This game is pretty much just a short and easy dose of fun
When the Wii console and its controller the Wii Remote was revealed, it seemed like it was fit just for on-rails light gun shooters so it's no surprise that Sega has already released a game in the series on the Wii called The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return. It was pretty much just a straight re-release of the arcade games except it was on the Wii but the way they pulled off the controls was very well done. After realizing that it actually worked kind of well, they wasted no time in having Headstrong Games develop an original title for the series on the Wii now known as The House of the Dead: Overkill.
You play as Special Agent G or his partner Isaac Washington (if you're player 2) who are after a criminal known as Papa Caesar who is responsible for creating a huge horde of mutant zombies. You also meet up with Varla Guns, a stripper who assists you in certain points of the game. It's up to you to blast through hundreds of zombies to finally capture the man who is responsible for these zombie outbreaks and make him suffer the punishment he deserves.
It's a very simple and straightforward story, but honestly, it's not like people buy The House of the Dead games for their storytelling (if you do then you need to go read a book or watch a movie). The series is famed for its straightforward gameplay which involves shooting all the mutants that one can see and that's exactly what happens for the majority of this game. It has a bit more depth than the arcade games such as being able to buy and choose from a variety of weapons and upgrading them but it's still undeniably simple. The end of each stage also has a boss that must be defeated by shooting their weak point.
If this is all sounding a bit too simple and easy, that's just how the game is. This game is ridiculously easy for the most part, especially if you have a 2nd player with you. The bosses' weak spots are also very visible and are pointed out to you right at the beginning which makes them easy affairs. A "Director's Cut" version of the storyline also becomes available after finishing the main story ones which increases the enemy count, includes more areas, and makes the zombies a bit more difficult but it's still very easy. Overkill is not the game to get if you're looking for a challenge but the game is still a lot of fun nonetheless.
Graphics are one of the reasons why fans of the series were looking forward to this game in the first place. It was claimed to have a unique grindhouse movie style and it succeeds in this aspect. The screen occasionally has grainy filters appearing over it, there's a huge amount of blood and gore, and the game looks appropriately dark. There can also be a lot of enemies on the screen at once which is impressive. Unfortunately this comes at a cost as the game will occasionally have a framerate drop and slow down considerably which doesn't dampen the game experience too much but can be annoying when it happens. There was even one point in the game when I was playing in which it glitches and a zombie got stuck behind a box resulting in me being unable to shoot it. The graphics are good, but they bring up a variety of technical issues.
While I had some mixed reactions regarding the other parts of the game, the audio is one aspect of Overkill in which I did not really have anything to complain about. The music sounds fitting and the sound effects all fit. One factor of the audio that really shines though is the voice acting. This game is riddled with so many stereotypes and swearing and the voice actors pull it off very well to the point where the cutscenes in-between stages become hilarious, especially with the dialogue that the game has. The only real problem I can see is that some people might not like the huge amounts of swearing (which is purposely overdone in this game).
In the end, The House of the Dead: Overkill is a good game. It's nothing special, but far from being worthless and boring. It's quite short but there's no doubt that it's a lot of fun. It also has its own unique graphical style and the dialogue is hilarious enough to ensure that you have a good time. Is the game a must-have? No, but it still gets my recommendation and I would recommend buying it for a cheap price.