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As previously mentioned, The House Of The Dead 2 was a smash hit for Sega, both in the arcades and at home. Whether through good gameplay, great design, or an appreciation for the goddamned silly, people couldn’t get enough of the franchise and were very much hungry for more. However, in a surprising amount of restraint on the company’s behalf, Sega took their time when it came to developing the third mainline title in the series. The project even seems to have gone through a fairly rigorous design process between conception and final product. Although I can’t remember the exact year precisely (and information is so fudged that some sources claim they were from the upcoming 2003 Xbox port), a couple of images debut across the ‘net and in a few gaming mags around the very early 2000s, showcasing what was, at the time, the brand spanking new House Of The Dead 3.
Quite a bit different from what had come before, right? Sadly, all that’s really known about this incarnation of the project are the those three images. It’s safe to say there was never any sort of playable build, and those screens are purely mockups made out of assets WOW! Entertainment had laying around (temp or otherwise). It’s... kind of a shame, actually. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I honestly think the vaguely Comic Book-esque, cel shaded look was kinda neat, and it would’ve been interesting to see what a full game with that look could’ve been like. I can see why it was dropped, though; in a previously cited interview with series creator Takashi Oda, he mentioned that one of the core design philosophies with the series was to keep it as “realistic” as possible (within the confines of the series’ weirdness, obviously), and a visual style like that kinda goes against that ethos. There do exist other pieces of concept art for The House Of The Dead 3, which can be found archived here, but it’s impossible to say whether any of them came from this early period or not.
The title eventually arrived on June 1st, 2002, and was quite a bit different from the previews we’d seen; about the only thing that seemed to have stuck was that the protags used shotguns this time around. The plot, too, had taken a turn many of us weren’t expecting. It’s 2019, and the world is in pretty terrible shape. Hordes of undead creatures and ungodly abominations have spread across the world, leading to the fall of all the world’s governing powers and widespread desolation. Not all hope is entirely lost, however; a paramilitary group, lead by the ageing Thomas Rogan, is still fighting against the hordes to uncover the truth behind what’s happened to the world, and maybe do something to reverse the damage. Their search eventually brings them to the remnants of the EFI Facility Center, an enormous research and development complex owned by the man who’s research lead to this absolute shitshow in the first place; Dr. Roy Curien. Unfortunately, the sheer number of freakish experiments quickly overwhelm the unit, until eventually only Rogan and a single soldier, Dan Taylor, are left standing. After battling valiantly, suffering countless injuries, the pair are so close to reaching the truth... and then they too fall off the radar, ceasing communication and leaving their mission unfinished. Motivated by a desire for answers and by personal attachment, Lisa Rogan- Thomas’ fiery upstart of a daughter- and the equally ageing G join forces, arm up, and head out to the EFI Facility Center to finally put an end to a tragedy two decades in the making...
Out the gate, the one criticism you can’t
level at The House Of The Dead 3 is that it’s “more of the same”; WOW! Entertainment realised there was only so much they could’ve done with what they had, so they opted to reinvent the wheel (tee hee) in places. Certain series traditions have carried over- the general idea of enemy balance is still intact, and despite the change in firearm you still only hold six shells per stock- but there’s a lot they’ve mucked about with. For starters, there’s no more of this “shoot outside the screen to reload” malarkey- similar to other light gun fair that uses shotguns, you simply pull the pump to reload. This absolutely does make a difference to how the game feels to play, potentially speeding it up somewhat and definitely giving your wrists a little bit of an easier time. From what memory serves, the plastic shotgun peripherals weren’t too heavy or unwieldily either, so it’s a relatively comfortable game to play for longer sessions. The hostage mechanic has been overhauled significantly, too; rather then encountering any civilians in need of saving, your partner will occasionally get grabbed or be accosted by an unmanageable group of Deads, requiring you to save them from taking a hit. Each successful rescue will net the player an extra life point in every instance, and rescuing them every single time unlocks a bonus room towards the end of the game. In single player this isn’t much of a departure from the original formula, but in two player mode, the feature really comes alive; the character to be rescued changes with each encounter, and whoever is chosen is unable to attack until they’re saved. You can argue such a feature is frustrating, but I think it’s kinda neat, and it’s definitely a very ballsy design choice for an arcade game. The background items are back too, with some neat little twists; this time around, Coins can be shot multiple times to rack up a small point multiplier. There are little wind up robots that operate in the same fashion, and very occasionally you’ll stumble upon little gold statues modelled after The Magician, which is a cute little continuity nod. Staggering bosses has also been changed up somewhat; instead of having to get a number of shots in, or hit them in their weak point a single time, the Cancel Bar mechanic from the teams prior effort- Vampire Night- has been brought over. Essentially, the Cancel Bar appears below the boss' main health bar, and must be depleted to stagger the boss and avoid taking damage. It's a small change, but it's nice to have clear visual feedback as to whether the boss is about to slap you upside the head or not.The biggest gameplay addition is the inclusion of grading, both in active gameplay and at the end of a level. During gameplay, the speed at which you dispatch enemies is monitored, giving you Faster, Good, or Excellent prompts based on how well you’re doing. There’s also a Twin Shot grade awarded when you dispatch two enemies with a single shot. Your total performance is graded at the end of the stage for a more traditional letter ranking, ranging from E-to-S. This time around, getting an A rank awards you with an extra life point at the end of the stage, and reaching an S nets you two. This likewise accumulates into one final grade upon game completion, which also includes an SS ranking if enough S ranks are gained (previous entries in the series contained a rudimentary “ranking” scale on it’s high score screen, but it was largely dependant on crossing static point thresholds). Speaking of lives, that’s been rejigged somewhat too; in the first and second games, you couldn’t go over 5 life points (outside of the console ports anyway), but in 3, your total life point count can go as high as 9.Additionally, there’s actually a little bit of player switching going on; throughout most of the game you play as Lisa (P1) and G (P2), but during the initial prologue Chapter, you briefly play as Rogan (P1) and Dan Taylor (P2)- who, as an additional bit of trivia, is supposedly the nephew of THOTD 2‘s James Taylor. He kicks the bucket and has zero characterisation, but, y’know, it is what it is. During the final leg of the game, another character takes over G’s position, but I’ll cover who a little later into the article. It doesn’t change the gameplay in any way, mind, but it adds a little bit of flavour to the proceedings.It all sounds very promising, but unfortunately, things do take a little bit of a downward slump from here. The really clever multipath system from the first two games? That has been abandoned entirely. There are still alternate routes of a sort, mind, but they’re much more typical, binary choices that you’re given by way of an on screen prompt. You can choose the order you play three of the game’s six chapters in, which will result in a different ending, but that’s not really quite the same. I honestly feel this choice was something of a step backwards, but I can’t speak for everyone with that claim. I will also be honest and say that the change to shotguns seems largely arbitrary; the shot radius, whilst a little bigger then the handguns, is still fairly small, and as a result the gun doesn’t feel like it has a lot of weight to it in the long run.
The visual design of the game has one again
shifted direction, aiming for a gritty, rusty, post apocalyptic vibe to go hand in hand with the direction the story took. I’ve got mixed feelings towards the changes; a lot of the EFI Facility is rather drab and dull, and doesn’t stand out quite the same way much of the first game or portions of the second game did. Evidently, Vampire Night sucked up a lot of WOW!’s Imagination Resources. However, as this is WOW! Entertainment we’re talking about, there are a few standout points of design. Firstly, the outer exterior of the Facility itself is fantastically imaginative in it’s construction, leaving quite an impression on the player- the surrounding ruins of the city around it also make for some of the best imagery in the game. One of the bosses- who I’ll cover in detail below- is also fought in a caged area filled corpses quite literally hung from the rafters, which makes for quite a gruesome sight. That said corpses are used in the fight itself only make it more impactful. The vegetation-overrun innards of the Bio Lab also make it the most memorable of the levels you venture through, in my humble opinion, but then I always was a sucker for the whole “literally overgrown with moss, plants, fungus and vines” aesthetic. And though the utter nonsense world of technobabble and Sci-Fi whosawhatsits you fight the final boss in makes absolutely zero logical sense, it is by far and away the most awe-inspiring locale in the game- and by my money, the coolest location any of the final boss encounters in the series is fought in.Similarly, I’ve got some mixed feelings regarding the enemy design. Overall, I’m not quite as big a fan of some of the nasties you fight this go around, but a number of them are extremely imaginative. For starters, several of the Brick Shithouse™ archetype carry straight up iron girders instead of conventional weaponry, which is very good visual shorthand for betraying exactly how strong they are. Raymond is one of the standout zombies for me, both due to his penchant of buzz -sawing-through doors with his circular saw, and because he doesn’t actually use the saw to attack you- he does that with the piece of metal he sharpens against it. Johnny also makes a triumphant return in this game, although he’s helped along by another axe wielding archetype; Morris, who swaps the tiny hatchets out for a longer battle axe he actively has trouble swinging around. Cain is easily the most interesting of the bunch, as he’s apparently the result of trying to fuse the Deads with vegetation; the result is a undead monstrosity with long, slithering tentacles for arms (and a few more wiggling around uselessly around his body). An interesting addition to the game is the use of dynamic death animations; Deads will actually spend a little bit of time collapsing to the floor and flailing about after their HP has been depleted, before burning away to ash. You can, however, still shoot them in this state, instead reducing them to a bloody mess on the floor. In addition, Ebitans- one of several series mainstays who sees a return in the game- melt into a puddle of sludge and slime either way.
The bosses are pretty out there, too; Death is an enormous security guard, who somehow found a uniform to fit his frame whilst shopping for that Skull-decorated club he wields; Fool is a vaguely sloth like creature, and is the inhabitant of the corpse-filled cage I mentioned
earlier; the Sun is by far and away the nuttiest boss of the entire series, consisting of a tall plant like body decorated with undead heads (with additional heads hidden in each of it’s flowers, mind) and a shitload of tendrils. The dedication the team put into showing Death’s persistence is also noteworthy; he shows up around halfway through the first level, chasing you through the rest of it, and he continually peruses you through the East Wing of the Information Systems Department, which makes for an interesting level. The kinda play around with boss placement with the Sun, too, who’s fought roughly halfway into the Bio Lab level rather then right at the end.Then we’ve got the Wheel Of Fate, who despite following the “glowing humanoid with elemental powers” mould the series had long since established by this point, has some rather fascinating backstory. You may remember last time, I mentioned that Curien was ultimately a bit of a flat villain in the original game. The House Of The Dead 3 sought to rectify that, and it does so quite well; through the use of flashback vignettes that play between levels, it’s revealed that Curien’s primary motivation was his terminally ill son, Daniel Curien. Though his research into the boundaries between life and death were initially benign, the nature of his work lead to several researchers abandoning ship, and the gradual decay of his sanity as each day wore on. Eventually, he goes completely bonkers, unleashing his vile experiments on the world and setting two further plans in motion; one involving his masterpiece, The Magician, and another that wouldn’t come about until after his death; The Wheel Of Fate. Curien’s remains were recovered sometime after his death and, presumably overseen by Goldman, said remains were messed about and, over a
period of two decades, reformed into what would become The Wheel Of Fate itself. It’s also revealed at the end of the day that, though it cost his sanity, Curien did ultimately succeed in his initial goal; Daniel is alive and well, and has been watching the Wheel Of Fate grow at the heart of the EFI Facility, doing what he could to sabotage it so it’s crippled upon it’s release. He’s the person who takes over G’s position as the second player character in the last leg of the game, after Lisa and G find Rogan alive and well; Daniel, as it turns out, was the one who saved Rogan from certain death. Again, not spectacularly groundbreaking stuff, but it adds a lot of depth to the Curien character that just wasn’t there originally, and the effort and emphasis placed on story and actual characterisation is something I commend.I'd be lying if I said I was 100% on board with the direction the story stook in some regards, however. The "global zombie apocalypse" thing didn't seem like a direction that The House Of The Dead would take, at least in part because of the whole "non-infectious, mass produced zombies" thing, although I can suspend my disbelief and assume that these things were produced in large enough quantities to ensure that, and may even be perpetually produced in places following the global outbreak. However, this is the game where things get a little bit spotty on that fact, however; several of the zombies are decked out like members of Rogan's commando unit, and it can be assumed they were members of the unit that fell during the raid. And during the second half of the final stage- which is a retread of the area you fought through in Chapter 0- you encounter the reanimated corpse of the third Commando from the intro to that chapter, who got his neck chomped on, as a sort of miniboss. It makes for good gameplay and is a real nice callback, but it seems to go against the ingrained canon set by the games beforehand, so it always struck me as really odd. Granted, the Bad Endings of every game in the series feature someone returning from death as a zombie, so there is something of a prescedent there, but it was always assumed those endings are non-canon. The fact that Sophie is confirmed to be Lisa's mother ruled out the first games' bad ending as void, at any rate (although zero explination is given for how Sophie survived a Bardiche to the stomach, so, y'know, it's whatever). Whatever the case, it's all nitpicking on my part, and I totally cop to that.
My biggest hangup with the game, if I were to be brutally honest, is the soundtrack. The actual sound design itself is very good- this is the first game in the series where the various Deads were given individual soundbytes, of which Morris’ moans of agony were my favourite- but most of the music just does nothing for me personally. Composer Eriko Sakurai decided to forgo the styles set by either of the prior games and went for a primarily orchestral soundtrack, aided by light drum machine touches and very light smatterings of synth work for atmosphere. Inkeeping with the style, this is also the soundtrack in the series with the biggest number of leitmotifs, callbacks, and overall soundtrack unification. A very bold decision, and I applaud the desire to do something different, but it doesn’t have quite the same impact as the music in the first two games, and I feel the game does somewhat suffer for not having a slightly stronger soundtrack. That the instrumentation seems to have largely been doing using synthesized instrumentation all the way through robs the soundtrack of a little oomph as well, although I suspect that decision may have partially been down to budgetary reasons, so I can’t really blame Ms. Sakurai for that one. Here are the pieces for Mission 1 and Mission 3, so you can make up your own mind on the matter. There are, however, a couple of pieces on the soundtrack I do genuinely like; the game’s Main Theme is both a very catchy melody in it’s own right, and definitely captures a real sense of both urgency and melancholy. The Wheel Of Fate’s Theme also stands out not only for having a strong melody with a clear progression, but matching it with a uncommon time signiature and a fairly complex arrangement.
Similarly to the second game, porting was a fairly easy task on Sega’s part. It was built using their Chihiro hardware, which was based on the architecture of the original Xbox. The initial port of the game to the console was more or less identical, as far as standard gameplay and graphical quality are concerned. There are a few changes, though; firstly, the actual reloading mechanic was removed entirely, becoming a wholly automated process. Second, the guns of your player characters are continually onscreen in this version, hanging about in the bottom left and bottom right corners respectively. It’s true that the reloading animation was shown onscreen in the arcade version, but this decision has always baffled me. When I was younger, I absolutely hated it solely on the principal that “they tried to make it look like an FPS”, whereas now, I dislike it because it actually kind of clutters the game field up. I dunno, maybe it’s just me, but I reckon it really doesn’t work. Credit where it’s due, though; the model of the arms holding the gun do change based on who’s holding them. This odd detail, and the lack of reloading mechanic, were both carried over to the PC version released around the same time as well. It wouldn’t be until the Wii port, as part of The House Of The Dead 2 & 3 return, where the reloading mechanic was added back in and the “constantly onscreen gun” were removed (although, at the risk of really sounding like a pedantic asshole, the latter was added back in to the PS3 port).
Actual differences and additions to the ports include a Survival mode (which is about what you’d expect a survival mode to be), and a Time Attack mode. In Time Attack mode, lives are swapped out for a constantly running clock that starts at 45 seconds. Faster, Good, Excellent, and Twin Shot grades each add seconds back onto the timer, as do clocks laying around in the background if they’re shot. Stunning any given boss adds a total of 10 seconds back onto the timer- excepting The Wheel Of Fate, whom adds 2 seconds per hit landed. Getting bit by regular attacks costs 7 seconds, getting hit by projectiles costs 5, and getting hit by a boss. You’re rated at the end of the game by Curien, of all people, who also indicates the relative distance you managed to keep the zombies at in terms of metres. An interesting addition to the core game, it has to be said.
I don’t want the negativity throughout some of this article to give out the wrong impression; The House Of The Dead 3 is by no means a bad game. It offers the same frenetic fun as the prior two titles, yet changes just enough about it to keep it fresh without robbing it of what makes it “feel” like a House Of The Dead title. By and large, most of my problems with the title stem from personal taste, similarly to my hangups with the second title. However, the lack of feedback the supposed change in firearm offers, as well as the significantly less interesting multipath system do hurt the game a little bit, and ultimately I’m left feeling that The House Of The Dead 3 isn’t quite as good a game as it could’ve been. It’s my least favourite of the mainline titles, but I enjoy returning to it once in a blue moon for a bit of fresh air. If you’d like to see the game in action, I’ve embeded a playthrough of the video below.
~ Decon (20/10/16)
images sourced from thewebsiteofthedead.com, cyberspaceandtime.com, video-game-wallpers.com, digitallydownloaded.net, gamesgb.com, gamespot.com, mobygames.com, segabits.com
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