House of the Dead: Overkill Extended Cut – Review
Platform | Release Date
PS3 | October 25, 2011Developed by Headstrong Games
Published by SEGA
The Pitch:
The House of the Dead attacks the PS3 for the first time with PS Move and 3D support!
The House of the Dead: OVERKILL™ comes to the PS3 in this exclusive Extended Cut, with an avalanche of new content including brand new levels, weapons, mutants and more. Experience over-the-top mutant blasting madness with your PlayStation®Move motion controller, all in stunning 3D and remastered HD graphics.
I really wanted to like House of the Dead: Overkill – Extended Cut. The grindhouse aesthetic does a remarkable job of allowing players to overlook a poor technical presentation. By intentionally using a theme framed in tacky production quality, a zombie failing to find its path through a level and running into a wall could as easily be an homage as it could be a bug. It is similar to 
the Assassin’s Creed theme of “it’s a computer simulation.” When graphical pop-in or poor path-finding occur, you find it adds to the mood as just another part of a campy horror game. The terrible voice acting is intentionally hilarious, and the script plays it irreverent and dumb with a hint of clever. With a selection of weapons ranging from shotguns to miniguns, this sounds like the perfect light gun title.Unfortunately, the programmers did not have the skill to back up the creative vision.
I originally picked up HotD: Overkill on the Wii, but found the imprecise control scheme and standard definition graphics off-putting. I picked up a pair of Nyko Perfect Shot controllers, and eventually a pair of official Wii Zappers, in an effort to give the game a chance. Even with the additional tech, I just didn’t find the gunplay accurate enough to be satisfying. Yet, I saw a real gem underneath. It was on my to-do list to research emulation: to see if an HD veneer and maybe an improved frame-rate would help if I played it on my PC. But I never got around to it.
With the announcement of a PS3 Move HD edition of the game, I thought the task had been completed without me. I’ve had a PS3 Move controller since launch, but no game had come along which grabbed my attention. This was two birds with one stone. I bought the Extended Cut, a second Move, and a pair of Sharpshooter accessories.
Cue transition into PS3 Review here. Add fake blood, boobs, and swearing.
With this updated iteration, the graphical presentation has improved. It still looks terrible compared to any PS3, or even Wii, contemporary, but the low budget charm survives the HD-ifying.
This is the only improvement. The back of the Box claims “More Blood…More Gore…More Strippers…”, but fails to mention “More Load Times!!!”
Not just in the traditional sense, either. The initial load times from “disc in drive” to “playing” is terrible. Loading occurs during:
1) The PS3 “Don’t hit people with the move” warning message.
2) Multiple, unskippable company logos.
3) “This game uses an Autosave feature” warning.
4) After selecting a level to play, but before each level-intro cinematic.
5) After the level-intro cinematic, but before gameplay.
And now you get to shoot something. But wait, there’s one more for good measure before any boss fight.
With those level cinematics lasting at least 5 minutes you’ll have plenty of time to rest. Instruct your friends to put the gun down otherwise their arms will get tired. However, all of this pre-level waiting is not the worst offender.
If you’ve played a light-gun game before you are probably familiar with the basic flow: walk into a room, camera freezes, you shoot dudes that pop out, then camera unlocks and you walk to the next shooting gallery. HotD on the PS3 has invisible loading between each of the walking sequences. You will literally watch the last zombie keel over, wait a few seconds, and then begin the on-rails walking to the next shooting sequence. This destroys any sense of pacing and urgency the game has. For a parallel, imagine a racing game where every checkpoint you pass pauses the game and does a pan around of your car for 10 seconds. It pretty much kills any chance this title had of being enjoyable. I turned on my Wii (*gasp*) to double check: this loading between each gunfight is non-existent in the Wii version. Incredibly, the port is a slow paced lightgun game – something which should be an oxymoron.
I also encountered my fair share of progress destroying bugs. As one example, I lost connection with one of the controllers during a boss lead-in cinematic (with mentioned load times before and after), despite the Move not turning off. I could not remedy it with a controller power cycle. This forced a reboot of the game with 10 minutes of lead-in cinema and loading, followed by replaying the entire level. I also found that my Move 
controllers would lose calibration with any sudden jerks or movements. They were also very sensitive if I ever held the gun slightly differently. Any deviation in angle or height from the initial calibration would cause the cursor to drift further from the iron sights. This lead to inevitable re-calibration if you ever put the gun down to even a resting position, let alone set it down on the coffee table.
The artistic presentation in House of the Dead is great. Combat is satisfying once you unlock and upgrade the Automatic Shotgun while adjusting to the imprecise shooting mechanics. The levels are classic themes, from a hospital with nurse mutants to a trailer park with hill-billies. The content is extreme and as far from Politically Correct as you can get. A man literally BLANKS into a BLANK BLANK BLANK. The character banter is fun; the game is not.
If you want to play this game, spend the money on a Wii instead of a Move. If you only have a PS3, already own a Move, and must experience the horror: rent and bring a lot of beer.
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