Everyone loves zombie related
stuff: game, movie, prank, or comic. Well, except me. I just don't understand
why people so enthusiast with the "living" corpses. That doesn't mean
i hate game with zombies. For example: Sega's The House of The Dead 2 (1998/1999).
I don't need to explain about the
premise of The House of The Dead, do
i? I'll give it anyway. It's another gene research gone horribly wrong... but by
purpose. So there's 2 major difference with Capcom's Resident Evil in setting: Umbrella Corp is Pharmaceutical Corp that
secretly develops bio-weapon with virus and accident happens because
work-safety failure, mostly. But here's similarity that i reckon: the first
series takes places in secluded mansion, while the second series is in city.
Who adapts who. I let you decide. I believe everyone know how the game ends in
Arcade version. So i play the original mode instead.
What original version has to
offer? There's perk-up items that can help me on playthrough. But i can only carry max.
2 at a playtime. And those items will be vanished if you meet Game Over during
your playthrough. But not if you exit the game by pressing "Esc"
button. The items: gun damage multiplier, additional magazine size, extra life,
extra continue, and grenade! While other items are useless such as: double
score, or civilian costume which will make the AMS agent you play become
civilian. I have stocked lots of Power Up 1.5 and Credits + 2 and i'm going to
use them. My stingy instinct said no, but i hold still to my decision. Simply
for your sake, reader.
The game starts with James, an AMS agent drive a car to meet up
with another agent G who is protagonist in previous The House of The Dead. Then
this imp named Zeal intercepts James's driving. Said he has dealt G and James's
next. The he flies away before he commanded zombies to get James.
I believe you know major things
about rail-shooter-light-gun game. By default, mouse's movement to move the
crosshair, left mouse button to shoot, and right mouse button to reload.
Shooting zombies at their noggin to inflict heavy damage. Simple. In original
mode, initially: your gun's capacity 6 bullets, your lives 3, and your
continues 5. I don't think you can finish the game with those condition. Not
with my skill's level which is quite mediocre. But the gun's capacity doesn't
affect much in my opinion as reloading can be executed fast and easy.
Shortly after that, i meet G who have
chronic stomachache. I doubt he have been defeated by that flying git. He's the
protagonist of previous series, remember? Then he gave me notebook (not another
word for laptop, there).
Then an axeman zombie smashed
backdoor opening my way to this lush garden. Another axeman zombie slash that bloke in his
back. The axemen zombie is slightly harder to deal than his unarmed counterpart
as he try to cover his head with his axes. But there's still enough gap for my
bullet to hit his head. Hey, maybe that guy survive that vicious slashing.
Nope, he's dead along with his
dumb dying words. I mean "Help me!" is lots more sensible than vain
desire not to die and shorter too. In 2000 and earlier, most Japanese video
games have lots of English corny speeches and The House of The Dead 2 is one of them. By the way all zombies and
monster bleed green blood.
Very shortly after that, i meet
the first civilian-rescue situation. To resolve said situation is simple: kill
the zombie that threaten the civilian then the civilian's considered rescued.
Shoot the civilian is fatal to both (obviously) the civilian and James himself.
As killing civilian will reduce James' own life for some reason. Maybe
everytime he kill a civilian by mistake, his morale goes down really bad that
he want to end his own life at instant.
Instead of thanking me. The lady
ask me to help this chap. Is he her crush/brother/fiancé/school
idol/cousin/co-worker? Whoever this person is. If you let him die/can't save
him in time, she weeps his death. It's kind of harsh for Sega to make the
player face double-staged civilian-rescue situation so early like this. If you manage
to rescue him, he will point you to go outside via that hole behind him. And if
you're able to shoot rusty bucket on well behind him you will most likely get
Life+2 item. The green crates on left are destructible but i seldom manage to
break them. One of them contain health-up item, if i'm not wrong.
Then lots of eel-snake burst that
drainage hole and attack me. You can still shoot them the moment one of them
latches into your face, saving your precious life. The most realism portrayal
of this situation: you swiftly shoot it by aiming your gun in your face
direction. That's sounds really unsafe.
Here's first lesson for the
player that: the zombie axeman can take potshot at you by throwing his axe. But
you can shoot his axe away. Once again, gun beats axes.
In one of wooden barrel i found
Chamber+4 item. You can also gain power-up item like this from rescuing hostage
or found it at place where you don't expect to sit around. You know that to
pick the item you have to it, don't you? That's basic of light gun shooter.
Then i'm ambushed by pair of
zombie who wear metal plating and metal claw. The metal plated parts are -of
course- impenetrable to bullets. The only way to harm them is shoot the
unplated part of their body: torso, thigh, or upper arm. You can
"juggle" them once you shoot them in pervious part.
There's another civilian-rescue
situation where this zombie attempt to kill the hanging lady by throwing barrel.
You can simply break the barrel and the zombie walks away with "Yep,
that's it for today" aura on him.
But another zombie burst through
that door and try to kill her with all seriousness that he has. He attempt to
torn her jeans to match his but he will most likely torn her in process. She
will give you extra life should you succeed on rescuing her.
Beyond that point the imp mocks
me again, and this Dullahan sweep the cars, demonstrating his prowess. Kuarl
(the Dullahan) and Zeal is the first boss. Their codename: Judgement. If you familiar
with The House of The Dead series,
you should know that every boss on the game has codename of Tarot Card. So i
stitch the boss with its tarot card, so forth. Let's see the similarity! Zeal
has bat wing instead of angelic ones. The number isn't match. So the similarity
value: 14%.
Luckily G had given me the
notebook revealing the boss codename and (most importantly) its weak point.
Otherwise, i'm dead meat. Zeal like to fly really fast around Kuarl, mocks me
to waste the bullet in vain. You can wait for him to fly behind Kuarl where he
gives order to chop you but also the best moment to hit him. Or you can try to
guess his flight path and shoot him. I most likely do the latter way because i
have constant fear of missing him at the last moment where he's blocked by
Kuarl's axe. To do that preemptive effort, i park my crosshair on right near
Kuarl's left shoulder and shoot rapidly. Here's the success attempt.
Shoot Zeal enough times, Kuarl's
down. But Zeal attempt to headbutt me with his zigzag fly pattern. All you need
to do is don't attempt to shoot him at the center of the screen. Adjust it to
lower elevation if he vertically zigzag on center; shoot lower-left hand of the
screen if he flies from right to left in wide pattern; or shoot lower-right
hand of the screen if he flies from left to right in wide pattern.
This is not confusion, pal. It's
legit incident. Meet Amy Crystal and Harry Harris who are other AMS agent. They
will help me solve this trouble. But not by killing all the bosses, obviously.
The second stage start with this
fat bloke drive wildly to shake off zombies that cling on his car. He made it
but one in front still stay. Hadn't i shoot that one he will crash his car
along with him within on near cafeteria. Have you try to break, idiot? Anyway
stages in the game are branching depend on whether you success on rescuing
particular civilians or not. Usually, the branch of successful rescue will lead
you to more civilian-rescue situation which needlessly to say requires fine
shooting accuracy. But rescuing enough civilian will grant you another extra
life at the end of stage.
The advantage of using mouse
instead of real light gun: more accurate shooting that it helps a lot for
civilian rescue or weakpoint shooting. But i find it hard to hit fast-moving
small enemies such as this owl who apparently manage to bite in the face. Wait!
A bird bite me with beak? Or the gene-alteration has made bird have toothed
beak? Horrifying!
There's this one section of the
game where you can unlock a gate by picking shooting key near it that
belong to this dead bloke. Relax! No sword-key/club-key kind of puzzle here.
Beyond the gate there's a boy
who's being chased by Luchador zombie. Rescuing him lead me to save his father
here. The process is bit complex: first, you have to shoot the lock on the door
to open it and very briefly after that you have to shoot the zombie which near
the father.
After rescuing the father, i look
into TV News that reports about a creature is rampaging around at Sunset Bridge
which is the meeting point between me and Harry & Amy. By the way, we're in
Venice, Italy and 'Sunset Bridge' name is off. It should be 'Ponte del
Tramonto', right?
Here's another civilian-rescue
situation but with quite cruel twist. You can save him. You can save yourself.
But you can't do both fast enough. Unless you use 1.5 Power-up like what i do now. Two well
placed headshot, saves both of us.
It's obviously zombie outbreak,
sir. Also why don't you try to move your ass harder instead of clinging to
drinking faucet like that, huh? Good thing, he gives me Credits+2 item. In
other frequent occasion, he gives me Double Score Item. Uggh!
And we should call the army ASAP!
This incident is no longer subtle as many civilian know and it's reported by
News. Also 3 intelligence agents against zombie outbreak + monsters is way too
much. No? Oh, okay. I hear a scream.
There's escaping civilians and
zombies on the bridge. But the problem is solved by that bastard burst the
bridge in the middle. He carries trident which is quite the same with branching
staff. His hand gesture quite perfect. The number match. So the similarity
value: 80%.
You may think that The Hierophant has
same level of weakness of Umbrella's creation. But at least his chest periodically close to protect the heart. Why it didn't stay close? I think it's
part of his respiration system. Instead inflate-deflate his lung, like human.
he open-close his chest to breathe. The hard thing (especially to me): where he
summon piranha to attack me. If you use real light gun, you can switch your
target quickly but you have harder time to hit his heart. That's quite moot
point.
When he's almost down, he leap at
me and try to stab me from above. The chest opens when he's about obscured by
his life bar. Nice 4th wall trick, Sega. But that mean i know exactly where i
have to park my crosshair. There's bit of Anime-ish style of action, where i
look left and right to guess where he will jump then say which direction he
come.
After that, he fell under the
bridge and presumably downtrodden by our speedboat here. Later Harry reveal the
mastermind behind this accident: Goldman, the one who funded Dr. Curien back in
The House of The Dead 1 event.
Totally didn't expect that. [Very High Level of Sarcasm]
You know what's the famous thing
in Venice? The canals, of course. So we ride through them (and i'm the one who
is in charge of shooting and taking damage), killing any hostiles and rescuing
civilian...including this stupid one. I mean why he's in the water, anyway?
Taking bath...with clothes on? Escaping from danger? Which is obviously not
good solution as you can see by yourself. Whatever his reason, i save him then
he swim away.
This chap is more sensible. But
he's not careful enough as one of zombie manage to get on his boat. Here's the
hardest civilian-rescue situation ever, as you have to calculate combination of
zombie's movement and erratic boat's movement.
Then Goldman phones Amy, saying
he wait at the coliseum colosseum. Harry said it could be trap but keep
heading there anyway. Thanks, Watson. Is there any coliseum in Venice? Why am i
asking that? Of course, yes. As whole Italy must have Roman civilization's
heritage, right?
I did rescue the bloke, of course.
He left his boat and a grenade launcher! Demoman_thanks02.wav
Turns out Harry got plan. He told
me to separate from the duo where it's possible for me to flank Goldman. Smart
strategy, i must say.
Yeah, i will save them. I'm
pretty confident with my skill to rescue civilian, including you back there.
Oh, wait! Never mind. They're as
good as dead. I:
The boss is towering snake with multiple head. It's similar to Hydra in Heroes
of Might and Magic 2. The boss isn't made by concrete or sort like that. Unless
you count that its skin impervious to bullet. Which mean it may have
concrete property. 8000 and 16? I knew that 8 is a square root of 16. But, nah.
The relation is way too stretched thin. If you considered those 2 civilians that
later get thrown away, are the representative of those persons in tarot card. That's
the only close similarity. Similarity value: 18%.
You can only harm the boss by
shooting its mouths. To be precise, the one that open. One of the head will
telegraph when it's about to attack by showing some kind of energy burst in
front of its maw. You can shoot it when it's about to attack but you have to
calculate its (sometime) unpredictable move. Or again you can guess which one
drop its jaw a bit upon witness a prey that fight back using handgun. Definitely,
not the center/blue one, he has charisma. But later you will fight him one on
one. Though he try to zigzag way to bite you, you can predict his move
relatively easy.
After the battle Amy phones as
they got big trouble over there. Well, you got to excuse me as i have to deal
with that Hydra first before i'm ready in flanking position.
This tragedy brought to you by (old)
Sonny Ericsson phone.
So i have to press on further
into coliseum and i ran into flock of bats, the staple of enemy type in any platforming
game. There's no bottomless pit here, you flying sods! In this section, the
room is bit dark and there's light around the crosshair to make effect of
searchlight attachment on your gun. Nice lighting feature!
This is new to me. I manage to
kill all 3 zombie (one of them has metal plated part) flawlessly and the
staircase over there open up to reveal First Aid Kit item. Lucky me!
Hello, Goldman. How manly of you
to mock me from giant television. Wait! An evil person taunts me indirectly incoliseum. Yes, i have experienced this before. Do note that i really like his
evil laughter. While other villain tend to laugh so loud with open mouth,
Goldman let out craftiest chuckle that you ever heard in gaming history.
Then a concrete maze comes up
along with cage that contain this stage boss with Amy and Harry nearby! It's
clearly neither female nor lion. 2+0+5=7. The number mismatch, again.
Similarity value: 0%
Okay make it 7% if you count his
chainsaw's color resemble that lion. This is probably the least enjoyable boss battle to me. "But
his weakpoint is simple: his head". That's true but his move is so fast and
erratic that i hardly able to hit his head properly. Also take account of his
chainsaw that he often rise it that he (un)intentionally covers his head. Miraculously,
i manage to defeat him without sacrificing any of my lives! Maybe that's
because i have practice beating him in Boss mode (that exclusively on PC & home
console version). That badblood "BLAME" writing couldn't save you
this time, monster.
Harry got the same injury with G.
So he hand over his car key and ask me to confront the Goldman, alone. That's
clearly petty excuse so he and Amy can make out. The tricky bastard.
Stage 5 introduce you with even
stronger zombie and this zombie who will let out a worm from his chest if you
not shoot him in the head. That's clearly not adaptation of Alien's
chestburster [Medium-High Sarcasm]. There's no longer civilians here but you
have to re-fight Judgement and Hierophant. That's boss rush, alright.
Well. Well. I got Credit ∞ which
can break the game. Also on the bridge part where Hierophant: return burst out,
there's chamber ∞ that i manage to get. You can tell that later levels contain better
item. But still there's still randomness in item found in Original Mode.
Pass that, Magician halts me.
He's the final boss in The House of The
Dead 1. So you can call this nostalgia feature. But i believe he doesn't
have that gross tentacle around his body in prequel series. He doesn't either carry
scroll or wears toga. He has horn but no headband and he doesn't have hair.
Again, the number doesn't fit. Similarity: 12%. Just because he can do magic.
I believe he does the same moves
as in prequel series. The problem is i'm no longer accustomed to his fast warping
attack again. It's like 10 year ago, alright? Give me a break! But here's funny
thing: his final attack here where he levitate highly and then he proceed to
shower me with lots of magic orbs, is the easiest attack of him. You just have
to ignore orbs that travel way too your left or right because they don't hurt
you. Back when i play the prequel, i can figure his weakpoints by my
observation alone. They're unarmored part of him: his right leg, his left
thigh, and his left upper arm.
Final battle takes place in
Goldman's office where the security force consist of these metallic zombies but
they're still vulnerable to headshot compare to their fleshy brethren. Some of
this zombies come from solid wall being semi-transparent and then solidify to
attack you. Are these zombie or ghost, Goldman? Be consistent a bit. I will
make complain about this once i meet him face-to-face. After killing these
zombies and Tower Redux.
Dammit, me! That's not how i
encounter the mastermind of monster-zombie outbreak. I will stay sharp and
point the gun to him. Not waving my hand in quite similar manner to offer him
handshake. Goldman's raison d'être: he hates human that he think has disrupted life
cycle (that perhaps related to world's environmental issue). Then he summon The
emperor the one who shall rules mankind but also hates them. Goldman is clearly
insane, folks.
The emperor got metallic part too
much but he's practically naked. Not carrying scepter. No throne. That horn
could be replacement for crown. The number is totally out. I say the
similarity: 32%, at most. He can launches spheres or do express jousting to
kill you. His "heart" sometime come out from his metallic body.
That's when you can do him harm.
Later on, he reveal himself as
another boss-rush but in bit different package where he launch duplicate of
previous bosses to attack and you can interrupt them by shooting their
weakpoint obviously. This may seems uncreative but it's effective especially The
Emperor know that i'm weak against Strength. Game over.
James look like advertises his gun
instead of in the middle of stumble to his death. "With this gun, i have
killed almost thousand zombie and monster including few that as big as 2-storey
house. If you order now! You can get limited version of zombie's head hanging accessory
for free. Get it now!"
I don't feel bad not finishing
the game and sacrifice Power Up 1.5 and Credit +2. As i have stored First Aid
Kit, Credit ∞, and other items. Wait! I have 4 Credit +10? I can finish the
game properly then to see whether i get extra stuff by finishing the game. Next
time, maybe.
The House of
The Dead 2 (1998/1999) is certainly step up from its prequel in term of
gameplay and graphic. But still keep the core intact. The gameplay is simple
and fun: aim the crosshair well and hit trigger to kill. With enough extra
quirk such as civilian, health-up item, score-up item or in original mode
perk-up item. The game takes roughly an hour or so. Thus the game offer you a
blast of fun but within short period. The original mode where you can either grind
or test the perk-up items only shoehorn the replayability a bit. Not work
wonderfully but well enough. The musics are very good. More to blasting action
direction than horror ones. The graphics are smooth enough though kind of old
if you make comparison to nowadays games. The boss battle is interesting enough
but still boss rush is quite atrocious. The entire game offers you challenge of
reflex that's interesting enough and not so frustrating. Most of the voice
acting are dumb but hilarious.
