Dreamcast User Reviews

This game is a well done mixture, put some Dynamite cop, add a bowl of House of the Dead, and a couple of spoons of Resident Evil, and you have a nearly perfect recipe for a horror themed beat em up. I said nearly because it's not perfect at all, but still works. The difficulty is too much on the hard side, and to really enjoy it, players will have to set the difficulty on easy or very easy, throwing away the hardcore factor. Of course it won't be an accomplishment as finishing it on Normal or higher, but the enjoyment will be higher. From start you are attacked by zombies (some of them wield a shotgun or a machine gun) and believe me, they will resist more bullets than you, even on easy. Getting shot is one of the most annoying things of the game, cause you will loose about half of your entire health bar, and if you get hit by a zombie scratch or biten, you will take less damage but you will be infected with a virus and you will need to pick an antidote ASAP. Bullets are plenty but the handgun is very slow and makes very low damage. The atmosphere is top notch and I absolutely like the House of the Dead feeling in this game, you can quickly notice how much they have in common, even the voice acting is almost as mediocre than HOTD. I said that it has only a little bit of Resident Evil, cause this game is not actually a survival horror, and there are no puzzles to be found, it's just a beat em up with a HOTD strong feeling. The variety of weapons and action are very resembling of Dynamite Deka 1 & 2. The music has also some HOTD feeling. The controls are weird to say the least, and pretty bad to say the worst. I would say they are weird and not comfortable. Thankfully you can customize them, but still, there are too many functions for a beat em up. There is a button to roll, other to punch, a different one to shoot, and the worst one by far is the one that it's used to block & run. Why the expletive they would set the block & run functions to the same button! The problem is that when you try to run, the character will sometimes stop and block, leaving you vulnerable to getting shot or spitted. So it's pretty hard to not get shot most of the time. There are only 15 credits and I said only because there is only 1 life per continue, and you can quickly loose a life in just a couple of shots or an explosion. Despite this little flaws, the game manages to captivate the player with some amazing and eerie level design. To conclude this review, I must say that this game is very hard, to the point it gets annoying and frustrating, but you will surely get some enjoyment out of this rarity and if you like horror games you cannot miss this one out. This never came out in other console and the arcade machine is even more rare than the console version. This game was kind of forgotten in the shadows but it's surely a hidden "gem" and an oddity, a good one to say the truth. Very recommended, even if you have never played a HOTD game, this one is very funny. 7/10