The fifth game in the series, but a prequel to the others, House of the Dead: Overkill (HotD) for the PS3 has obviously taken its roots from the Grindhouse Cinema / B-Movie scene; it is a big success because of this. Upon loading the game you are presented with an intro video of a stripper on a pole and a voice over that starts swearing at about the 2nd line and doesn’t let up until you take the disc out. HotD knows that it is puerile and crude and loves itself for being so.
The two main characters are stereotypes and rip-offs of so many cops and special agents. At the start you’re not sure why they are there, how they got there or what they have to do with the story. The black cop starts swearing from the word go and his one-liners during the game are so childish that it’s funny. “I’m gonna rip your muthaf**king balls off!”. The white special agent spends most of his time poking fun at the cop. The 2 strippers that you meet add to the banter, one is stereotypically dumb whilst the other is the hard-ass.
The presentation and play style of this game work fantastically, the whole B-Movie look; dirt on the film, film grain, tears etc are great. Even the faux retro 3D works well with the Red and Blue glasses provided. However, I could only play one section like this as it hurt my eyes and started to give me a headache, this may not be the case for other players.
This is never going to be the greatest game in the world and as the trailer states at the end “your mum will hate this!”, but it is great fun. The only complaint that I had was that you can’t skip the cut scenes. So between levels you have to watch the FMV sequences every-time. I can understand them doing this as it does help with the story (in fact it’s the only real story you get) but they do go on a while and all you really want to do is shoot zombies… sorry mutants – “you can’t use the Z word!”.
The new PS3 extended edition adds 2 new levels and the 2 strippers as playable characters. The emphasis given by the game and the trailers for these new sections is all about the strippers and Flesh but there isn’t any nudity, the makers stopped short of doing that. It seems a strange decision to not include when these new levels are so obviously designed to parody classic B-Movies and scenes like the vampires bar in From Dusk Till Dawn. Additionally strange is that they boast more blood, more gore and more violence but any nudity is far too risky for them to dare include. It’s not like they didn’t have the perfect excuse as this game starts with a stripper on a pole for its opening video and makes such a big deal about these new levels that it would actually have fit with the style of the game and genres that it is parodying. I’m guessing the powers that be at SEGA felt that it was no problem to decapitate and maim but nipples are going to cause moral outrage!
Back to the game, multiplayer was good fun with lots of shouting out and laughing as you listen to the two protagonists banter and share your face shots. The only bit that I missed due to not having unlocked it in time was the option to dual wield weapons in single player; I expect that would be great fun. Overall I really enjoyed the whole presentation of this game. It’s not something that I would have gone out a bought normally, but at a decent price point I recommend everyone picking this up and playing, you do need the move controllers though and a good gun attachment to make it really work to its best.
Presentation
The Grindhouse / B-movie works really well and even playing on a projector the faux 3D was good.
Audio
The voice overs and main characters really lend well to the whole presentation, it’s just a shame that you can’t skip scenes.
Gameplay
Great fun in both single and multiplayer but not sure how often I will return to this.
Overall Score
This is such juvenile, crude fun that it’s really hard not to enjoy. Slight flaws let it down and the makers lack of conviction to go all the way and really make this parody B-Movies properly.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
