The House of The Dead Series Live Playthrough
0The House of the Dead is a horror-themed rail shooter video game franchise created by Sega in 1996. Originally released on arcade, it utilizes a light gun on the platform, but can be played with standard controllers on consoles and a mouse or keyboard on home computers. For the PlayStation Network releases of III and 4, they can also be played using the PlayStation Move controller.
As of 2018, there are six House of the Dead games originating in a first person rail shooter format available. The main series all have common elements of a pair of agents teaming up to take on hordes of biologically engineered undead (referred to as 'mutants' in Overkill). The games are divided into chapters, each of which culminates in a boss battle against usually massive, terrifying creatures. The bosses in games 1-5 are all named after the Major Arcana of occult tarot.
Gameplay elements differ among the different games in the series, with each having different characters, firearms, and types of enemies. In many of the games, there are branching paths (determined by one's actions) and unlockable bonuses, along with different endings based on one's performances.
Several spin-offs to the mainstream storyline have also been produced (including a virtual pinball game, an English tutorial and a typing tutorial), as well as two films. In addition, select enemy characters appearing in the first two games were adapted into fully articulated action figures by Palisade Toys, which canceled the second toy line before street release due to limited returns from the first series.
The House of the Dead has been, along with Resident Evil, credited with popularising zombie video games as well as re-popularising zombies in mainstream popular culture from the late 1990s onwards, leading to renewed interest in zombie films during the 2000s. The House of the Dead has also been credited with introducing fast running zombies, which became popular in zombie films and video games during the 2000s.