Longer than Previous Titles
One obvious shortcoming any arcade game will face, is playtime. Considering they were always intended to be completed in one sitting, very few titles are longer than one hour. While The House of the Dead 4 doesn’t pass the hour mark either, it is around twice the length of The House of the Dead III and will most likely take you 30+ minutes to complete. Once you complete the game, you’re given a new mode called The House of the Dead 4 SP.
The House of the Dead 4 Special
In Japan and very select places in the US, there was another The House of the Dead 4 called Special. This game featured G and takes place shortly after the events of 4. While it is a different game than 4, it is very short with no more than 10 minutes of gameplay. Despite this, it is a nice addition that also has multiple endings and its own story.
NOT
Shake Off your Moves Dust
Most likely if you own a Playstation Move, then you’re quite excited to dust it off for The House of the Dead 4. Like all rail shooters, the Playstation Move works fine, although there are a number of shortcomings. The biggest shortcoming is how you reload your gun. Most rail shooters just use a button on the move or auto reload when you run out of ammo. However this is not the case for The House of the Dead 4.
To reload your gun, you’re forced to shake your PlayStation Move. This not only takes time, which will result in you getting hurt, but is less reliable than your traditional button. Additionally, this makes aiming far more difficult as you’re constantly moving your cross hair. To make matters worse, the game will not auto reload if you’re out of ammo. This means you must accept this short coming or simply switch to your Dualshock 3.
Poor Story
Considering the first game was never ported and the second is not on the Playstation 3, you will most likely be confused by the events of 4. Contrary to what you might think, 4takes place between The House of the Dead 2 and 3, so a good deal of the backstory is missing. While this might be annoying to some, there really isn’t much of a story to speak of anyway. Most of the cutscenes feature weird dialog and lack real quality. It is fairly common to see the lip sync being off and the dialog being really clichéd. In either case, there are four endings you can witness, plus three for Special, so there is quite a bit to unlock.
Verdict
While The House of the Dead 4has fantastic graphics and designs, the controls could use some work. Shaking the Move is not only slow, but definitely makes aiming counterproductive. Naturally this makes using the Move less desirable, which is a real shame. Despite the Move problems, I still strongly suggest giving it a go. The simple addition of The House of the Dead 4 Special is reason enough, as most people never got a chance to experience it.
[Editor’s Note: The House of the Dead 4 was reviewed on the PlayStation 3 Console. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]
nadia
April 19, 2012 at 12:41 AMI have a question Did the editor of this article play the original arcade game?
I’m only curious about it :D personalty the points marked as “not” are my favourites about the game just because remember me all that coins that I spend in this game trying to reload and me wondering why was between 2 and 3 in the arcade XD…
anyway great review! keep up the good work jps!
Grant Gaines (大将)
April 19, 2012 at 5:53 AM@ Nadia
I did, but I recall very little as it had to have been 5+ years ago. The only reason why I even know I played it, was the fact I recall the life icons.
Luk2k1
April 19, 2012 at 4:00 PMI think is a good review but you are wrong in one point, if you play with the sharp shooter you forget about shake the move, you just pum the sharpshooter and you reload it, so the problem is gone.
Over all is a good game is very fun to shoot zombies after a hard day at work jejejeje.
Jesse
June 9, 2012 at 5:44 AMActually, the first H.O.T.D. game WAS ported to the Sega Saturn, and PC in 1998. I know, as I have them both, and that game was a very good one too. I do hope it gets re-released eventually, especially since it’s currently the only game in the series that never got a perfect console port (unlike the other ones), just only the two flawed versions I mentioned. Neither of them really compare to the original arcade version, even if they’re both somewhat decent for the hardware they were both released on.