The long-running series finally makes the jump to the PS4…several years into the life of the PS5…with a remake of the game that started it all. Yay!
It has been so long since I played the original The House of the Dead that I don’t totally know if this is just an exact replica with better graphics. The unforgettable opening sequence outside “the house” is definitely a “remake”, but I think the game then does some things of its own. It actually feels like there are parts missing, however, my memory might just be blending The House of the Dead 1 and 2 together since I played them at the same time when I got them for my PC over 20 years ago.
What I know for sure is missing is the infamous “Don’t come!” cried out by all the survivors before you save them (or in my case, often accidentally shoot them). Also, the melodramatic music is very much in the same style as the original soundtrack, but it’s not the same music at all. The graphics are rich and colorful, but they still manage to retain the classic arcade feel rather than look totally like a modern generation, hyper realistic revamp.
The game is super short, with three main chapters and then a final chapter that is mostly just a series of second encounters with bosses from the previous chapters (the bosses are all definitely taken right from the original game). There are, however ways to stumble upon alternate routes that take you through different sections of the mansion before eventually bringing you back onto the main path. As far as I can tell, only one chapter has these alternating paths, and conveniently, I played through the game twice, and the second time I shot all the right levers and buttons to take me through those alternate routes.
Gameplay is the same as the original. You shoot at various monsters that come at you, including zombies, bats, slugs, spiders, and various other mutant creatures. Some enemies will also toss weapons at you that you have to shoot as well, because being hit by them chips away at your life. In between defending yourself against all these enemies, it’s fun to try to shoot objects in the background such as barrels, vases, and canisters, which often hold extra lives, coins, and other treasures to give you an advantage over the dead enemies.
Finally, it’s time to discuss the controls. When this game first came out for the PS4, it had no sort of “light gun” support. The reason I finally picked it up is because it now supports the Move controller from the PS3—just the part with the glowing ball, not the mini companion controller (for menus and such you can simply use the PS4 DualShock controller). To think I used to play this game on my computer with a mouse before finally getting an Act-Labs light gun back then.
You also need a PS4 camera to work with the Move, and they are both simply plug and play. The odd thing is that there’s no calibration option in the game for the Move. There are just smoothness and sensitivity settings. Fiddling with the settings in an effort to tighten up the loose, sloppy targeting reticle just makes things messier, and it’s hard to determine whether smoothness or sensitivity is the problem, so I just reset them to default.
Despite the shaky aiming, the Move totally did the trick as a light gun, and I blasted through the game with no problem (on easy). The only real issue is that the trigger underneath the Move controller feels totally natural in the hand, but the reload button, instead of being the center button on top, which would be logical, is the X button slightly down and to the left. I ended up just keeping my thumb on the x button and simultaneously pressing it while pulling the trigger, because it’s very easy for your thumb to stray away from it, leaving you at a disadvantage when you do need to reload (which is essentially constantly since you go through bullets really fast while shooting like crazy). By pressing both buttons, I was continuously reloading while shooting, so I never ran out of bullets. Awesome.
Finally, playing on easy afforded me enough lives and continues to never have to start over from the beginning. The two times I played the game I made it from start to finish.
