HOTD: Overkill does what it sets out to do, and does it refreshingly well.
House of the Dead: Overkill is a neat little game that sets out what it aims to do, and does it with some new, refreshing ideas that truly makes the game feel inspired. But, Overkill does more than that. It completely grabs the House of the Dead series by the neck, and adds a wonderfully creepy atmopshere, and brings back the relevance to gamers, that the HOTD series really needed.
The storyline of House of the Dead Overkill is set before the events of the first House of the Dead game. The series' usual protagnist: G is given his first assignment, and sent down to a small town in Louisana to investiage a series of dissaperances and hunt down the crime lord known as Papa Ceaser. G then teams up with Dectective Issac Washington in order to save Louisanna from zombie threat. Overkill's story plays pretty much like a classic B 1970s horror movie. The dialouge is predictable, constant streams of cheesy toilet humor and expected groans and screams, and a fairly typical bad-buddy cop story with G and Isaac Washington. However, like a 1970s B horror film, Overkill adds enough over-the-top scenarios and authentic characters to make you engaged into the narrative. Gone are the droning characters of the classic titles, and here is a more real G, that's balanced with enough seriousness and humor to make him a affable and likeable young lead. Overkill does just enough to make you feel in a real zombie crisis, so it's well done enough for the gamer to invest in.
The gameplay of Overkill is the joyous case of mixing the old with the new. Overkill still retains the pacy and over-the-top haunted villiage feel of the orginial classics. New to the game is the combo meter. The number of percise head-shots, shooting bonus pick ups (like in the classics), and more to give you more points. When you die, the amount of points you have in your combo meter will allow you to play for a more sizeable time period. Overkill combines the original ideas of head-shots, shooting pick-ups and more, with a new idea that instantly makes Overkill both nastolgic and fresh. It's certainly a marked improvement over the awkward credit system using in HOTD 2&3 Return for the Wii. The Slow-Mo-Fo picks up can slow down the game to kill more zombies. These ideas in Overkill reach a blanaced difficulty setting that both is welcoming for the newcomers, and for the veterans, its own unique challenge.
Graphically, Overkill is wonderfully over the top and manages to capture the typical impression of a haunted playground bueatifully. The hilarious, yet subtly haunting 1970s ghost songs used in the background makes Overkill feel playful like the orginials, and uniquely scary.
Overkill isn't without flaws. The toilet humor, whilst mostly funny, feels like a forced attempt to make gamers feel like a classic HOTD experience, when really sometimes it serves as no other purpose but novelty. Overkill's soundtrack, whilst great, tries too hard to spoof a old 1970s horror film, and comes off as a little farcial.
Regardless, if you're a HOTD fan, waiting for the series' revival, this game hits all the marks. Overkill brings new life into this stagnating series, and has done it a world of good. If Sega could only do the same for it's beloved blue hedgehog and some other franchises, it would be even more impressive, but HOTD is back, and back with a bang. That's more than good enough for me.