However, I'm not going to give one; Comparison reviews fucking suck. They take away from actually covering a game by drawing useless comparisons and distracting from the ultimate point of a review, which is scoring an individual game based on it's own person merits. So, for all those who are curious how this new HotD stacks up against RE, I'm not going to make you wait until the end of the review. I'm getting this out of the way right now, to clear your mind of any comparison to RE; This game is a very shallow attempt at distracting consumers from purchasing the better game [RE, in this case] by releasing old content with few added features. The game itself is shallow, and it pales in contrast to the depth and intricacies of RE.

Borrowing [read also; "copying and pasting"] all of it's content from the PC releases of House of the Dead 2 and 3, the main features which set it apart from the arcade releases are the addition of the "Time Attack" mode in 3 and the "Original Mode" in 2. The only feature not present in the PC versions, and perhaps the only exclusive feature of the game, is the "Extreme" mode now found in HotD3, which introduces a rather tedious melee attack and tougher enemies. Otherwise, this is the same game you've seen before in the arcade, with a few cheap added frills. The Wiimote acts as your light gun, utilizing only the B trigger and the + button for your start menu. There are no attempts at bringing other buttons into play, or adding to the now dated games by means of extra items or attacks. If you're looking for something fresh and original, you're looking in the wrong place.

The stories are exactly as they were back in 1998 and 2002; In HotD2, you are taken back in time [or into the future, if you think about it in terms of the game's original release] to the year 2000, two years after the Curien Mansion incident in the original HotD. Strange occurrences (zombie attacks) are going down in Venice, Italy, and it's up to AMS Agents James Taylor and Gary Stewart [along with fellow agents Amy Crystal and Harry Harris] to investigate and evacuate the populace. And so, you must battle against the undead horde, released by the head of the eminent financial group known as the "DBR Corporation", Caleb Goldman. As you battle through waves of the undead and horrible, horrible voice acting, you must save survivors to earn health bonuses and battle large bosses with large health bars. There are branching paths on the rail, which you switch on or off of depending on your ability to save survivors.

In HotD3, you flash forward to a post-apocalyptic 2019, with civilization long since collapsed. Ex-AMS agent Thomas Rogan and a team of commandos [read also; "expendables"] investigate the EFI research facility, which may be linked to the world collapse. Thomas' 19-year-old daughter, Lisa, and Rogan's former partner "G" travel there two weeks later with automatic shotguns in hand after contact is lost. You must once again battle through hordes of the undead and horrible, horrible one-liners and cheesy dialogue, in an attempt to find your father and save the world from zombies. The gameplay remains largely unchanged, the main differences being the lack of civilians and a new reload system to complement the addition of shotguns to the game. To fill the health gaining void left open with the removing of civilians comes a "Rescue" bonus, where you rescue your own teammate for a health bonus. Changing your path is now done manually, by choosing your path via pop-ups, although ultimately you wind up in the same locations every time, albeit in a different order.

One of the major problems here is that both of the games are incredibly short, taking a possible maximum of 45 minutes to go through each of the titles individually. If you remember in my Ghost Squad review, another case of an arcade port to the Wii, they managed to make up for the length by means of the unlockables and extra paths. However, since these features are limited to HotD2, HotD3 still feels incredibly linear. And even still, HotD2 feels so outdated and overplayed, the PC unlockables hardly even add anything. And as far as the action goes, HotD is very unspectacular in it's generic engine and it's almost complete lack of real innovation or variety, even for when it was released. When all is said and done, HotD is a fun little romp through zombie-infested cityscape, and a game whose place is in an arcade, not a home console. Developers: If you're going to release years old content, at least give us some new incentive to play it.

The truth is, there just isn't much to talk about here; All of the graphics are dated, the sound is appropriate, and the game heavily relies on the fact that you have to be willing to replay the same two games over and over again with little motivation or incentive. It may work well as a party game, assuming you can find someone willing to play through a 45 minute game in one sitting outside of a real arcade setting. If you're a fan of HotD, it might be worth a purchase in the name of saving your quarters at the arcade, but if you're looking for a deep FPS title on the Wii, look elsewhere.

Sound: 6/10 Graphics: 5/10 Replay: 7/10 Gameplay: 5/10 Overall: 5/10