The House of the Dead (Saturn) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
626A playthrough of Sega's 1998 light gun shooter for the Sega Saturn, The House of the Dead.
I play through the game three times in this video to show some of the different endings and paths:
Arcade mode, normal difficulty 2:46
Saturn mode, easy difficulty with Rogan-2 32:34
Saturn mode, easy difficulty with Sophie 58:44
The first run was played completely straight. For the other two, I punched in a couple of codes to enable red blood, the score display, and the secret playable characters, and on Rogan 2's playthrough I enable automatic reloading.
The House of the Dead started life in arcades in 1996, and for the time, it was a pretty stunning piece of work. It ran on the absurdly powerful Sega Model 2 hardware, and the high resolution, smooth framerate, and fully texture mapped 3D models were best in class in the mid 90s.
The original HotD game did for arcade light gun shooters what Resident Evil had for console 3D puzzle action-adventures - it gave an entire genre a shot in the arm with its campy horror shtick, terrible voice acting, and comically overdone gore. It also, like Resident Evil, inspired countless imitations that inevitably suffered by comparison.
Considering the popularity of the series, it seems strange that Sega has never revisited the original HotD. The game was only ported to the Saturn and Windows 95/98 PCs (https://youtu.be/M5zufecKEI0 ), and neither of them are arcade perfect. Apparently Sega lost the source code to it a long time ago, and they're only just now getting around to remaking it.
The core game is the same between the three versions - all of the different level layouts, characters, and cutscenes are present and accounted for, and the Saturn game supports the Sega Stunner light gun. (Remember that badass neon orange hand cannon?)
You still run around a huge house shooting at zombies and saving scientists as you search for the kidnapped Sophie and the bad guy Curien, but now there are multiple endings, a new Saturn mode (also in the Windows port as "PC mode") that allows you to play as different characters, and a boss rush option. You can also enter a code to enable red blood, because really, what zombies bleed green?
Unfortunately, the Saturn was hardly the ideal platform to host a port of a cutting edge 3D game, made by Sega or otherwise. I doubt that it's entirely the fault of the hardware, but man did the graphics take a nosedive in quality! The warping textures have pixels the size of your hand and enemies clip through one another constantly, but the biggest offender the framerate. It's a jerky and inconsistent mess that seems to hover around the 20fps mark, and the lagginess interferes with the light gun detection. The Stunner was super accurate for the Virtua Cop games, but you'll find yourself whiffing shots way too often in this version through no fault of your own.
And it's too bad, because that framerate ends up knee-capping what is otherwise an ugly but faithful conversion. I still enjoy it, but it's my least preferred way to play it. I don't know how good Model 2 emulation is at this point, but the PC version can run just fine at 640x480 at 60fps and it makes a world of difference.
Still, The House of the Dead is the start of a beloved gaming institution and it's still a good time these days. It's hard to believe the original arcade game is now twenty-five years old, isn't it?
Some other related/similar games:
The House of the Dead (PC) https://youtu.be/M5zufecKEI0
The House of the Dead 2 (Wii) https://youtu.be/ehoSZOSheYY
The Typing of the Dead (Dreamcast) https://youtu.be/uQQ-UJYMeu4
The Typing of the Dead: Zombie Panic (PlayStation 2) https://youtu.be/bMDzd3DOJsc
The House of the Dead III (Wii) https://youtu.be/I1zi1J_xeBs
The Typing of the Dead 2 (PC) https://youtu.be/NiYYyZ4vuSM
English of the Dead (Nintendo DS) https://youtu.be/p01JCGfHBTA
The House of the Dead: Overkill (Wii) https://youtu.be/F6sqPkxu9uY
The Typing of the Dead: Overkill (PC) https://youtu.be/eeBnYuCNRiQ
Silent Hill: The Arcade Game (Arcade) https://youtu.be/2c6Yh_zr1ls
Evil Night (Arcade) https://youtu.be/FCO9Cq0tYJg
Vampire Night (PlayStation 2) https://youtu.be/h6jSjzNDi6g
Ed Hunter (PC) https://youtu.be/H3YqmF1Y7U8
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