Fans of gory action will likely get a kick out of The House of the Dead: Overkill.
House of the Dead: Overkill is very easy to jump into. All you'll need is the Wii remote; pointing it at the screen will adjust your aim and you'll occasionally need to shake the remote to shove an enemy that has grabbed you. The default aiming sensitivity is fine but you can adjust it in the options menu if you wish. What's unfortunate is that you can't re-map any of the button controls; for example, pressing the '1' button will switch your weapon but it's really awkward to have to reach so far down the controller for such a simple action.
The gameplay is just as simple as the controls. All you'll need to do is shoot enemies that are running/walking/limping/flying towards you. You'll get to use weapons like a magnum, shotgun, submachine gun and assault rifle on your journey. Because of the fact that you only need the Wii remote to play, this leaves your character's movements out of your hands. On-rails movement can best be described as riding a roller coaster. Your path is the same every time.
Mutants are the game's most common enemy and they come in a disappointing amount of different forms. There simply isn't enough variety to them. Many times there will be groups of mutants where there'll be three [or more] of them with the exact same character model. Seeing five identical nurses walking towards you make the experience feel a bit artificial. There are a few cases where you'll see mutants that are exclusive to a level but for the most part it's the same stuff that you're shooting over and over again. You'll see clowns in the carnival stage, nurses in the hospital stage and birds in the mansion stage.
You'll be shooting these mutants through seven stages that are quite different in terms of the way they feel and look. You play as a cop named Agent G and you'll have the misfortune of being alongside a guy named Isaac Washington in your quest to track down an evil scientist named Papa Caesar. You'll also meet a woman named Varla who doesn't really have a purpose other than to show off her huge breasts popping out of her top. Varla is unlikable in every way-- she's very much the stereotypical female video game character.
The game takes many attempts at humor in its cutscenes with mixed results. Isaac Washington's lines appear to have been thought up by a parrot that just learned how to say the f word. There are some genuinely funny parts in the later portion of the game but going into detail would ruin it.
The cutscenes and environments all look pretty. The gore and death animations clearly steal the show in terms of eye candy, though. Dismemberments happen all the time and they result in a marvelous display of blood and severed body parts. Some of the gore is exaggerated such as a body exploding as you shoot it at close range with a shotgun. It doesn't make sense for a mutant's arms to fall off if you shoot it in the head but it sure as hell looks great. The exaggerated gore brought many laughs and big grins to my face. Those grins faded away at times, though-- you can blame the frame-rate for that. There are many noticeable frame rate drops throughout the experience but the game always runs at a playable speed.
The sound in House of the Dead: Overkill is kind of all over the place. The developers didn't record their own sound effects. I noticed some sound effects that are recycled from Youtube videos or other games. In total there are two reloading sounds, one punching sound, one slashing sound, a monster's roar and the magnum's shooting sound that I recognized from the sources I mentioned. This might've been acceptable if Overkill was an indie game but for a whole development studio to do something that lazy is inexcusable.
The game has a funk themed soundtrack that works very well with it's theme of not taking itself seriously. There are plenty of catchy bass lines and funny lyrics to compliment the menus and the actual gameplay. 'One night in bayou' is an especially great song that had me laughing out loud several times.
It'll take about four hours to make it through the story mode in House of the Dead: Overkill. You'll unlock director's cut mode which will have you playing the same levels but with different paths to take. It's good enough to warrant a second play-through but it would've been better if the developers had put in brand new levels rather than just using the old ones. There's no online functionality of any kind but there are three mini games that you can play with up to three others. The one that has you rescuing hostages is cool but the other two are just glorified target practice.
House of the Dead overkill is a game that has a negative thing for every positive thing about it. The shooting is satisfying and the humor has its moments but that's brought down by the short story and lack of online functionality. Playing this game is a solid way to spend a weekend but it doesn't have enough legs to push it above the rental status. I can't consider it that good of a game because there's so much clear cut room for improvement. It's simply too short and too flawed to make a recommendable purchase. Thanks for reading.