Where House of the Dead shines in the arcade, it rapidly loses its luster on the PC. Yes the PC version has 16-bit textures, bilinear filtering and alpha transparency. Yes the frame rate is well above average. Yes endless waves of zombies and other half-rotted creatures still mindlessly attack you. So what's the problem? For starters the graphics are sub-standard. The game runs at either 320x240 or 640x480 with no option to go any higher. This is a disappointment since House of the Dead runs on D3D, and many Direct3D compliant video cards allow for resolutions up to 1600x1200. The game's high frame rates are achieved by a very low polygon count. To add insult to injury, some of the polygon models such as gargoyles and statues have been replaced with sprite images, a sacrilegious act in the church of 3D.
The arcade's once forgivable soundtrack is now transformed to an annoyance on the ears. Imagine being held witness to three hours of James Horner at the Hollywood Bowl, then listening to a cassette recording of that concert during the drive home. The comparison isn't far fetched. And if House of the Dead's soundtrack isn't enough to warrant hitting the Mute icon on your taskbar, then the sound effects will be happy to oblige. After spending an hour reinstalling my DirectX 5 Audio Drivers (which the game so graciously overwrote) to fix a "popping" problem, I was rewarded with sound effects that made a mockery out of our Diamond Monster Sound.
The nail in the coffin though, came with House of the Dead's gameplay, or lack thereof. In the arcade, players get to deal out their wrath with a light gun. Hardcore gamers can even "double-up" on the action by opting to use both guns. Shoot and kill first, aim and ask questions later. Not so with the PC version. Players are given a choice between a joystick, the mouse and the almighty keyboard. Those who opt for the keyboard or joystick are either ballsy or just plain nuts. Control is awkward at best without the mouse. However navigating with the mouse is no walk in the park either. Without the option to invert the mouse control or set mouse speed (a la Quake), frustration quickly sets in.
The game is not without its innovation though. Just like the arcade, it takes a quick hand and a sharp eye to plow through the fields of the undead enemies. Direct body and head shots cause more damage than peripheral hits. This allows for a little bit of replayability. It's just plain fun seeing how many bullets it takes to bring down a lumbering, chain saw wielding zombie. The game itself comes with three distinct modes, Arcade Mode, PC Mode and Boss Mode. The Arcade Mode tries to emulate the look and feel of the its coin-op counterpart, with exact difficulty settings, number of lives and continues. The PC Mode allows for these options to be changed to the player's specifications, and offers some other game variables such as hit diameter and reload time. Players can also choose between one of six characters, although the variation between them is cosmetic. Those who wish to skip the meaningless foreplay and jump directly into the tango will be pleased with the Boss Mode, which pits the player up against one or all of the four bosses that appear throughout the game.
Unfortunately, these little oddities aren't enough to save House of the Dead. It's nothing more than a poor translation of a great game. It's sad to see the efforts of the original programmers and designers painted in an unpleasant light, just so that a company can make a few bucks from a PC port. For those of you with $19.99 burning in your pocket, you'd be well advised to head to your local arcade and spend that money playing the arcade version instead.
House of the Dead is available now for the PC and runs under Direct3D and DirectDraw.
