House of the Dead: Overkill

Bloody good fun

With the advent of current-gen consoles, the lightgun game has fallen on hard times. Their largely hackneyed brand of scripted, on-rails shooting gallery action appears to have turned off swathes of gamers who'd rather get their kicks popping headshots while maintaining full control over their character. It makes absolute sense that lightgun games belong in the arcade and shelling out for pricey peripherals in order to enjoy a brief spell of shooty fun in the comfort of your own home isn't doing the genre any favours. Time Crisis 4's PS3 bow attempted to blend FPS elements into the mix, but failed spectacularly. Suffice to say, the lightgun game is for all intents and purposes a dying genre. Don't believe us? Name one other lightgun game you've seen available on a home format since Time Crisis 4.

We can name two. Ghost Squad and The House of the Dead 2&3: Return are the only recent lightgun titles to make their way into people's homes, both on the Wii. Due to the Wii remote's inherent secondary use as a lightgun, the genre seems to be finding a home on Nintendo's little white box, as there're no extra peripherals - and therefore no extra cost - required. Nonetheless, the latest House of the Dead title has the odds seriously stacked against it due to its controversial approach and apparent incompatibility with the core Wii audience. The House of the Dead: Overkill is an unmistakably adult title, right down to the brilliantly stylised and lovingly homaged Grindhouse theme, the unapologetic swearing and OTT bloody violence - the game is raucously and unashamedly amoral. And it's all the better for it, dispensing with the usual hokey menagerie of mutants and po-faced storytelling the franchise is famous for. HotD: Overkill is refreshingly straightforward in its approach to simply entertain and provide instant gratification. Gone are the branching paths, ostentatious Gothic castles and overblown boss characters of old. House of the Dead: Overkill goes back to brass tacks, bringing unsubtle, bombastic, blood-drenched (light)gunplay to the Wii. Even the original soundtrack is fantastically offensive, rounding out a package that has clearly had a great deal of care and attention to detail lavished upon it.

Opening with a distinctly Tarantino-esque live-action cut scene of a busty stripper twirling around a pole, it's immediately apparent that this certainly isn't a game for the younglings. It is however exactly the kind of game that the under-represented Wii hardcore have been screaming out for - a game full of blood, gore, scantily clad ladies, sexploitation and colourful language. Lots of colourful language. Overkill is deliriously tongue-in-cheek, following more of the traditional conventions than Tarantino or Rodriguez did in either of their Grindhouse films. Badly dubbed dialogue, scratched and overexposed celluloid filters, continuity errors and plenty of dodgy one-liners are all present and correct combining to make HotD one of the guiltiest pleasures you're ever likely to play. That it's found a home on the Wii of all consoles is nothing short of a miracle and an incredibly welcome one at that.

With a great tradition of ridiculous boss characters, Overkill does a fantastic job carrying the torch for the franchise. This time round the bosses seem comparatively restrained but no less barking mad. Take Jasper for instance, the first boss you meet, a wheelchair bound Harry Potter look-alike who transforms into a levitating monster-brained mutant inspired by Vic Reeves' spoof of Lloyd Grossman in MasterChef (according to Headstrong producer Neil McEwan). In true HotD fashion, each boss has their very own weak spot for you to concentrate your bullets on, highlighted by a big red ring if you're too stupid to know where to aim. It's classic handholding and a remnant from the old HotD games, but then it's never a real problem - just a tad annoying.

Things get progressively more manic as the game unfolds with hideous clown zombies (sorry, mutants) sporting exposed brains and fast moving 28 Days Later-style enemies encourage a change in tactics later on. Enemies can be mutilated in various ways with shots to arms and legs causing the targeted limb to fly off in a shower of claret. The action comes thick and fast with a good variety of fittingly themed mutants arriving on screen ready to receive your consignment of hot lead. If however you don't feel that things are quite frantic or challenging enough, you can always activate the 'More Mutants' button on the level selection screen to up the ante. Generally things are fairly busy as it is and attempting to garner an elusive 'goregasm' score multiplier by successfully chaining together accurate shots without missing or getting hit certainly makes things tougher. There're plenty of weapons to unlock that will help rack up some huge scores and have you reaching goregasm in no time. Points are also given extra value, as they're the currency required to unlock items as well as providing the ability to continue if you die. Continuing will callously cost you half of your score so there's a real emphasis on staying alive if you want to achieve the highest score possible. There are hidden collectibles and power-ups to look out for such as 'golden brains' and 'slo-mo-fo' pick ups that briefly slow down time so you can appreciate cranium-shattering headshots in all their glory.

If you're playing the game simply to finish it then it's entirely possible to ace the story mode within the four to five hour mark on the first playthrough. There's plenty of replay value on offer if you find yourself hungry for more mutant capping antics and once you finish the game you'll unlock alternate 'Director's Cut' versions of each stage, which are slightly longer and allow only three continues to make things harder still. Headstrong have obviously made sure that their game has real longevity beyond the main story mode, which is to be applauded.

The core shooting mechanic itself works well enough that you'll play this to death anyway, although whether you get the gloriously gratuitous Grindhouse exploitation stylings will be a deciding factor in putting you off completely or causing you to fall in love with the game (a Swedish games magazine gave the game 3/10 due to the offensive lyrics in one of the songs - they obviously didn't get the joke). We find ourselves firmly in the latter category and thoroughly enjoyed the copious swears and wanton violence. Still, it's not perfect and there's no concealing the fact that sometimes the frame rate tends to falter and the crosshair (which can be toggled on or off) can seem a little sticky, especially in two-player mode. Speaking of which, it can also be a little difficult to see which reticule is which when playing alongside a friend with a blue or red trail the only indicator of where you're aiming. Having entirely red and blue reticules would have made far more sense and made things much clearer.

These are tiny niggles in an otherwise well put together game that is utterly devoid of any pretence as to what it sets out to deliver; and it delivers in spades. If you're a Wii owner fast growing weary of the glut of casual and cutesy games, do the decent thing and buy this. If you're even willing to go the extra mile, why not treat yourself to a pair of HotD Hand Cannon Wiimote holders while you're at it? A hulking great slab of gun-shaped white plastic that makes you feel like Dirty Harry beats playing with a standard remote any day. Big Ben's Hand Cannon add-on made especially for HotD may be a little heavy, but it's by far the most meaty and downright satisfying gun peripheral you can buy for the Wii and will have you striking your most macho pose in front of the telly.

It's a little rough around the edges in places, but Overkill has a barefaced charm and mischievous sense of fun that makes it impossible not to love. It's uncomplicated, old school entertainment. Just make sure you leave your sense of decency at the door when you enter this House of the Dead.

80%

By Richard Walker