With so much competition in arcade shooters, HOTD 4 is a shameful step backwards for the both the genre and series.
The House Of The Dead (HOTD) light-gun shooters were always a tentative affair when fiddling with the tokens in my pocket. While the first 3 sported great graphics for their time with a bunch of fun and great zombie shooting action, there were always a few things a little off. The voice acting and dialogue in general has always been terrible, a fitting conduit for a sub-standard plot about zombies and giant evil companies (sound familiar?); and while replaying HOTD games can be unsatisfying after a while, the raw game was always a lot of fun with great graphics, gore and some nice level design.
Now we're up to the 4th chapter and our 4th chance to cram some coins in an exceedingly competitive market of arcade shooting games. It's a damn shame then that with a rise in shooting popularity, HOTD 4 seems to take things a few generations back and it sure shows.
The first thing you'll notice when fronting a HOTD 4 cabinet (aside from a beefy widescreen LCD monitor) is the new weapon, a short and stocky Uzi-like sub-machine gun seemingly designed to negate any attempts at true aiming and any concept of the term "accuracy". A gun with a clip larger than any arcade-goers pockets coupled with a strange system of 'shake to reload' epitomizes the drawbacks of arcade-themed shooting when you spray a hefty ammo supply everywhere whilst wildly shaking an uzi to reload. The Uzi having a short barrel and general square-like proportions makes any feel of actually aiming well redundant.
In fact many features of HOTD 4 really just feel like we've gone several generations back while keeping the padded crap HOTD is well-known for. For example, a zombie in the middle of an action such as climbing out of a wall, door or floor will render it undamagable. You can shoot all you like - there's no reason not to, you have so much ammo but it will be all in the name of zombie science. While you empty bullets that visibly hit your target, it will not damage at all until the zombie has finished his action of climbing and returns to an approaching stance.
While shaking an Uzi to reload is a painful and idiotic gameplay device, it just gets worse when in close proximity of an enemy as shaking is also used to push back enemies. At the end of it all I found myself shaking Uzi's more than I was actually attempting to aim. If you're the slower, strategic shooter who likes their eye near a gun sight, watch out - you could end up reloading yourself a black eye.
While all the bad sides of HOTD 4 tempt me into trying the "coin on a string" trick or beating up a smaller child for his tokens to get through the garbage, there are some great boss battles in there. Despite atrocious voicing throughout the game, some great action scenes and moods are set via effective direction and interactive progression.
All the cool-looking zombies we love to shoot are in there, with some new monsters and bosses. One thing HOTD 4 can boast about is the nice variety of well-developed zombies and grotesque monsters throughout the gritty decaying architecture contrasting the cleaner science lab settings, creating a diverse and well presented journey.
If only I didn't look like a dickhead spraying Uzi ammo everywhere and shaking his stocky gun frantically about while being yelled at in dialogue my 8 year old sister could have recorded, HOTD 4 could create an immersive experience. If the noise from the DDR machine doesn't overpower.
House Of The Dead 4
60%
The Good -
* Lots of great looking zombies.
* Epic boss battles and action scenes with great direction.
* The big widescreen LCD is an impressive sight in an arcade.
The Bad -
* Terrible gun with atrocious reloading system.
* Voice acting to make you cringe.
* Sporadic bursts of poor mechanics.