The House of the Dead III Reader Review

You know, you have to feel sorry for zombies. I mean, there hasn't been a deodorant invented yet strong enough to tackle the stench of putrefying underarm skin (though I'm sure L'Oreal are working on it, there must be a few celebrities who need it...). They have to deal with a lot of discrimination too, they're just a little hungry, so why do we not feed them instead of blasting them away with ever-increasingly impressive guns? And on that subject, I'll bet their union sucks as well...

Perhaps the one thing that makes me feel most sorry for zombies is when they get wheeled out for well-below-par videogames. The poor blighters don't know any better and are tempted by the promise of fame for a "brief appearance"... only for it to be instantly forgettable. The House of the Dead 3, on PC, is most certainly one of these games, the kind where you pity the zombies for just being there, and understand their anger and frustration...

The House of the Dead 3 takes place a couple of decades after the very well received House of the Dead 2. There is a continuity to the plot but they may as well have not bothered, the story so paper-thin and wet that it breaks and tears without much effort. Something about resurrecting an old project, resurrection of old foes, rescue of old ally and other such nonsense. You can choose to attack the mid-three stages in any way you see fit, however whichever way to try, the story never seems to fit together or make a whole lot of sense. At times, you just wonder why they even bothered...

But the storyline is irrelevant to this genre of game (though it would have been a nice addition). This game requires you move your mouse around the screen and click to shoot anything that looks "undead". And... that's pretty much it. For the WHOLE GAME. It doesn't require a lot of skill at all. Which wouldn't be bad if the game were a challenge... but this game isn't, at any point, worthy of being in the HOTD brand. It never for one moment picks up, and even when finished, there is shockingly little there to stretch this any further.

The graphics aren't bad but certainly nothing special, the sound is sometimes OK and sometimes makes you thankful you can turn the volume off, and it is still, noticeably, a PC derivative of a light-gun game. But it just doesn't work, at any point, especially when put in comparison to the dozens of worthy FPS out there that provide a meatier challenge and a far more rewarding experience. It is bare-bones, merely an arcade game with a time attack mode bolted on to give a thin veil of longevity to the proceedings. Once you have finished the story mode (which shouldn't take any longer than half an hour for most people)... you've seen it all.

Even for a tenner, it is just very hard to recommend this game to anyone at all. It fails on every single level to equal or match it's older brother, House of the Dead 2, and even when you ignore its far superior sibling - the lack of anything challenging or stimulating within this title makes it one of the most understandable flops in recent memory. It is not hard to see how this game fell into relative obscurity, and has hit the bargain bins hard. It is just a disaster, a monumental failing to push the genre further, and a massive and unmistakable step backwards for the series. There is nothing redeeming about this game at all.

Those who have the intellectual capacity of a zombie (readas: zombies) will probably more notably sustain enjoyment from this game, it is simple to a fault and does pretty much what it says on the tin. It doesn't require any amount of brainpower or reflexes to beat this title. But if you do happen to have a working braincell, this is one of the blandest, dullest games out there, and you'd be best advised putting that hard-earned cash into a game which doesn't come across as insulting your intelligence...

A total and spectacular waste of time and money... and not even zombies deserve to be treated this poorly. There should be laws against this kind of thing...