House of the Dead: Overkill – Extended Cut is a PlayStation 3 port of the Wii game from 2009. Based around franchise hero Agent G’s first mission (and set in 1991, despite the aesthetic), House of the Dead: Overkill focuses on an outbreak of “mutants” (not zombies, in what I assume is a reference to George Romero’s refusal to use the word in his of the Dead films).
He then meets with the foul-mouthed Detective Isaac Washington who wants revenge on the villainous “Papa Caesar,” who killed his father and appears responsible for the mutagen. That said, while the game’s cutscenes are surprisingly lengthy, they’re devoted more to profane banter than telling a story. Even so, they provide more than enough encouragement to murder the undead.
Overkill isn’t exactly groundbreaking as a rail shooter, but there are a few things it does differently from the other games in the series. While House of the Dead has always been pretty violent, Overkill adds just a touch more gore. Enemies will lose arms, have their heads blown off, and occasionally simply explode. It works well in combination with the exploitation film aesthetic, and it’s a gruesome indicator of a well placed headshot.
You’re also given a variety of ways to turn mutants into a fine red mist. Whereas the original House of the Dead games limited you to a single gun, Overkill provides a variety of options, from pistols to miniguns. All of these are purchasable and upgradeable with cash that you find lying around and receive for completing levels. I generally stuck with the default pistol with a few upgrades, but I found that the other weapons were often more useful in boss fights and crowded rooms.
On the topic of boss fights, the bosses in Overkill are some of the most disgusting creatures I’ve ever seen in a game. Ranging from two circus freaks fused together to a corpulent, bile-spewing, boil-covered swamp things, it sometimes makes you wonder if the people at Headstrong Games who created them have some issues to work out . While these boss fights are generally pretty fun, they often feel too easy, falling into readable attack patterns that can be easily avoided the first time you see them. Even so, the spectacle and post-boss dialogue makes the overall experience rewarding.
All of this remains intact in the PlayStation 3 version, with the requisite HD improvements and extra content. However, outside of the improved visuals, the extras in the re-release aren’t exactly all that great.
The biggest addition is probably the two bonus chapters focusing on strippers Varla Guns and Candy Stryper. While Varla had a central (if unplayable) role in the original game, Candi is a completely new character. While mechanically, these levels don’t differ at all from the levels with Detective Washington and Agent G, they’re missing a certain spark.
Part of the fun of the original game was the interplay between Washington and G as the levels went by. Sure, the dialogue was profanity-ridden and cheesy, but it was done in a clever way. On top of that, you could see the two becoming friends as you progressed through the game. Sure, it was just like every buddy-cop movie ever (G’s the straight man, Washington’s the loose cannon), but it was done well, and the characters surpassed their clichés.
In contrast, Candy almost seems developmentally disabled. While Overkill is designed to offend, she comes across like she has the mind of a sexually precocious toddler. While she has a few lines that made me laugh (“Why is it that all of these doors seem to be opening automatically?”), her lack of intelligence makes the dialogue between her and Varla incredibly uninteresting. There’s no chemistry between these two, which made playing through the two extra stages a lot less interesting than the original seven. It’s a shame, too, because the rest of the game’s writing makes me think that they could have done more with an additional character, and Candy comes across as kind of a waste.
While it’s nice to have an HD version of House of the Dead: Overkill, and it’s still quite a bit of fun if you appreciate some grindhouse cinema, the extras didn’t quite have the same fun as the original game. Instead of feeling like a nice bonus for people who loved the original, their addition feels like an unnecessary diversion, like reincorporating deleted scenes into a well-paced movie.
Food for Thought:
1. While it works best with the Move controller (since it’s more like the Wii Remote), the game can be played on a Dualshock controller (using the right analog stick and R1, primarily).
2. The music that plays on the level select menu often contains snippets of dialogue, even from the ending. While it’s probably not a big deal to spoil a rail shooter, I thought it was interesting that this music would play randomly even before you had played the level the dialogue was from.
