House Of The Dead-Overkill: Extended Cut Review (PS3)

Blasting off rotten faces to reveal bloody skulls has never been so hilarious

For crying out loud, you’d think that after being practically surrounded by zombies in the media these days, we’d stop crying about the muscle munchers. As soon as the dead rise, the IQ of the living sink, and before you know it, there are decaying hands clasping onto your face. Frank West knows how to deal with the shuffling dunderheads; pick up anything and shove it through the skull of anything that dares to try and take a bite out of him. Now it’s time for a dynamic duo to take on that plough first and ask questions later approach to dealing with copious amounts of peeling flesh in The House Of The Dead: Overkill-Extended Cut, and it promises more zombies, strippers and zombie strippers than its Wii counter-part. There’s an invasion of zombies (or ‘Mutants’ for the more sane) on the loose, it requires two ridiculously over the top protagonists to deal with the rotten problem. Enter a young, professional Agent G and Detective Isaac Washington, a man who uses the term motherf***er so much I can only hope he doesn’t have a severe Oedipus complex. As mismatched as the team is, the brutal enforcers both speak fluent ‘Bullet ridden brain’, and start tearing their way through the hordes in gritty, gory and hilarious road trip across the state. One thing House Of The Dead has never quite managed to grasp hold of in its years in amusement arcades is that we’re laughing at it, not with it. Terrible translations and cheesy dialogue are tumours in the series’ long life, but Overkill takes these horrid flaws and turns them into tongue in cheek gold. Filmed under a jittery grindhouse lens, each foul-mouthed line is screamed to slap the protagonists’ dignity in the face. The series’ incredible faux pas are cast straight into the limelight as the primary joke, and it works surprisingly well, even if your IQ does enter double digits. If you grew up in an arcade, then a compulsive need for high scores most likely dwells in your brain. If so, Overkill perfectly tends to your ego. As you blast through levels, your HUD keeps a close eye on you progress in perfection. Five perfect kills with no misses and no scrapes to the face bumps up your kill-streak status and showers you with more and more point bonuses. Surviving a level just isn’t enough for the competitive, and it’s dangerously easy to scathe yourself for inaccuracy and be dragged into bettering yourself to top the online leaderboards. Even if you’re not bothered about hitting the high-scores, hoarding points will still help you in your zombie mowing adventures. Should you get bored of pistolling your way through the hordes of rotting flesh, you can shell out on machine guns and shotguns to really reinforce the overkill aspect. Although upgrading your arsenal with hard earned cash is all the more rewarding, bowling through undead armies with waves of bullets can kind of take that challenging edge off of proceedings. The gore that showers your face, however, more than compensates for this.

Overkill has made a fantastic transition from Wii to PS3, with that grainy filter looking grittier in HD

The Extended Cut bursts out from the Wii bragging more content, but doesn’t deliver a treasure trove of content to justify its pride. Two more levels have been added that focus on the back-story of Varla Guns, and Candi Stryper, two strippers who…don’t really need the un-compelling narrative. New weapons have also been thrown into the mix, so even more horrid penetrations can be exhumed on the unsuspecting undead. It’d be mad to complain about additional content when most ports will make no effort to improve the experience, it’s just these new chapters don’t exactly add anything truly exceptional, just prolongs the life of the game. The extra content is still appreciated, but Overkill was already overflowing with unlockables before it made its move on the PS3. Travelling through the dingy settings, you’ll find figurines, comic pages and more littered throughout levels just waiting to be picked up. Once you’ve blitzed through the 6 hour story, a ‘Director’s Cut’ unlocks, featuring longer levels and even more collectables to blast. Bundle this with 3 mini-games and that aforementioned addictive score mongering, and you’ve got a relatively short game that will still gleam with pride as it’s replayed time and time again. Overkill has made a fantastic transition from Wii to PS3, with that grainy filter looking grittier in HD and all the more brilliant for it with face spraying gore and pus pulsating mutant bosses. There’s even a couple of retro red and blue 3D glasses so those who can’t shell out on a expensive telly and all can enjoy rotting hands reaching out for them. The audio on the other hand…well, no matter how funny the dialogue is, it’ll certainly grate on the ears of some players. I found the constant trash-talk hilariously tongue in cheek, but as you won’t be able to skip the cut-scenes of the first playthrough, the foul-mouth plagued mini-features. Then again, there’s always the mute button…and a humorous mode to shut nit-pickers like me up lets you shoot down the profanities in subtitles in order to bleep them out. If you haven’t played The House of the Dead-Overkill before and are hankering for some classic on-rails action on crack cocaine, then the Extended Cut is definitely worth an investment. It’s fun, it’s frantic, and hell, it’s a ridiculously hilarious on-rails ride. Should you be one of those lucky buggers who’ve tamed the three home consoles to get along in your living room and have played the slimmer Wii version, there’s little reason to return for the extended edition. If you miss the days where you practically lived at the arcades and want an on-rails escapade that matches the coin guzzling addictive titles of the early 90’s, then The House Of the Dead-Overkill:Extended Cut is a cost effective blast-to-the-past that has enough features to keep you hooked for ages.