The House of The Dead Remake Review: SEGA's Classic Arcade Shooter Returns - "Having the opportunity to give these gems the spotlight they deserve is a privilege"

THe House of the Dead remake by megapixel

The House of The Dead Returns

Arcade light-gun shooters like The House of the Dead are a novelty on consoles. Outside of arcades, the on-rail shooter genre only saw a couple of games released during the motion control era. Consoles like the Wii were a perfect fit with the Wii motion controller and sensor bar that replicated the arcade experience at home. Games like Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles and The House of the Dead: Overkill offered many ways to shoot enemies with pin-point accuracy thanks to the Wii’s innovative controls. Although the Nintendo Switch still supports motion controls, not many developers have taken advantage of the feature to make a full-on arcade styled action shooter. Enter, The House of The Dead Remake, a modern recreation of the arcade classic by Sega. Initially released exclusively for the Switch, the game uses the joy-con’s motion controls to replicate the light gun action from the arcade in a ravenous remake of the Curien Mansion incident for a new and returning audience.

SEGA’s Classic Arcade Shooter

The House of The Dead was originally developed by Sega and released in Japanese arcades in 1996. While there were other light-gun games in arcades like Sega’s own Virtua Cop, The House of The Dead stood out because of its horror atmosphere and fast-paced gameplay. If you’ve ever played it in person, you know exactly what I mean. It’s easy to pick-up the light-gun controllers and shoot at the screen to take out enemies, but making it through the game does take a good shot and a couple of credits. Part of what made it such a stand out game was because of how accurate it felt to pull the trigger and see enemies on the screen react to your shots. It also helped that it had a great soundtrack. The House of The Dead featured an upbeat soundtrack that matched the horror atmosphere of the game. Together with the cheesy dialogue and gorey graphics, it gave the game a lot of charm that made it popular in arcades around the world.