Review: House of the Dead: Overkill (Nintendo Wii)


House of the Dead: Overkill
Genre: Rail Shooter
Developer: Headstrong Games
Publisher: SEGA
Release Date: 02/11/09

What’s up motherfuckers?

If there’s one fucking thing I love, it’s motherfucking lightgun games. CarnEvil, Time Crisis, Area fuckin’ 51? I love that shit. One of the things that pisses me off is the fact that fuckin’ HDTV’s aren’t compatible with the older fucking lightguns. I own them all and I can’t fucking play them on my main TV.

Thank fucking god for the Wii. I may not entirely be down with how awkward the fucking controller is sometimes, but as a lightgun the Wii controller is fan-fuckin-tastic. As long as you buy the Perfect Shot.

Seriously, buy the fucking Perfect Shot. It is ten times better than that Wii Zapper shit. The Zapper is great if you want to fuck around with something that’s shaped like a crossbow, but who the fuck wants to dick around with a crossbow? Save that shit for those assholes that dress up like the fucking Knights of the Round Table.

House of the Dead: Overkill is a different direction for the series, and as much as I love those fucking games, can I be the first to say that it is about fucking time? Overkill is the first HotD title that has been released directly to the home console. Part four still hasn’t been released to a console, but that’s okay because it fucking sucked. Overkill doesn’t suck.

One of the first things you’ll notice after turning the game on is the visual style that HOTD was going for. They went fucking Grindhouse with this shit. Taking more than just a little fucking inspiration from the movie Planet Terror the fucking game completely revolves around the goddamn grindhouse style. This includes a fucking grainy film filter, audio pops and crackles, intentionally missing frames, lots of fucking swearing, and a ton of fucking gore.

Right from the time you turn this shit on you can play through either the story mode or through some fucking mini-games. The story mode features Agent G from the other fucking games and that motherfucker Isaac Washington, a new character to the series. Starting from the time that G was a motherfucking rookie handling his first fucking case Agent G and Detective fucking Washington respond to a mutant attack and are trying to get the bad motherfucker that is behind it all, Papa fucking Caesar. I don’t want to give too much shit away, except to say that at least for this motherfucker, the story was fucking gold. I loved every minute of this shit. The story is told through seven 20 minute long episodes, enough time to rest your fucking hands before the next fucking chapter.

The entire story holds true to the grindhouse theme that exists in the game. It’s fucking awesome. The worst fucking thing you can say about it is the fact that there’s a lot of fucking swearing during the whole fucking game thanks to Detective Washington, but if you feel that way then you should probably just fuck off you fucking crib-fuck. Plus if you don’t like that much swearing you’ve already probably stopped reading. Fuck you.

After you beat the fucking story mode there’s a Director’s Cut mode that gets unlocked, allowing you to play through the whole fucking game again, only this time with more fucking mutants and some additional fucking set pieces. The worst thing you can say about the story of the fucking game is the fact that unlike the other fucking games in the House of the Dead series, there’s no fucking alternate paths to play through. Then again this game is more than twice as long as any other fucking House of the Dead game, so who the fuck cares?

The whole story mode of the game lasts about 4 fucking hours. Which is a lot compared to other lightgun games, with the exception of Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles. Then after the story mode you can play through the Director’s Cut, and after the Director’s Cut you can play through fucking Dual Mode. Then there’s three minigames to play, Stayin Alive, Money Shot II and Victim Support. Money Shot II is just another fucking target shooting game where you compete with other players for points. Stayin Alive is a survival style mode where you just try to stay the fuck alive for as long as fucking possible; only the catch is that you are trying to outscore the other fucks you are playing against and you all share the same fucking lifebar, plus you are on a fucking time limit. Victim Support is just trying to save some innocent fucking bystanders.

That’s a lot of fucking content for a lightgun game.

The story is fucking great with the two main characters and the introduction of character Varla Guns who has big fucking tits. She’s either a stripper or a go-go dancer; the game never fucking really gives much of a damn about explaining her background.

Graphically, this is one of the better-looking titles on the Wii that isn’t some fucking cartoon looking shit. In fact there is so much going on during the game that between the amount of enemies, the fucking grain filter, and other fucking effects the game does sometimes slow the fuck down. This isn’t too bad of a problem in the single player, but if you get some fucker you know to play the game with you then some levels stutter like a scratched CD. This is probably one of the biggest problems of the game, and either the Wii just can’t handle this shit, or the game needed to be better optimized. Who the fuck knows?

One thing is for sure though, the “Ëœmutants’ will be attacking so quickly and so fucking often that you will not even have time to say, “They’re coming to get you Barbara.” before seven fucks run at you. This game is a fucking reflex twitch fest. Every second is filled with guns blazing and different fucking limbs being blown off of these mutants. Hell must be full because these fuckers are everywhere.

(They’re not zombies, you can’t say the Zed word)

While the game might not be the smoothest in the graphics department, when it comes to the soundtrack I can easily say that this game has the best and most fitting soundtrack out of any other fucking game this year. The songs on this fucker are some of the best you’ll hear out of any video game, ever. I want a soundtrack of this shit, right fucking now.

The voice acting isn’t the best, but if you’ve ever played another House of the Dead game or watched a grindhouse movie than you will fucking know that the voice acting is intentionally this way. That said, whoever the fuck voices Isaac Washington deserves a fucking award for how they portrayed the character, which is essentially an even more over the fucking top version of Samuel L. Jackson. The chick behind the voice work for Varla Guns should be ashamed though, while Washington sounds pissed through the whole fucking game, Guns sounds bored out of her fucking mind. Considering the characters motivation she shouldn’t sound so fucking bored.

This also happens to be one of the fucking Wii games where I don’t have to bitch about a problem with the controls. As I said, for the love of anything holy buy a fucking Perfect Shot to play with this game, but even if you don’t it should play just fine. The game play is pretty much just point and press the B button. For lightgun game fans all you need to do to reload is to flick your gun up. Or you can shake the fucker. Or you can just keep shooting and it will auto reload. The game features an ability to look around the surroundings by pointing the Wii controller around the edges of the screen, but that shit just fucks me up and it kept making me reload during times I didn’t fucking want to reload.

Reloading is an issue here since if you are reloading, you can’t interrupt the reload animation. So if you choose to reload and a mutant comes at you, you’re fucked. In fact I guaran-fucking-tee that for most people that is how they end up losing health in this fucking game. There’s no real way around this and it sort of sucks, but that’s the trade off for having a fast paced shooter.

Even if you get killed it’s no big fucking deal. In the main mode, the Story Mode, there’s infinite continues. Then again the developers did some smart shit by making it so that if you do continue, you lose half of your fucking score up until that point. That shit is rough when you get 100,000+ and then you lose half. This strikes a balance that allows the more casual players to play the game. But fuck them; it’s all about the Director’s Cut. More mutants and longer set pieces, it’s awesome. Plus you only get three continues. This is like unlocking a harder mode for those fuckers who think that the regular mode is too fucking easy.

On top of all that is a fucking combo system that let’s you get additional points for killing mutants. Headshots are the best way to build this fucker up, and strangely enough it goes from Extreme Violence to Goregasm, and with the Goregasm the combo meter gets replaced by the American Flag. Don’t fucking ask me why. The biggest problem with this system is that it kills the use of awesome weapons like the Assault Rifle and the SMG. There’s just no fucking way to keep a combo using these weapons due to the fire rate.

Another fucking great addition to this motherfucker is an achievement-type system that unlocks art and other shit when you meet certain criteria in the fucking game. Like holding your fucking controller gangsta style and killing 50 fucking mutants. Sure, you look like a dumb fuck by playing it that way but you unlock some 3D concept art. This kind of shit gives people more of a reason to go back and play the fucking game, and while you don’t get points for a gamerscore like on one of the other fucking systems out there, you do unlock a bunch of cool shit instead.

Bottom line, here is a fucking lightgun game that brings M-rated content to the Wii. The grindhouse direction is fucking genius and works for keeping some of the style of the previous House of the Dead games while still being unique. The varied levels, the weapon upgrades and the different modes make this one of the most replayable lightgun games out there and easily worth the money for anyone who likes shooting the undead, and if you have a problem shooting the undead, then fuck you.

The Scores:
Game Modes/Story: Incredible
Graphics: Very Good
Sound: Classic
Control/Gameplay: Classic
Replayability: Very Good
Balance: Great
Originality: Very Good
Addictiveness: Great
Appeal: Very Good
Miscellaneous: Unparalleled

Final Score: Motherfucking Great Game

Short Attention Span Summary:
House of the Dead Overkill is a good motherfucking game. A street prostitute said she’d suck that guy’s dick. A crack whore said that she wants a chicken dinner.


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7 responses to “Review: House of the Dead: Overkill (Nintendo Wii)”

  1. Chuck Platt Avatar
    Chuck Platt

    Fuckin’ A!

  2. […] have no problems with profanity in my games. I thought Kane and Lynch was perfectly acceptable, and House of the Dead: Overkill is […]

  3. […] the Wii this year. It’s not a top tier 2009 release like Gold Gym’s Cardio Workout, HOTD: Overkill, OneChanbara or Overlord: Dark Legend, but it’s still a fun […]

  4. […] game graphics are some of the best I’ve seen as well. Although the game is nowhere as gory as House of the Dead: Overkill, it’s a better overall looking game than Sega’s recent light gun title. This is the […]

  5. […] Game of the Year Nominees: A Boy and His Blob (Publisher: Majesco, Developer: WayForward) The House of the Dead: Overkill (Publisher: Sega, Developer: Headstrong Games) Madworld (Publisher: Sega, Developer: Platinum […]

  6. GirlyGamer141 Avatar

    OMG I bought this game yesterday for ONLY 20bucks at a game store. I still haven’t cracked it open yet. I’m SOOOO excited. AWESOME REVIEW

  7. […] once, the grindhouse setting does not feel forced. House of the Dead: Overkill and Wet both tread the 42nd Street path, but came across as forced and put on. Maybe it is because […]

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