SlashGear Review - House Of The Dead 2 & 3

I'm truly amazed at just how much time I've spent playing my Wii lately. I mean, knew that I'd be into it, but it has been dominating most of my gaming time of late. I've picked up new game that I thought I'd share with you, thought you've probably experienced it elsewhere before. I'm talking about House of the Dead 2 &3.

Normally when I do a review I try to go as in-depth as possible, however, I'm making an exception here. The reason for this being that these two games have been out in arcades forever. Number 2 was also on the Dreamcast while 3 made an appearance on the original Xbox.

Little has changed about these games since they made their way to the consoles some time ago. With House of the Dead 2 you'll get to play through either Original or Arcade modes. You'll get a much longer and in-depth game if you choose to play in Original mode. Number 3 features Arcade mode, Time Attack and for those willing to unlock it, Extreme mode. Expect much tougher gameplay when you tackle this mode.

I won't bore you with many of the other details, though I will warn you that the dialog is actually far worse than you remember it. You can't really hold the Wii port accountable for this, as it's identical to the original games. The graphics are the same as well, though I will note that during particularly dense areas in House of the Dead 3 the screen would get a bit choppy. It didn't interfere much with gameplay, but it was there.

At the end of the day only one thing matters, and that's how it plays. Honestly the game played beautifully. It's just as much fun as I remember it in the arcades. It's particularly awesome because you can get different gun attachments for the Wii on the cheap, so getting one for a friend (or your other hand) isn't difficult.

I wouldn't actually recommend the Wii Zapper for this game. You don't use the Nunchuk at all, so there's no need to have it there. I'd go with a couple of smaller ones that are shaped more like pistols.

The game is reasonably priced at just $29 bucks. You can easily pick it up and a couple of controllers for what you'll pay for some other new titles. I give House of the Dead 2 & 3 four out of five gears.

[rating: 4]