*This article is compiled from IGN US and is not reproduced without authorization.
The House of the Dead cabinet first appeared in the arcade about 25 years ago, and I've been obsessed with it ever since. This zombie-themed track shooter from Sega not only became famous that year, but also had a profound impact on future entertainment works, but it has rarely been reproduced over the years, and only in 1998 did it launch a mediocre PC port and a Sega Saturn transplant (it is said that Sega lost the source code of House of the Dead).
So when I heard that a complete remake was coming out of the Switch, I was immediately excited to see what kind of game the developer Mega Pixel could make, could it make old players like me happy, and could it make new players who had never played the House of Death series like it? Unfortunately, poor controls, several performance issues, and the inevitable repetitive gameplay make House of the Dead Remake a game that no new or existing player can enjoy.
As with the arcade version, players assume the role of AMS Agent Thomas Logan or Agent G, pouring ammunition at hordes of zombies to stop the mad scientist Dr. Currien from destroying humanity. Depending on how well the player performs in the game, three different endings can be played. The world view and character setting of "House of Death" are actually quite rich and delicate, not so flat in the game, but unfortunately, these background knowledge should be found from the old version of the manual or the wiki of "House of Death", and the game itself is not much introduced.
In this regard, the remake of MegaPixel chose to stay true to the original, and they could have incorporated those off-the-shelf settings into the game, but I was a little disappointed that the studio was still working on a remake of House of the Dead 2, which was supposed to be a good opportunity to pave the way for a sequel, and it ended up being wasted. And if you do as I say, you can also make the content of this game more substantial, from a modern point of view, "House of the Dead" is really a bit short, even if you don't skip the animation, it only takes about half an hour to complete the level.
Old players will also find that those bad lines of that year were also copied unchanged, and the plot was also as hasty as it was then, and two sentences were quickly explained to cope with the past.
Of course, people don't come to play House of the Dead to see the plot — it's famous for track shooting zombies. Characters move forward automatically, and players don't have to worry about moving, just concentrate on shooting zombies, and this part is just as fun as it was then. Although the repetition of multi-week eyes is extremely high, the feeling of challenging high scores while fighting zombies and biochemical monsters with sci-fi guns is really unparalleled.
Players also have a few different routes to choose from, which can make the multi-week game experience not cookie-cutter — shooting a door, letting an enemy smash you into another part of the level, or failing to rescue a hostage can all change the process. This increases diversity and gives players the motivation to experiment more. While there will be fewer routes to choose from as the game progresses, players can still entertain themselves with goals, such as challenging harmless levels or saving all hostages in one week.
The single-player mode is already quite fun, while the fun of two people online together only increases. Although it is a pity that you can't connect online, there are two modes of competition and cooperation on local online. In competitive mode, two players are scored separately and each have 10 chances to renew their levels, while in co-op mode, the two share points and renewals. The original House of the Dead was a game where solo music is not as good as crowd fun, and the competition mode amplifies that fun — provided you can tolerate the way it is controlled.
Trial and error
The house of the dead remastered is manipulated in a way that requires a long adaptation process, and unnecessarily adds complexity and is somewhat cumbersome. The game supports a variety of control modes, such as simulating a light gun with a single Joy-Con supporting gyroscope (but somehow only in co-op mode), or using a Pro controller to experience standard FPS control, but neither of these control modes is perfect, and sometimes even makes you aim at A and B.
A and ZR correspond to firing, ZL and B are reloaded. This key is not very comfortable, so it is better to use a double Joy-Con or Pro handle. The cross key (or left Joy-Con's arrow key) not only provides a reload key, but can also be used to switch between additional weapons that need to be unlocked in the process, including an assault rifle and a grenade launcher that clears all obstacles. However, in order to unlock them, you must first unlock the Armory, and unlocking the Armory requires the rescue of all the hostages in one week.
Both handles support gyroscopic somatosensory aiming, and can also be based on the joystick and supplemented by somatosensory. I eventually chose the latter, but occasionally there were cases of somatosensory failures, which eventually led me to rely more and more on the joystick to aim — although pressing the right stick (or left stick) would reset the crosshairs, but it was still convenient to aim and shoot with a gentle push of the joystick. The actual experience may depend on personal preference, but personally, somatosensory aiming is a more threatening enemy than zombies.
Somatosensory aiming is turned off by default, and if you want to use it, you need to enter the menu to open, but you have to adjust the sensitivity and other settings, just along the way. But to adjust it to the right one, the process can be worse because it requires a lot of trial and error. House of the Dead was originally a series with a very low barrier to entry, a game that could be played when picked up, and I always felt that the default setting was very useful, even when playing the console port version of the later generations, I did not waste much energy on similar setting options.
I'd love to hold a single Joy-Con and shoot like a light gun on an arcade machine, but the single Joy-Con is not stable enough, so I still have to use two together. Even more surprising, I found that the Somatosensory Aiming of the Pro Controller or Handheld Mode was actually better, which was a far cry from the arcade experience I was looking forward to. I can understand the developer's thinking, after all, this set of operation methods to take into account the Switch's host mode, handheld mode, desktop mode and even Switch Lite, but I hope to at least add a change key menu, which will alleviate a lot of problems.
I also noticed several performance issues that were not related to somatosensory. I occasionally encounter a card for several seconds in combat, and I deliberately tested the same area with "performance mode", although this mode increased the frame rate at the expense of image quality, but it did not help the stuttering problem. In addition, the loading time of this game is a bit long, about 35 seconds to fully load a new scene. These problems are relatively minor, but they are still annoying, and you can't ignore them, not to mention that the graphics of the game are not very beautiful. For example, character modeling, several main characters look OK, but many hostages look like mechanical puppets, ridiculous enough to make people distracted.
Modernization improvements
House of the Dead Remake has two modes: "Classic" and "Group Fight". The former, as the name suggests, is almost the original experience; the latter is a remake of the new version, which is basically the same as the classic mode, except that when the number of zombies is the highest, it can be 15 times more than the original. In addition to the different number of enemies, the group battle mode has four chapters like the classic mode, and there are also the same boss battles, but the enemy's health is also higher.
Considering that the Classic mode already has 4 difficulty options (Simple, Normal, Difficult, Arcade), the Group Fight mode feels a bit redundant, but as a veteran player of the House of the Dead series, I think it provides a good challenge, and the Group Fight mode under arcade difficulty is a real test of the player's skills. The damage the player takes is also somewhat different from the original, and as the difficulty increases, the damage received increases.
Similar to the arcade version, each round of the game offers 10 renewal opportunities, after which you can use the number of points earned in this round to "buy" the number of continuations, otherwise it is Game Over. Points are earned by earning rewards such as coins, or by defeating enemies (which is a more common method), and both the type of enemy and the location of the hit affect the number of points scored, encouraging players not to shoot blindly. In addition to the original scoring mode, the remake also adds a modern scoring system that offers different scoring rewards, such as a score bonus after killing a certain number of enemies in a row.
Two game modes, multiple difficulties, and two scoring systems have greatly improved the replayability of this game. Adjusting to your liking also makes it easier for players to get started. However, the remake didn't include additional modes, such as the boss rush or training mode of House of the Dead 2, which disappointed me a little. At the very least, it also has an "album" function that can be used to view unlocked weapons and defeated enemies, as well as some fun cheat codes, such as infinite bullets or unlimited continuations, etc. To unlock it requires completing a certain number of in-game achievements, but their freshness will soon pass.
summary
For hardcore fans who have been hoping for a better home version of House of the Dead for decades, The House of the Dead Remake is a game to recommend, but it's not easy to get other players to pay for it. Multiple difficulty and scoring methods make the remake a better job, but the annoying controls, poor somatosensory aiming, and some regrettable technical issues can be more terrifying than zombies. If you're willing to take the time to learn the details, this classic still offers a lot of fun, but I can't help but think about it – can't this comeback that has made me wait for decades to be improved and polished a little better?
merit
Vivid and reproduced the original world view and game atmosphere
The NS feature makes it easy for players to play co-op between two players
shortcoming
The feel and precision of the operation is disappointing
The amount of content is small, resulting in a highly repetitive game experience
Shortcomings such as perfunctory lines in the original work are inherited