The House Of The Dead 20th Anniversary Celebration: An Introduction

Where do I start with this one?

I’ve asked that question of myself since November of 2014, after we finished that year's Halloween Countdown. In it, there was a week long celebration of the Fatal Frame series, primarily undertaken by Dio (with a little help from me and Choco). It was a wholly positive experience, and I liked the idea of dedicating a week to something so personal that I decided to gank it for a very special landmark that fell around the 2016 countdown.

Well, no, that’s not strictly true; I debated with myself for the better part of two whole years as to whether I was going to do it, and if I was going to do it, HOW was I going to do it. Total honesty, as of this writing- which I’m doing two days in advance so I can at least pretend I’m somewhat prepared- I still don’t really know how this is all going to play out. All I really know is that I want to try, and what the subject matter is going to be; The House Of The Dead.

As of the 13th of September 2016, the series is officially 20 years old, and Sega did exactly nil to celebrate the fact. Blimey, even Castlevania got a tweet from one of Konami’s official Twitter pages on it’s 30th Anniversary, which given their current standing is nothing short of a miracle. I feel compelled to say this fact elevates my two-years-in-the-making-vague-idea into a sort of duty, but truth be told for all my umminh and ahhing, there's a good chance I would’ve done it anyway. As you’re all likely aware, The House Of The Dead is a series that is very near and dear to me; gun to my head, I’d name it as my favourite series of games every time, above the works of Suda 51, above the MOTHER series, even above Sonic The Hedgehog. The first game specifically is my game, in the way Super Mario Bros., The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, and especially Final Fantasy VII is for others.

But... why is that? Why do I hold some silly light gun game series with ropey voice work and bare bones gameplay in the same regard as games that quite literally changed the industry, either in parts or as a whole? That’s another

question I kept coming back to over the last two years. Not because I don’t know the answer, but because I didn’t really know how to get across the answer in a way that really connects with you lot. After much internal debating, and a few attempts at some really pretentious framing devices, I figure the best thing I can do is just go for broke and natter.The first House Of The Dead title hit the worldwide market in March of 1997, six months after its debut in Japan. I can’t recall exactly when my very first encounter with the game would’ve been, but I would’ve been around 4 or 5 at the youngest. I do vaguely remember coming across the imposing machine multiple times, staring up at the marquee with that very angry Zombie on it with starry eyed wonder. Even before I was tall enough to properly see the damn screen, I was fixated on the thing- and also, for some reason, remember mini me thinking it was a fighting game- and that fixation only grew after I’d seen the actual game in action. The earliest solid memory of which I recall taking place at a bowling alley, either on a family holiday or as part of some other outing. I’d wandered away from the lanes (although I’d assume still in sight of my ‘rents) and over to a House Of The Dead machine I’d spotted, having noticed an older teen setting up to play it with a friend. I don’t remember if he noticed a snot faced kid was watching him, but I do remember he beat the game from start to finish. I was completely enthralled the entire time, completely unable to take my eyes off the action and entirely unwilling to pay attention to anything else. Another of my earliest memories is from one of, if not the very first times I ever actually played the game myself; after losing all my lives, I excitedly ran up to my ever patient mother (who was likely waiting off to the side somewhere, desperately wishing we were literally anywhere else but an arcade), constantly saying “I got to the fountain! I got to the fountain, mum!” I can’t remember what her reaction was, but given she would’ve had zero context I’m guessing it would’ve been a clueless smile, a nod, and a curt “well done!” for my efforts. It’s doubly amusing when considering that the fountain in question is, like, barely a fifth into the way of the first level, but that was enough of an achievement to wire ickle Decon into an excited stupor.My obsession only grew from there. Although there was a single arcade relatively close to home, we rarely visited it outside of special occasions before it closed, so it was a game I could only experience maybe once or twice a year when we went on holiday. And believe me, be it the tourist trap of Tenerife or the tiny Spanish island of Minorca, I was going to drag my ever suffering parents into every arcade we passed to seek the game out. If I found it, I’d sink most of my spending money into it, not even necessarily to beat it so much as to just enjoy it for longer stretches of time. It got to a point where I’d spend 10 Euros and a good half an hours worth of time clearing it from start to finish. Becoming aware of the sequels only further fuelled the obsession; I distinctly remember coming across The House Of The Dead 2 for the first time on a family vacation to Weymouth, back in the year 2000, and I was so buzzed about getting to play it that I kept rambling about it to my uncle- I distinctly remember asking him “do you think they’ll make a third one?” at one point, as if he’d somehow have the answer for me. Another encounter with the second game ended in me and my Father (who I’d somehow roped into playing it with me) completely misinterpreting the instructions on how to beat the first boss, and thus perishing miserably for our efforts. One of the funnier anecdotes to me looking back is a time when I was on a school trip when I was around 12 or 13; a friend and I were talking, and he started telling me about the fourth game after coming across it himself, and I absolutely refused to believe a word he said about it (a House Of The Dead with machine guns? PFFFFFFFFFFF, pull the other one Martin, you stooge).Even outside of the arcade, the obsession never went away; I frequently played imaginary games based on things I liked during breaks in primary school, and The House Of The Dead was a frequent subject I inflicted on my peers. Hell, I’d try mashing it up with other things I like, such as the aforementioned Sonic, or Harry Potter, Digimon, you name it. This crossed over into the earliest vestiges of my foray onto the Internet, where I’d come up with entire fanfiction-y House-Of-The-Dead-style stories with Sonic characters (official and fan character alike) whilst desperately searching for fan art relating to the series and finding... er, not all that much, really. Even Ghoul Panic, another light gun game I love (and have covered on the site before) got wrapped up into my House Of The Dead obsession at one point, by way of a sort of "design document" for a more HOTD-Styled Ghoul Panic I poured altogether too much time into.I honestly believe that the difficulty I had playing the original game outside the arcade context only contributed to my almost fanatical devotion to it. I had picked up many copies of the Xplosiv re-release of the PC Port over the years, and never managed to get any of them working properly on any computer we owned- even Windows XP would have none of it. I also never owned a Sega Saturn growing up, and I think even if I did, the fact that PAL copies of the Saturn port tend not to dip below £50-£60 would’ve made it a “maybe for your birthday” kind of gift back then. I came very, very close to owning an actual House Of The Dead machine when I was around 14 or so; we had found one for sale on eBay around my birthday, for a fairly reasonable price. I backed out of it for fears it would get damaged in transit, and I'm still a little salty about my decision a decade later. I filled the void by obsessively playing the PC port of the second game, which did work on most anything I tried it on, to the point of growing absolutely sick of it for a little while. I wasn’t a huge fan of the ports of the third title (having the gun always on screen like an FPS just felt so wrong to teen!me), and the fourth title was arcade exclusive until 8 years after its initial release. Nothing quite compared to the experience of standing in front of the machine, plastic gun in hand, and a pocketful of loose change to waste, and on some level I knew that.Hell, even that core experience of just being in an arcade, playing arcade games, was something The House Of The Dead very likely fostered within me. If I couldn’t find any of the games in the series, I’d have to find something else to play if I wanted to enjoy the arcade. A lot of my early memories of games like Daytona USA, Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles beat 'em up, CarnEvil, and a whole host of other games came as a result of trying to find a House Of The Dead, failing, and seeking out something else to play instead. Those experiences- the games I'd find themselves and the ambiance of your average arcade- instilled an honest to goodness love of arcade gaming, something that is still present within me today (there's a good reason my main music alias is named Arcade Child, after all).That’s largely a readers digest version of all the memories or experiences I have relating to the game, by the by. I haven’t covered things like the time I ripped the music from one of my House Of The Dead PC discs, only for it to be mislabeled by Media Player as Snow Patrol's Final Straw album, giving me an absolutely unshakeable belief that Snow Patrol wrote the music for the first game (in my extremely gullible past-self's defense, look at some of the song titles on this thing). Or how I would then play that disc everywhere, be it on car rides to school or to my peers at an afterschool care program I was enrolled it. I’ve got enough memories about the game and it’s influence on me, big and small, to fill an entire book. So the question needs to be asked: is that all it is? Memories and nostalgia?Well, no; the games obviously had to have had something to draw me to them and keep me interested for so long. And that something is... well, I guess the House Of The Dead experience itself. An atmosphere that is altogether as cheesy as it is fascinating; cohesive design work that strives to make the locales and enemies as memorable as they possibly can be; sound design and music that sticks in the mind as much as the various nasties you encounter;