The House of the Dead (video game)

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The House of the Dead
Xbox Series X/S
  • PlayStation 5
    • ReleaseHouse of the Dead
    September 13, 1996
    • Arcade
      • JP: September 13, 1996
      • WW: March 4, 1997
      Saturn
      Windows
      Mobile phone
    Remake
    April 7, 2022
    • Nintendo Switch
      • WW: April 7, 2022
      PS4, Stadia, Windows, Xbox One
      • WW: April 27, 2022
      Xbox Series X/S
      • WW: September 23, 2022
      PlayStation 5
      • WW: January 20, 2023
    Sega Model 2[5]

    The House of the Dead

    light gun shooter arcade game developed by Sega AM1 and released by Sega. It is the first game in the House of the Dead series. Players assume the role of agents Thomas Rogan and "G" as they combat an army of undead experiments created by Dr. Curien, a mad scientist
    .

    The game was developed for over a year on the

    Sega Model 2
    arcade hardware. Targeting an adult audience, AM1 devised a story and atmosphere inspired by Western horror films. AM1's plans for detailed environments, non-linear level designs, and a gory aesthetic were challenged – and often limited – by the Model 2 hardware and other factors.

    The House of the Dead was well-received by critics. It has been, along with Resident Evil, credited with popularising zombie video games, as well as re-popularising zombies in wider popular culture from the late 1990s onwards, leading to renewed interest in zombie films during the 2000s. The game has also been credited with introducing fast running zombies, which became popular in zombie films and video games during the 2000s.

    A

    Xbox Series X/S in September 2022, and for PlayStation 5
    in January 2023.

    Gameplay

    Gameplay from the first chapter, as the player approaches the house

    The House of the Dead is a

    First-aid packs are available throughout the game which restore one point of health; some can be obtained from rescued hostages
    , while others are hidden inside certain breakable objects. Special items can be found within other breakables, granting a bonus to the player who shoots them. The player can earn additional health at the end of each level based on the number of hostages rescued.

    Throughout the course of the game, players are faced with numerous situations in which their action (or inaction) will have an effect on the direction of gameplay.[6] This is exemplified in the opening stage of the game when a hostage is about to be thrown from the bridge to his death. If the player saves the hostage, they will enter the house directly through the front door; however, if the player fails to rescue the hostage, the character is redirected to an underground route through the sewers.

    Players can score additional points by shooting enemies in the head, rescuing hostages and finding hidden items.[7]

    Plot

    The renowned biochemist and geneticist, Dr. Roy Curien, becomes obsessed with discovering the nature of life and death. While supported by the DBR Corporation and its own team of scientists, Curien's behavior becomes more erratic and his experiments take an inhumane and gruesome turn. The Curien Mansion, which serves as his home and laboratory, experiences an outbreak.

    On December 18, 1998, AMS Agent Thomas Rogan receives a distress call from his fiancée, Sophie Richards, from the Curien Mansion. Rogan and his partner, "G", fly to Europe and arrive at the estate, finding it overrun with undead creatures, which Curien unleashed. A mortally wounded scientist gives them a journal containing information about Curien's creations and their weaknesses, and urges them to rescue the survivors still inside.

    Rogan and G reach Sophie, only to witness her being carried away by a flying

    Hermit
    . After killing it, Rogan and G continue their chase.

    Upon arriving at the mansion’s underground laboratory, Curien unleashes his masterpiece, the

    pyrokinetic
    abilities. However, the Magician refuses to serve any master and kills its creator. To prevent it from escaping, Rogan and G fight the Magician, and after being defeated, the Magician explodes. With both Curien and the Magician dead, the agents leave the mansion.

    Endings

    The game features three different endings, which are determined by the player’s score, number of continues used and rank. The first two endings feature Sophie in the mansion’s foyer, either alive having survived her injuries or as having become one of the undead zombies (which the game developers referred to as the “true” and “normal” endings respectively). In the third ending, only a far view of the mansion is shown (leaving Sophie’s fate ambiguous).[7]

    Development and release

    Development started in December 1995 and took one year and three months.[7] None of the development team could speak English, so they arrived at the name The House of the Dead by taking various horror-themed phrases in Japanese and picking the one where the English translated text had the most "cool" visual, without concern for what sort of connotations the phrase might have to English speakers.[7] The team saw people in their 20s and 30s as their target audience, and hoped that the game would primarily be experienced as a two-player game.[7]

    The House of the Dead was built on the Virtua Cop game engine.[6] The developers wanted to have a more complex system of path branches, and to have the system impact the game's story, but eventually realized these ideas were too ambitious to fulfill within the time allotted to make the game.[7]

    The enemy designs were drafted quickly, going from idea directly to design drawing without any rough sketches.[7] Anticipating that foreign markets, particularly Germany, would require the violence be toned down, they built in an option for operators to change the color of the game's blood, with green, purple, and blue available in addition to the traditional red.[7] To avoid potential controversy the developers removed an elderly looking female zombie, and several enemies dressed in suggestive attire.[7] The Chariot was animated by using motion capture with an actor wielding a broom, but the other enemies were all animated manually, using motion capture for reference only.[7]

    Sega AM4 designed the game's cabinet using screenshots and illustrations given to them by AM1.[7] The House of the Dead came in two cabinet formats, both upright: one with a 50-inch monitor and one with a 29-inch monitor.[8]

    Ports

    In late 1997, Sega confirmed that work had begun on a port to

    Tantalus Interactive and released in 1998, with a port to Windows (PC-CD) by Sega arriving the same year.[10] Aside from game modes were added to both ports, which include selectable characters with different weapons and a boss rush mode.[11]

    Both the Sega Saturn and PC editions have slightly remixed soundtracks. On Chapter 2, there is a reference to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, as the words "Challenger, go at throttle up", spoken by Richard O. Covey from the mission control room only seconds before the explosion, can be heard three times before the music loops.[12] These words do not appear in the arcade version; a snickering laugh is heard instead. The title, and boss themes are reversed on the PC port as well.

    A version for mobile phones was released in Japan, and aimed to recreate the gameplay and locations from the arcade version. The pre-installed

    trial version containing the game's first chapter was included with Vodafone V603SH in February 2005, and utilized the phone's accelerometer functionality to control the camera.[13]

    Remake

    In April 2021, it was announced that a remake of the game was to be released for the

    Xbox Series X/S on September 23, 2022,[21] and PlayStation 5 on January 20, 2023.[21]

    Sega reportedly lost the source code to the arcade version of The House of the Dead, requiring MegaPixel Studio to remake the entire game from scratch in the Unity game engine.[citation needed] Due to licensing issues,[citation needed] the original soundtrack by composer Tetsuya Kawauchi was replaced by a new soundtrack that is heavily inspired by the original.

    Like the original home versions before, the remake uses an analog controlled crosshair for aiming by default. The Switch version also includes an alternative control by utilizing the controller’s built in “gyro aiming” system to emulate the use of a light gun, and the subsequent Xbox One and PS4 ports also had alternate control methods, such as USB mouse control and the PlayStation Move/Aim controllers respectively.

    Reception and legacy

    In Japan, Game Machine listed The House of the Dead on their May 1, 1997, issue as being the second most-successful dedicated arcade game of the month.[38] The arcade game was also a major hit overseas.[39] It went on to be the highest-grossing dedicated arcade game of 1998 in Japan. By 1998, it had sold 8,600 arcade cabinets worldwide, including 1,600 in Japan and 7,000 overseas.[40]

    Reviews

    The 1996 arcade version of The House of the Dead received positive reviews upon release.

    AllGame awarded it 4.5 out of 5 stars, likewise praising the story, graphics, and destructible environments, but particularly focused on the game's intelligent challenge. The reviewer dubbed it "one of the best shooting games to hit arcades in the late 1990s."[23]

    The Saturn version of The House of the Dead garnered generally favorable reviews. It had a 71% rating on

    review aggregation website GameRankings based on five online reviews.[22]

    The Nintendo Switch remake received mixed reviews.

    Nintendo Life felt that unlike the Wii, the Switch is unsuitable for light gun games due to its lack of a sensor bar, without which the gyro controls cause the cursor to twitch when firing. They concluded that while the gameplay still held up and the graphical upgrades and extras were reasonably well done, those who are not fans of the original game might not have the patience for it.[46]

    Cultural impact

    According to

    George Romero said it was the video games Resident Evil and House of the Dead "more than anything else" that popularised his zombie concept in early 21st-century popular culture.[48][49]

    The House of the Dead has also been credited with introducing a new type of zombie distinct from Romero's classic slow zombie: the fast running zombie. After appearing in The House of the Dead, they became popular in zombie films and video games during the 2000s, including the Resident Evil games and films, The House of the Dead film adaptation, and the films 28 Days Later (2002) and Dawn of the Dead (2004).[50]

    Controversy

    When the American city of

    First Amendment. This required U.S. Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner to review the game at length, ultimately finding Indianapolis' ban was unconstitutional. Unimpressed by the graphics, Judge Posner wrote "The most violent game in the record, The House of the Dead, depicts zombies being killed flamboyantly, with much severing of limbs and effusion of blood; but so stylized and patently fictitious is the cartoon-like depiction that no one would suppose it 'obscene' in the sense in which a photograph of a person being decapitated might be described as 'obscene.' It will not turn anyone's stomach."[51]

    Notes

    1. ^ Japanese: ザ・ハウス・オブ・ザ・デッド, Hepburn: Za Hausu obu za Deddo

    References

    1. ^ "sega-europe.online". December 2, 1998. Archived from the original on December 2, 1998. Retrieved May 3, 2023.
    2. ^ "Sega Online: Central (Press Releases)". June 28, 1998. Archived from the original on June 28, 1998. Retrieved May 3, 2023.
    3. ^ "Press release: 1998-05-05: The House of the Dead Finds New Home On Sega Saturn". Sega Retro. March 12, 2016. Retrieved May 3, 2023.
    4. ^ "News Briefs". IGN. September 3, 1998. Archived from the original on April 12, 2000. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
      "Sega has released The House of the Dead, a first-person shooter."
    5. ^ "AOU". Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 93. Ziff Davis. April 1997. p. 79.
    6. ^
      Imagine Media
      . May 1997. p. 108.
    7. ^
      Emap International Limited
      . pp. 58–63. Retrieved November 4, 2019.
    8. Imagine Media
      . p. 28.
    9. Emap International Limited. November 1997. p. 15
      . Retrieved December 3, 2019.
    10. ^ "Official Sega Saturn Magazine Issue 31". May 1998.
    11. ^ "House of the Dead: The Zombie Smash Comes Home". Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 105. Ziff Davis. April 1998. p. 44.
    12. ^ Tetsuya Kawauchi (October 29, 2011). "The House Of The Dead Music: Chapter 2". Sega Saturn.
    13. ^ "V603SH向けに「ザ・ハウス・オブ・ザ・デッド モバイル」". IT Media Mobile (in Japanese). February 1, 2005. Archived from the original on July 12, 2022. Retrieved September 9, 2022.
    14. ^ "First Look at House of the Dead: Remake on Switch, a Stylized and Spooky Reboot". IGN. April 14, 2021. Retrieved April 14, 2021.
    15. ^ "THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD: Remake for Nintendo Switch - Nintendo Game Details". www.nintendo.com. Retrieved April 15, 2021.
    16. ^ "The House of the Dead: Remake for Nintendo Switch". Gamepressure.com. January 26, 2022.
    17. ^ "Nintendo Direct February 2022: New leak hints at what to expect from next Direct". Daily Express. January 26, 2022.
    18. ^ "Nintendo Direct 2022 May Debut In February; Featured Games And Announcements Details Leak Online". International Business Times. February 9, 2022.
    19. ^ "The House of the Dead: Remake launches April 7". March 4, 2022.
    20. ^ "The House of the Dead: Remake is Coming to PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Stadia". April 21, 2022.
    21. ^ a b Romano, Sal (January 16, 2023). "The House of the Dead: Remake coming to PS5 on January 20". Gematsu. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
    22. ^ a b "The House of the Dead for Saturn". GameRankings. Archived from the original on May 18, 2019. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
    23. ^ a b Baize, Anthony. "The House of the Dead (ARC) - Review". AllGame. Archived from the original on November 13, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2016.
    24. AllGame. Archived from the original
      on November 13, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2016.
    25. ^ House, Michael L. "The House of the Dead (SAT) - Review". AllGame. Archived from the original on November 13, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2016.
    26. ^ "The House of the Dead". Consoles + (in French). No. 76. May 1998. pp. 106–8.
    27. ^
      EMAP
      . June 11, 1997. pp. 84–5.
    28. ^ Randell, Kim (1998). "PC Review: House of the Dead". Computer and Video Games. Archived from the original on June 24, 2007. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
    29. ^ Edge staff (April 1998). "House of the Dead (SAT)". Edge. No. 57.
    30. ^ "The House of the Dead (SAT)". Game Informer. No. 61. May 1998.
    31. Game Revolution
      . Retrieved February 16, 2014.
    32. ^ Alway, Robin (March 25, 1998). "The House of the Dead". GamesMaster. No. 67 (April 1998). pp. 46–8.
    33. ^ Fielder, Joe (April 23, 1998). "The House of the Dead Review (SAT)". GameSpot. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
    34. ^
      Imagine Media
      . October 1997. p. 183.
    35. ^ Williamson, Colin (December 1998). "House of the Dead". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on March 3, 2000. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
    36. ^ "PC Review: The House of the Dead". PC Zone. 1998.
    37. ^ "The House of the Dead" (PDF). Sega Saturn Magazine (in Japanese). No. 1998-10 (April 3, 1998). March 20, 1998. p. 194.
    38. ^ "Game Machine's Best Hit Games 25 - 完成品夕イプのTVゲーム機 (Dedicated Videos)". Game Machine (in Japanese). No. 540. Amusement Press, Inc. May 1, 1997. p. 21.
    39. ^ "The House of the Dead". Computer and Video Games. No. 196 (March 1998). February 11, 1998. p. 35.
    40. ^ Akagi, Masumi, ed. (February 1, 1999). ""Tekken 3", "House of the Dead" Top Annual Chart" (PDF). Game Machine. No. 580. Amusement Press, Inc. p. 22.
    41. EMAP
      . July 11, 1997. pp. 82–5.
    42. ^ "THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD: Remake". Metacritic.
    43. ^ Jackson, Chris (June 4, 2022). "The House of the Dead Remake". Starburst. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
    44. ^ a b Diver, Mike (April 6, 2022). "'The House of the Dead: Remake' Review: More Zombies, Rotten Controls". Gaming Bible. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
    45. ^ a b Parker, Isaiah (April 22, 2022). "The House of the Dead: Remake - Review". Nook Gaming. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
    46. ^
      Nintendo Life
      . Retrieved December 31, 2022.
    47. ^
      ISBN 9781408805039
      .
    48. ^ Weedon, Paul (July 17, 2017). "George A. Romero (interview)". Paul Weedon. Archived from the original on August 23, 2018. Retrieved June 2, 2019.
    49. ^ Diver, Mike (July 17, 2017). "Gaming's Greatest, Romero-Worthy Zombies". Vice. Retrieved June 2, 2019.
    50. ^ Levin, Josh (December 19, 2007). "How did movie zombies get so fast?". Slate.com. Retrieved November 5, 2013.
    51. ^ American Amusement Machine Ass'n v. Kendrick, 244 F.3d 572 (7th Cir. 2001).

    Further reading

    • "The House of the Dead".
      EGM2
      . June 1997.

    External links

    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_House_of_the_Dead_(video_game)&oldid=1203772061"