We’re kicking off Wii’re Going Back with a game I nearly pre-ordered: The House of the Dead: Overkill. The collectors edition aptly named the ‘Bang Bang Box’ came with 2 white AMS revolver attachments for the Wii remotes to simulate that original arcade feeling and I just had to have them. I managed to pick it up at my local EB Games by walking in on the right day. I really wanted to re-buy one of those original revolvers and out of pure dumb luck, I did just that. I ordered what was listed as a ‘Nintendo Wii Value Light Gun’ for eight bucks on CeX, but what showed up at my door was pure nostalgia. It was coated in thick yellow and black gunk with caked on dust and grime, but damn. Nostalgia secured. I cleaned that sucker up best I could with baking soda and a toothbrush and it was back to its former glory. Well, close enough. Recreating my original House of the Dead: Overkill experience on the Steam Deck has honestly been nothing short of unreal.
The House of the Dead: Overkill was released by Headstrong Games in 2009 and like the House of the Dead games before it, it’s an on-rails shooter. It actually serves as a prequel to the original game, even if it’s not considered part of the official story. The House of the Dead: Overkill follows AMS Agent ‘G’ and Detective Isaac Washington as they rip through mutant-infested Louisiana hunting for the crime boss Papa Caesar, who Washington wants dead for killing his father. It begins as a pretty straightforward manhunt, but quickly spirals into something much, much weirder when eccentric prison warden Clement Darling reveals that he actually engineered the whole mutant outbreak through his experiments to keep his dying mother alive. ‘G’ and Washington blast their way through Louisiana, visiting various weird and whacky locations before descending into Clement’s underground lab to put an end to this outbreak once and for all. It’s a pretty classic weird, retro storyline and could easily be the plot of a B-grade movie. It’s kinda terrible and predictable, but that doesn’t make it any less fun.
The voice work throughout the game is a huge positive. From cheesy retro catchphrases, an over-the-top narrator and Detective Washington dropping ‘motherfucker’ at every turn, The House of the Dead: Overkill is basically one of those terrible, guilty pleasure ‘70s B-movies. And I motherfuckin’ love it. The story plays off that same energy, Detective Washington and Agent G are the obvious odd couple out of a super budget action flick. They’re chasing a Southern crime boss named Papa Caesar through a string of increasingly absurd and whacky locations: a carnival, a mental asylum, a moving train. I don’t think anybody sat down to write The House of the Dead: Overkill thinking they were crafting something super profound, but including self-awareness in the story is exactly what makes it great. You kinda have to think of the plot purely as a device to push mutants onto your screen to be turned into a bloody pulp and the game never pretends otherwise. There’s a real difference between a bad game and a game that knows it’s bad and doesn’t really give a shit. Overkill is firmly the latter.
Growing up, arcades were somewhere we’d hang around rather than actually play. Money was tight when I was a kid, my brothers and I watched on as other kids fed coins into machines but we couldn’t really afford to touch them. The House of the Dead was one of those games. It always had its own area, a big cabinet, loud speakers and a black curtain shielding youngins from exploding zombie heads. It always looked incredible but it cost money we just didn’t have. Alright, Kleenexes away now. There’s something to be said about playing House of the Dead in your own lounge room. Wiimote pointed at the screen, getting the full arcade experience for free. After the initial outlay, of course. The magic of a well done home arcade experience essentially democratises something that used to require either deep pockets or a very understanding and generous parent. The Wii motion controls suit the light gun format incredibly well and the difficulty is forgiving enough that you could toss a controller to literally anyone and the experience would be genuinely fun. It’s simple in a way that’s harder to achieve than developers probably realise. The House of the Dead: Overkill remains one of the more brazenly adult titles to ever land on Nintendo hardware and it still feels a little surreal when you load it up on a console that shipped with the family friendly Wii Sports.
The House of the Dead: Overkill’s grindhouse aesthetic doesn’t stop at the dialogue. The funk and soul soundtrack also does some serious heavy lifting throughout. It’s loud and trashy, but it fits perfectly. It makes ripping through waves of zombies feel like the opening credits of a movie that just wouldn’t get made today. The game is coated with this film grain filter and clearly deliberate framing that tie this whole thing together in a way that ends up feeling well planned rather than tacked on. Someone at Headstrong Games was clearly… uh, head strong, they knew exactly what they wanted this to be. The atmosphere alone might be enough, but Overkill actually has some surprising replay value that you wouldn’t expect from a game that might come off as a short, one-and-done Wii title. Finishing the game unlocks new weapons, upgrades, bonus content and a Director’s Cut mode which is a harder, expanded playthrough of the story. It’s the kind of game you can crush through in one sitting, feel completely satisfied with and then find yourself loading it back up to chase a higher score or try a different loadout. For what could be an easily discarded arcade shooter, that counts for something.
I’m not here to tell you that The House of the Dead: Overkill is a perfect game, it isn’t. Nostalgia probably helped a bit with this one. The story is predictable, the locations are absurd and the whole thing might only last you an afternoon. But I don’t think perfection was ever the plan here. Overkill clearly set out to be a loud, loving, profanity-heavy tribute to a genre of film that most people would be embarrassed to admit they enjoy and it motherfuckin’ nails it. The Nintendo Wii was an incredibly unlikely home for something this unashamedly trashy to land on, but the fact that it works and works as well as it does is a genuine achievement. Whether you’re also a lapsed arcade kid who could never actually afford to feed coins into the original House of the Dead, or just looking for a genuinely fun couple of hours with a Wii Remote, The House of the Dead: Overkill delivers. Yeah, it’s dumb. But it knows it’s dumb and that’s a big part of the fun. It knows exactly what it is, it shows its hand from the opening cutscene and it couldn’t give a shit what you think about it. Sometimes that’s exactly what you need.
Verdict:
The House of the Dead: Overkill is dumb. It’s loud, trashy and a loving B-movie tribute that nails that aesthetic perfectly. It may be short, but it’s packed with more replay value than it has any right to have. It stands as a reminder that sometimes the most fun you can have is with the ones that don’t overthink it.
Deck Compatibility: 10/10
Overall Game Rating: 8/10 – Highly Recommended, Motherfucker
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