenes introducing the two main characters. One, Isaac Washington is an African American gentleman, and like many of them he swears rather too much! The other is "Agent G" and I don't know what the G stands for.

The cutscene was quite long, but very very bad! The script was extremely trite, and almost painfully delivered, with overdone drama and excessive metaphor.

My husband Harold says it's a clever appropriation of blaxploitation and grindhouse cinema providing the House of the Dead series with a deliberate campness that contrasts surprisingly well with the inadvertent campness of the previous titles. But my husband Harold is an idiot. I know degradation and perversion when I see it.

Playing through the game showed an essentially adequate "rail shooter" (apparently that's what it's called) tying together the vile and offensive cutscenes. Thankfully the game is exceptionally easy, and despite not having played a single videogame ever I went through it without any difficulty.

My husband Harold kindly offered to help me by playing through large parts of it on my behalf, and seemed almost disappointed when I would not permit it. I appreciate his willingness to help, but felt I should inform myself properly.

From start to end nothing much changes. There are "zombies" and you shoot them. Sometimes they explode in a shower of zombie flesh. Disgusting. The same absurd scatalogical humour and general vileness continues to permeate the game, right through to the ending which is so disgusting that there's no place for it on ANY console, let alone the Nintendo Wii, the childrens' console.

Completely unacceptable disrespect for medical practitioners

I would like to make this complaint directly to two groups:

To Guy and Matthew, who should know better. This game is NOT funny. Videogamers are children, and by suggesting they play this game you're basically advocating pornography and violence for young children! You should be ashamed of yourselves!

Secondly I'd like to complain to Nintendo, who I feel have betrayed parents. This console is NOT supposed to have material of this kind!

How is a parent supposed to know that a game such as House of the Dead Overkill is not going to be appropriate for their young children?! There are no warnings of any kind on the box to specifically say that it's not for children! Everything we've seen on the console so far has been downright childish, so to go putting titles like this on it is a treachery of the highest order. I trust it's a one-off and there will be no further adult titles on the Wii.

In conclusion, I have returned this excessive and violent game to Electronics Boutique, and replaced it with another. This "MadWorld" game looks more like the sort of cartoony fun I expect of the Nintendo Wii.

NOW it tells me no children are allowed!

Pros

Awesome cutscenes. Very funny. At last a grown up title for the wii! Excellent writing and dialogue. Really fun as a multiplayer game with a bunch of mates.

Cons

Actual game is a bit lacklustre, it's just a rail shooter. Camera changes to deliberately stop multipliers. No replay or long term value.

Summary

If you're looking for a fun little shooter for some drunken friends on a Saturday night you can do much worse than House of the Dead: Overkill. Possibly enough to scrape the dust off your Wii. Its sense of style and fun is right there in front of you and the humour is well written and enjoyable. Overall, Overkill is a lot of fun, but the fun will soon be Over.