The House of the Dead Remake? RELOAD!
Forever Entertainment really knocked em’ dead with these new visuals
Story
The House of the Dead Remake is fun, but can be played through in a half hour. Thomas Rogan and Agent G receive a distress call and set out to investigate Dr. Curien’s mansion. It turns out that Dr. Curien has released a horde of biologically engineered creatures who threaten the lives of the scientists that work there (one of them being Rogan’s wife, Sophie) and who will soon threaten all of humanity.
Depending on the choices the player makes and the score that they get, the story can play out in a number of different ways.
The game uses this photograph to show the player, after each stage, which scientist they’ve saved and which they lost
Accessibility, Replayability, and Options
The House of the Dead is short, but it impresses with the array of options that keep each playthrough unique.
On top of the plot’s branching narrative, the gameplay provides dozens of different permutations to help give the player variety. Players can use their pro or joy-con controller to play through the game with the stick or the gyroscope. Alternatively, players can choose to play with a single joy con (though, inexplicably, you have to explicitly go into the options menu to enable this setting).
The game can be played on a variety of difficulties, with classic or modern scoring, alone or with a partner. Additionally, players can mix any of these settings with horde mode, which boasts up to 15 times the creatures.
A few examples of the different options are shown above
Gameplay
The game ran well for the majority of my time with it, but it did crash on me twice.
The plethora of options can be overwhelming at times, but I encourage anyone who plays this game to try them all out. I played through the campaign with a few friends and everyone had slightly different opinions on what they thought felt best.
Personally, I thought that using the joysticks to control aiming was too easy and didn’t feel authentic. Using the gyro on the pro controller was better, but still felt a little weird. My girlfriend and I both agreed that our favorite way to play was cooperatively and with single joy cons. It felt the closest to the arcade experience…and we’re no strangers to our local arcade’s The House of the Dead cabinet.
Play alone or with a partner
At the end of the day, however, nothing will replace the use an actual light gun. There just isn’t a way to emulate the feeling of aiming directly at a screen, landing shots with pinpoint accuracy, and pointing off-screen to reload. On the Switch, the reticles drift when using gyro and so the player has to continuously hit the re-center button.
The game has a gallery mode that lets players explore full 3D models of any of the creatures
Sound
The music in this game is excellent and helps to add to the adrenaline while playing. The voice acting and sound effects are passable, but one thing that I couldn’t stand was the constant yelling of “RELOAD!”
The standard gun has 6 bullets and the characters yell reload every single time it runs out. Every. Single. Time. Playing through the 30 minute campaign in multiplayer resulted in hundreds of “RELOAD!” If I play through it again, I may have to mute the television.
RELOAD!
Thanks to Forever Entertainment for the review code! Please visit the Nintendo eShop to purchase the game.
