The Haunted Hoard: The House of the Dead (Arcade)

As zombies began to rise in popularity near the end of the 90s, there were two video games that helped spread the infection into the gaming world. Resident Evil used them for their horror potential, but The House of the Dead would show everyone one of the greatest potentials the shambling undead held for video games: guilt-free fodder for gun-toting action. While game director Takashi Oda insists the creatures featured in his game aren’t actually zombies, the actual story doesn’t make much of an effort to deny it, meaning the putrefying discolored humans with mangled flesh still helped stoke a public interest in zombies despite the pedantry.

The game’s bio-engineered creatures are the work of a man named Dr. Roy Curien, the insane researcher unleashing his creations upon the scientists who helped him create them. A researcher named Sophie is just barely able to call her fiance and alert him to the threat, and since Thomas Rogan works for a government agency, he’s able to get assistance from his partner G to come investigate. Finding even the exterior overrun with the not-quite-zombies, Thomas and G blast their way through the various different creatures to try and save as many scientists as they can and stop Curien and his more powerful creations from ever leaving the mansion. The plot mostly serves the function of setting things up and doesn’t have the infamously awful line delivery of its sequel sadly, and with alternate endings that don’t feel like they’re worth pursuing due to the sparse and plain plot, it’s clear that The House of the Dead is banking mostly on its horror trappings and its monster shooting action to carry the experience.

Using light guns attached to the arcade cabinet, two players point at where they wish to fire onscreen and pull the trigger, the weapons just as responsive as they should be. Styled like pistols and able to fire six shots before needing to reload, the player can rapidly fire with ease and only needs to fire offscreen to instantly reload and begin firing once more. All the movement is handled by the game, characters moving forward automatically after the current enemies are dealt with, but the path to the final battle isn’t totally set in stone. There are researchers all around the mansion being attacked or in dangerous situations, and if the player is able to save them, they can open up alternate routes that feature different environments, foes, and pickups. This isn’t the only reason to save the scientists, as they’ll often give you health packs as thanks, and considering the scarcity of healing items in general, you’ll always be spurred to act quickly when you see someone dressed in white in peril. The game can be devious about how they appear though, trying to bait you into accidentally shooting them or placing them in situation where you need precise aim or quick action to prevent a mutant from killing the researcher. Letting them die won’t hurt you in any way, but shooting them will dock your own health a bit. The game is kind enough to give you a few hits per quarter and the paths for not saving the scientists are still fair despite being the less preferred route, so the basic systems in The House of the Dead are pretty fair and easy to understand even if the pistol remains the same plain but effective tool throughout the adventure.

The enemies are definitely what makes The House of the Dead a treat though. While Takashi Oda insists they aren’t zombies, the most basic foes you face can suffer shots like they were the walking dead. Limbs can be blown off and chunks of meat blasted out of their body and they’ll still come towards you ready to strike, but if you fire at their head you can dispense with them much more quickly.  However, some are durable enough that even after a headshot they’ll come towards you with only the meaty mess above their neck. Any gruesomeness of such a sight is softened by the rough polygonal shapes, but the models still look pretty good when it comes to character design. If that wasn’t enough, the arcade cabinet can even be set to change the color of the blood from red to green, purple, and blue, and while some of the enemies will have a set pinkish color for their wounds, many of them will have their bloodier bits swapped to the more cartoonish colors to offset the mild gore. The default creatures need to reach you to deal damage, but the game is quick to roll out all sorts of different monsters and mutants. Some humanoid creatures will jump and roll all around to make shooting them harder, others pack metal attachments you can’t shoot effectively, and the chunkier mutants can suffer a lot of shots before finally going down. Many wield weapons or unique mechanical attachments, foes coming at you waving chainsaws, throwing hatchets, flinging knives, hurling barrels, and firing hook hands to close the distance or pester you from afar. Firing on projectiles will stop them before they can hit you, but chainsaw wielding baddies often pop up in your face and must be dealt with quickly. Other times, a horde of creatures appears all at once, mixing together approaches to make you have to decide in a hurry who must be dealt with first. Even beyond the humanoid creatures there are plenty of straight up monsters and mutated animals to fight, leeches, spiders, and bats coming at you quickly and in great numbers to test your trigger speed.

The game’s four bosses feel like the best execution of The House of the Dead’s enemy design. Named for Tarot cards, these creatures all heavily rely on the weak point system far more than regular foes. You can blast through a typical enemy by just blasting any part of their meat enough even though headshots speed things up, but to damage a boss requires aiming at their vulnerable areas. The game makes sure to introduce each one and indicate the area even though the designs make them pretty clear, the final boss being the only one who doesn’t outright tell you but still communicates their weakness with their look well enough. Each one is not only fought differently from each other but varies from the regular foes, although the mechanical man Chariot starts off the closest to your typical mutant. Only able to take damage in the few openings in his armor, his second phase involves his flesh fully exposed but a body that breaks apart to make it harder and harder to find spots for your shots to land and whittle down his health. The gargoyle like Hangedman swarms you with bats first before flying around erratically and having to be hit before he can land his hits, each boss having distinct phases where their attacks and movements shift. When they appear for rematches they are actually welcome for being fair and interesting fights, but the last boss does strain this design approach unfortunately, its elements coming together mostly to try and drain as many quarters from your pockets as possible. It’s fast, has a small window for hitting its weak point to prevent it from executing its physical attack, and hurls fast moving fireballs that eventually come in such high numbers that you have to not only be fast and accurate, but you’ll even need to reload quickly and keep firing with the next clip to avoid being hit. Luckily, damage can’t really stack in the game so failure to react to multiple fireballs only means you take one hit, but these can add up fast all the same.

The House of the Dead can be finished fairly quickly so long as you have the quarters and skills to sustain the experience, the game maintaining a fast pace for action that continues to provide new foes and locations throughout. Even though you’re technically doing all this fighting in and around the Curien Mansion, interior areas are mixed well with brief action outside, in sewer tunnels, and in the research area where science fiction ideas allow for decent variation. For the most part these are just visual backdrops though, some having objects you can shoot but otherwise they’ll just provide areas for enemies to hide or pop out of due to all your motion being controlled by the game. The split paths aren’t as robust as they are in future entries, the bosses always the same and the alternate endings tied not to which routes are picked but the score the player achieves. The routes you uncover for rescuing scientists do provide more points to reward better play though, but the minor variations between the paths isn’t really enough to motivate multiple runs on its own.

THE VERDICT: The House of the Dead is a pretty fair and frenetic light gun shooter with plenty of enemy variety to sustain the short but action packed raid on the Curien Mansion. Incentivizing shooting enemies in different regions of their body makes it more than just firing on whatever pops up, and enemy placement means accuracy and speed can overcome even unexpected ambushes or monster hordes. The overall game is still pretty simple due to the one gun you use throughout, but rescuing scientists provides an additional goal beyond blasting all you see, and outside of the final boss’s money-draining design, the big battles are definite highlights with their distinct attacks and required player tactics. Pure monster shooting fun with just a bit of thought required for success, The House of the Dead can be counted on for a quick thrill if you happen to come across this light gun game in an arcade.

And so, I give The House of the Dead for Arcade systems…

A GOOD rating. A well done mix of the wanton violence you’d want from a light gun game but with the extra touch of foes being sturdy enough to take some shots, The House of the Dead properly values where you shoot on a foe rather than just pointing and shooting at all. The enemy variety both in shape and attack method ensure the regular play stays fresh and the researcher rescuing is a decent twist on the usual “don’t shoot the civilian” feature found in most light gun games to prevent a player from just firing at everything. It could have done more to reward the player, like the alternate routes being greater departures in design, and while it is an arcade game and can’t be too long, more boss fights along the way would have provided a lot more battle variety. With the bosses being the highlights do to their more complex attack types and greater accuracy requirements it is a shame you only see four total, one of those even straining things with difficulty meant to wear down a player’s wallet. He’s not so bad that he undermines the fine work put into the totality of the game though, the Curien Mansion a great host for a horror shooter that is more likely to get your blood pumping than chill it.

The House of the Dead is a good fit for a light gun arcade game. It focuses on making the shooting satisfying and avoids stagnation by asking the player to consider where on a foe to shoot rather than just hammering the trigger every time an enemy appears. It taps into a primal desire to just blast your way through crowds of monsters while adding a bit of spice to the experience, and even though you’re not technically shooting zombies, it definitely showed the appeal of enemies of that type, paving the way for the undead to infect the gaming industry for many years to come.