So the other day I was browsing the PSN store to see if there was anything interesting. I found House of the Dead 4, which I had no idea anyone was even making. Since it was cheap, and I enjoyed playing HoD3 in the arcade, I figured why the hell not, so I bought it.
Honestly, I'm not even sure where to start with this game, because if you go in expecting an on-rails shooter where you kill a whole bunch of zombies, then you know what you're going to get. The thing is, I understand what was going on in this game even less than the others in the series that I've played.
In House of the Dead 3, for example, it was pretty straight-forward. You're going into a defunct facility that was owned by the guy who created the zombies to get back one of your team-mates who was on a mission there and lost contact with the base. Easy to understand; nothing complicated.
House of the Dead 4 starts with a little video of the two main characters trapped in a room in some underground facility, which they then have to escape from, in the process discovering that the whole place has been overrun by hundreds of zombies. Then there's immediately a flash-back to "Several Days Earlier" which consists of them taking the elevator into the facility, and walking into the room they were trapped in before some kind of earthquake hits.
I have a serious issue with this. The implication of the flashback is that they were trapped in this single room for SEVERAL DAYS without food or water (much less knowledge of the outside world), but somehow managed to find an entire BAG-FULL of Uzis, and aren't weakened by the lack of sustenance in the slightest. Being starved for a week or so doesn't exactly put you into the running for "zombie-slayer of the year."
Trying to explain some of this stuff really makes me wish I had a way to record the video from my consoles. I know those sort of things exist, but I don't have one (yet), so the most I can do is describe to you the stupidity of the dialogue. I wish I'd written some of it down, because it really makes for some of the worst translation work I've seen come out of Japan in years.
I mean, yeah, in the old games the corniness of the dialogue was part of the charm, but this game takes it too far. I couldn't even follow most of the conversations, let alone try to convey their meaning to you. The most I could get was that one of the characters kept saying "This is exactly what happened three years ago!" which confused the hell out of me, because I thought he was talking about the events of HoD3 at first, but he wasn't. Now I'm fairly sure he was talking about the original HoD, but I never played that one, so I'm not certain.
The ending of the game kind of backed up the idea that the guy was talking about one of the earlier games, because after the "Game Over" screen, it tells you that the story is continued in House of the Dead 3, which was a total mindfuck after playing through the whole game. If there was anything I didn't see coming, it was that this was a prequel to HoD3. There wasn't enough of a time frame presented to really establish that, at least, not through what little of the dialogue made sense.
Now for the gameplay. There's not really a lot to say about it, because one on-rails shooter plays pretty much like any other on-rails shooter. The House of the Dead series hasn't ever seemed like an innovator in gameplay, and this entry is no exception. However, I will say that I didn't like their choice of weapon in this game. The Uzis felt too hard to aim properly, since automatic weapons produce too much of a "spray-n-pray" kind of feeling, which isn't really what you want when you could be grabbed by a zombie any second. I liked the shotguns from HoD3 much more, since it felt like you were more in control of the weapon.
Really, if you like the old school on-rails shooters you're going to enjoy playing House of the Dead 4. It gets the gameplay right, since there's little to get wrong, but if you (for some reason) are looking to immerse yourself in the storyline of these games, you won't find much here. I'm still not sure what the hell happened.
Honestly, I'm not even sure where to start with this game, because if you go in expecting an on-rails shooter where you kill a whole bunch of zombies, then you know what you're going to get. The thing is, I understand what was going on in this game even less than the others in the series that I've played.
In House of the Dead 3, for example, it was pretty straight-forward. You're going into a defunct facility that was owned by the guy who created the zombies to get back one of your team-mates who was on a mission there and lost contact with the base. Easy to understand; nothing complicated.
House of the Dead 4 starts with a little video of the two main characters trapped in a room in some underground facility, which they then have to escape from, in the process discovering that the whole place has been overrun by hundreds of zombies. Then there's immediately a flash-back to "Several Days Earlier" which consists of them taking the elevator into the facility, and walking into the room they were trapped in before some kind of earthquake hits.
I have a serious issue with this. The implication of the flashback is that they were trapped in this single room for SEVERAL DAYS without food or water (much less knowledge of the outside world), but somehow managed to find an entire BAG-FULL of Uzis, and aren't weakened by the lack of sustenance in the slightest. Being starved for a week or so doesn't exactly put you into the running for "zombie-slayer of the year."
Trying to explain some of this stuff really makes me wish I had a way to record the video from my consoles. I know those sort of things exist, but I don't have one (yet), so the most I can do is describe to you the stupidity of the dialogue. I wish I'd written some of it down, because it really makes for some of the worst translation work I've seen come out of Japan in years.
I mean, yeah, in the old games the corniness of the dialogue was part of the charm, but this game takes it too far. I couldn't even follow most of the conversations, let alone try to convey their meaning to you. The most I could get was that one of the characters kept saying "This is exactly what happened three years ago!" which confused the hell out of me, because I thought he was talking about the events of HoD3 at first, but he wasn't. Now I'm fairly sure he was talking about the original HoD, but I never played that one, so I'm not certain.
The ending of the game kind of backed up the idea that the guy was talking about one of the earlier games, because after the "Game Over" screen, it tells you that the story is continued in House of the Dead 3, which was a total mindfuck after playing through the whole game. If there was anything I didn't see coming, it was that this was a prequel to HoD3. There wasn't enough of a time frame presented to really establish that, at least, not through what little of the dialogue made sense.
Now for the gameplay. There's not really a lot to say about it, because one on-rails shooter plays pretty much like any other on-rails shooter. The House of the Dead series hasn't ever seemed like an innovator in gameplay, and this entry is no exception. However, I will say that I didn't like their choice of weapon in this game. The Uzis felt too hard to aim properly, since automatic weapons produce too much of a "spray-n-pray" kind of feeling, which isn't really what you want when you could be grabbed by a zombie any second. I liked the shotguns from HoD3 much more, since it felt like you were more in control of the weapon.
Really, if you like the old school on-rails shooters you're going to enjoy playing House of the Dead 4. It gets the gameplay right, since there's little to get wrong, but if you (for some reason) are looking to immerse yourself in the storyline of these games, you won't find much here. I'm still not sure what the hell happened.
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