The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return Review

[BenjaminHayden]

Here is my review of the Nintendo Wii game The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return. Since a new HotD game is coming out for the Wii in 2009, I thought I would try out the Wii port of the classic Dreamcast games The House of the Dead 2 & 3. Lets just say the word disappointment would be an understatement.

The game is a fare port of the arcade games. But there are two things that I do not like about it, one is that there are no save points in the games, you play thru both games up to the very last level and then when you die it's game over and you have to re-start all over again. You only get about 4 or 5 continues and about 3 to 4 live points witch can go quickly if you are shooting at 5 or 10 monsters at a time. The second thing I do not like is that the game does not have the first House of the Dead game on it, they have parts 2 & 3 of the games series on it, so they should have part 1 in the game as well. My thoughts are that if you buy the game for $29.99, then they should have both save points & the first HotD game in it. If you still want to buy the game anyways, I would just wait and get it when it's in the Bargain Bin at your local game store for $14.00 or less.

 

[Leodiensian]

As a review, its a bit brief. It's just three points and only one of them is actually to do with the game itself; the others are to do with the packaging and the price. A few more details about the game itself would be nice. For instance, you say its a fair (not fare) port of the Arcade games, so does that meant that the Wii is nicely adapted for it? That the graphics are nicely touched up? Does it do anything special on top of the basic games?

I do agree that they should have 1; it doesn't really make sense to have 2 and 3, but not 1.

As for your main complaint, about the continues... well, yeah, it's an arcade game. That's kind of the arcade experience. You may be able to fix it to give you infinte continues, if you want.

 

[Lukeje]

(a)each time you fail your mission, an extra continue gets added, to a max. of 9. Its possible to get infinite continues if you play all the training missions. There is also a non-arcade mode, which is significantly easier.
(b)HOTD 3 was never released on Dreamcast (it was on one of the XBoxes though).
(c)the reason HOTD1 isn't on it is the same reason that NiGHTs has never been rereleased, the original arcade conversion was onto the Sega Saturn, which is notoriously hard to emulate.

 

[NewClassic_v1legacy]

Here is my review of the Nintendo Wii game The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return[sup]1[/sup]. Since a new HotD game is coming out for the Wii in 2009, I thought I would try out the Wii port of the classic Dreamcast games The House of the Dead 2 &[sup]2[/sup] 3. Let's just say the word disappointment would be an understatement.

The game is a fair port of the arcade games. Although there are two things that I do not like about it. One is that there are no save points in the games, you play through both games up to the very last level, and then when you die it's game over and you have to re-start all over again[sup]3[/sup]. You only get about 4 or 5 continues and about 3 to 4 life points which can go quickly if you are shooting at 5 or 10 monsters at a time[sup]4[/sup]. The second thing I do not like is that the game does not have the first House of the Dead game on it, they have parts 2 &[sup]2[/sup] 3 of the games series on it, so they should have part 1 in the game as well. My thoughts are that if you buy the game for $29.99, then they should have both[sup]3[/sup] save points &[sup]2[/sup] the first HotD game in it. If you still want to buy the game anyways, I would just wait and get it when it's in the Bargain Bin at your local game store for $14.00 or less[sup]3[/sup].

Note: Check the superscript numbers and bolded points in my quote to see where these points apply. All bolded text is a correction for spelling or grammar.

1) This feels like it's just thrown in. Instead of saying "This is my review for," which we can probably figure out from the title of the review, instead explain a little about the game. "House of the Dead 2 and 3 are arcade light-gun shooters that have been ported to the Nintendo Wii using the Wii-Zapper peripheral, etc."

2) In a formal piece, which is most reviews here at the Escapist, "&" is not an acceptable substitute for "and." Don't cut corners in some places, but still pad your word count in others. It's inconsistent, removes any professional appeal your pieces have, and make me want to stop reading. More on this in a moment.

3) Redundant text. Most of it is just unnecessary additions to sentences that are already too long. Instead, flesh out those points, and make them a more prevalent point to be read and examined by the reader, instead of dragging sentences on for longer than they need to be. Flesh out your points before bringing any more up.

4) This makes no sense to someone who hasn't played the games, or someone's who's particularly good at them. Instead, it would make more sense to read "...if you are faced with too many monsters/zombies/enemies at the same time."

Outside of that, these are more personal and biased issues with the games than they should be. Given that they are ports from arcade titles, it makes sense that there wouldn't be save points, but instead a credit system like the Metal Slug Anthology, or any other arcade collection. Lukeje covered the reason HotD wasn't on there.

Also, you fail to talk about things that would be important to the reader. As a Wii owner and an arcade kid, I'd like to know:
- How does the Wii Zapper hold up to a traditional light-gun?
- Are the games suitably worth the price assuming you're a fan of the series? How about if you're not?
- Are there alternatives to arcade mode? Mini-games? Extra content?
- Graphically, is this game par with the arcades, better? Is it too much for the Wii, so it lags?
- Is the sound emulation par, or do things sound screwy?

All of these are important questions, and your "review" raises more of them than it answers. Your reviews are all short, and it strikes me as if they're afraid of depth. Don't be afraid to keep going with it. Talk about gameplay as a stand-alone, and gameplay as a port. How about sound? Graphics? Replay Value? Difficulty? Fun Factor?

Instead, you... don't really say anything, except that it's a better bargain bin buy then off-shelf, and summarize what might make it difficult. Go look at the other reviews on the site until you pick up the good and bad about reviewing. Which reviews made you want to play the games that were being reviewed? Why? Which didn't, and why not? Did you still have questions after a review is over? How can those be addressed?

Once you can answer all of those questions, then write another review that does answer all of the questions you had, instead of a quick blurb that says little while talking a lot.

Hope that helped some.

 

[curlycrouton]

ahhh I do adore those games. Especially no. 2.

Very brief? Very, very brief actually. Also, I wouldn't use abbreviated language in a review, like you're doing.