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The heyday of light guns is long gone. Now still has the classic The House of the Dead taken shot into our time in the form of a remake. Does the concept work just as well with a JoyCon in hand or has time run away from this genre?
PlayStation had Time Crisis and Saturn Virtua Copbut the horror theme did The House of the Dead to a clear winner for me. It was one of many arcade games that Sega had converted to Saturn, and it was one of the best. The console struggled with three dimensions, but the arcade conversion was impressive for its time. The year was 1996 and it was me and a bright blue gun against the evil of the world.
It was hardly a matter of course to make a remake of just that The House of the Dead now that the story of the light pistols is all. MegaPixel Studio has still made an attempt. With the result in hand, maybe someone else should have had the chance.
This is a railshooter, which means that you shoot everything that moves and preferably do it quickly. Among all evils, however, there are civilians who should be spared to receive small gifts, and it is also possible to tear down the interior to find one or another secret. In addition, it is possible to choose a path by sliding doors and other things. In addition to the single player campaign, there is also a co-op mode and a competitive mode in which you compete against each other.
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The spider boss is one of the game’s better enemies.
In stills, this remake looks acceptable, but age shines through as the game rolls. As if to hide the flaws, MegaPixel has thrown twelve kilos of lip gloss over everything. Despite this, it is obvious how roughly cut The House of the Dead Remake is, and the image update does not feel solid. This is not just an old game basically, it is above all a half-hearted remake. On the one hand, I had not complained about a little sharper graphics, but above all, it should have been invested in also including a remake of the Dreamcast game The House of the Dead II.
How does it work then to play without a gun? The answer is that. The House of the Dead Remake can be played with both JoyCons and Pro Controller, and there are a number of settings to choose from. It works well, but it can not be ruled out that the absence of a gun makes us lose a lot of game feeling. Aiming a weapon at the screen is both more fun and more effective. One detail that has changed is the way to recharge (which you have to do about every two seconds). In the original, the weapon was reloaded by firing off the screen, which took a fraction of a second longer and was enough to increase the stress boost a bit. Now it happens, of course, with the push of a button.
Since this is basically an arcade game from the 90’s, it’s a short story. You can count on running through the four chapters in one hour if you do not have your thumb in the middle of your hand. As in the good old days, game over means that you actually have to start over.
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I itch in my head and wonder what target group this game is really aimed at. In 1996, zombies were something relatively new and cool, something The House of the Dead could exploit and attract zombie-hungry players who have fallen head over heels for in Resident Evil. Bringing that arcade experience home was awesome, and three-dimensional light gun games undeniably smelled like the future then. Almost in the same way as VR does today.
More than 25 years later, the craving for this type of game should be limited. So the question is how many of all of us who were there then and liked these games who are especially eager to experience them again.
Testat: Nintendo Switch
Also available for: Xbox, PS4 / PS5, Steam
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