Of course, this isn't the first M-rated game for the Wii. Seventeen titles have gotten it for "Blood and Gore" even. But it's definitely a departure from the stereotype, especially for a Wii exclusive. Given House of the Dead's long legacy as an arcade shooter, it's probably the only machine for which this type of game could be developed. It'll be curious to see how this does against Dead Rising: Chop Til You Drop.

House of the Dead: Overkill: The Experience Doc [Gametrailers]

The developer, formerly known as Kuju London and responsible for both Battalion Wars releases, is upping the shock factor for the Western audience targeted House of the Dead. The game has blood mapping, giving bullet wounds plenty of flow, spatters on clothes and the environment. And the bosses, at least the one we saw, veer from the fantastical to the... fucking creepy.

The team at Headstrong is going for that grindhouse look with Overkill. That aesthetic isn't limited to the cheap film treatment — overexposed lighting, green-washed blacks, speckles, dust and scratches — it's also getting some "really good intentionally bad dialogue", according to Crooks. Suffer like G did?

Maybe, because Agent G is in the game, a prequel to the Sega AM1 developed series of arcade light gun shooters. He'll star with Detective Washington as a fresh from the AMS academy graduate who ultimately makes a career for himself shooting thousands of the undead.

That shooting can all be done with the Wii Remote, with flicks of the wrist for reloading and pans to the left and right with the remote's targeting reticule. It's still an on-rails shooter, but you'll be able to pan about 45 degrees beyond your normal view — not unlike the Wii's other popular zombie shooter, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles.

In Overkill, you'll have more than just one gun to shoot all those zombies with. We saw a sub machine gun and magnum pistol, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. You'll be able to switch between them to mix up your strategy. With "more zombies on screen than you can shoot in a second", The House of the Dead Overkill ratchets up the tactics. You can slow fast moving zombies down by shooting out their knees, reducing them to a crawl.

Crooks also confirmed some gesture based attacks in the final version, making sense of the grenade power up he passed on during our demo.

Overkill has at least one other power up in the "mofo slo-mo" — name probably internal/tentative — that further overexposes the look of the game, slowing the action down to about half-speed. This makes it that much easier to boost your combo count and pull of brain evacuating headshots. It's cool.

Based on what we saw, including the disturbing glance at the level's boss, we're certainly excited about what Sega and Headstrong are doing with the series. It's certainly an interesting deviation, one dripping with rancid guts and style.

And wait until you see the press pack....

Ah, how I am looking forward to the return of the House of the Dead franchise. Back in the day I played the original HOD on the Dreamcast on an almost daily basis. Now it's coming to the Wi with all its rail shooting goodness and terrible voice acting intact. I long for the return of those dulcet tones... "Reload! Reload! Reload!" Somehow it just never gets old.

make the jump for a second clip.

A lot of video games have no story. I did the movie House of the Dead and got bashed and I said, what were you expecting, Schindler's List? I showed zombies chasing people and this is basically what the movie delivers. I don't know what they were expecting if you make a movie based on an ego shooter where you kill ninety minutes of people non-stop.

At this point, Sega has made no official announcements about such a collection, but Gamefly's track record of spoiling announcements has been fairly solid so far. As a superfan of The House of the Dead 2, I am cautiously optimistic, hoping that I'll get the Wii opportunity to give the shotgun-heavy The House of the Dead III a second chance.

House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return [Gamefly via Go Nintendo]

Zombie Game [TV in Japan]

Why play for points and achievements when you can play for more important things? Things like money. A new slot machine based on the Sega PS2 game Shinobi has popped up at casinos. Good thing readers Aaron and Joel sent us pics of the swank set-up. Joel was nice enough to include a single pic of slot House of the Dead EX — which, according to the machine, has exactly 243 ways to win. (And probably a gazillion ways to lose.) Brian Ashcraft

Arcade gaming dead? Not quite. Sega has rolled out House of the Dead 4 Special for Japan and Europe. Players can either have a go as House of the Dead 2's James Taylor or new character Kate Green. Outfitted with two 100 inch XGA projector screens, the game runs on Sega's Lindbergh CG arcade board, and the cabinet puts players in a twirling, vibrating seat-belted seat. Think: Giant rumble pack! So when zombie attack, burst of air are blown on players faces, and things shake. Good to see some people still give a flip about the arcade experience. Brian Ashcraft

House of the Dead 4 Special [Sega via Siliconera]

Capcom Japan has a teaser trailer posted on their site for The Umbrella Chronicles, featuring several characters both familiar to me and unfamiliar, running through what looks to be a subdued version of House of the Dead. It saddens me that what looks to be a major event in the RE universe - the fall of Umbrella Corp - is going to be covered in a game like this. It's like depicting Solid Snake's death in Metal Gear Solid Pinball Ops. Michael Fahey

Umbrella Chronicles Teaser Video [Capcom Japan - Thanks J.A.!]

Rose McGowan's favorite game? House of the Dead 2. She played that game on her Dreamcast 24-7 — So much that she pissed off her dog. Literally. Star of the flick Grindhouse tells VH1:

My dog got so mad because I obsessively played it. She peed on it and blew it up... It really blew up. I saw this weird steam rising in the air over to the side while I was playing. I said, What the hell? And she was running away. I said, OK, dog, I'll take the hint. The thing is, it smells really bad. Besides the blowing up metallic burning smell, it has a nice urine overtone. And so that was the end of House of the Dead 2 for me. Occasionally, I'll find one in an arcade and I'll get so excited.

That poor, poor Dreamcast. Brian Ashcraft

Rose Talks DC [Game Break]

Geist Force. Mario 128. Frame City Killer. Nico. Project Berkley. Too Human. Thrill Kill. Donkey Kong's Fun With Music.

If you've been following gaming for a while, you'll recognize many of those names, knowing that many of them never saw the light of day or were in development for so long, console generations came and went without a release. If you're looking to wax nostalgiac on dozens of games that never made it past the alpha stage, you may want to spend some time over at Unseen 64.

In addition to a slew of unfinished, unrealized sequels and fresh franchises are games that underwent massive design changes. Sneak a peek at Okami's photorealistic style, House of the Dead III's cel shaded look, Rez's half-dozen art direction attempts, or the abandoned Resident Evil 1.5. Wonder to yourself "Whatever happened to that game?" Michael McWhertor

Unseen 64 - Videogames Unseen, Unreleased & Beta Archive!

It's a familiar song and dance after a game adaptation is announced: folks get worried, nervous, excited and then horribly disappointed. Going by the trailer, the Dead or Alive movie looks to be no exception.

Fear not says the flick's producer Mark A. Altman. He should know as he's brought us those House of the Dead movies. We are in good hands. Mark A. Altman is a seasoned pro, and he uses his middle initial. Mark assures us:

I've seen a number of cuts now of the film and all I can say is I think it's incredibly faithful to the game so if you like the games, you'll like the movies not to mention the fight scenes are incredibly memorable. I like to think it's the closest I've gotten to working on a James Bond movie...so far... I always loathe to jinx things by talking about sequels before the films open, but I think this is a rich universe with great characters and we all had a lot of fun making it so it's certainly my hope they'll be many, many more DoA movies.

By mentioning that the movie keeps getting re-edited (never a good sign) and that it's like a James Bond film (ugh), we can take Altman's remark of making many more DoA movies to be only one thing: a threat. Brian Ashcraft

More Here [Firing Squad]

When I was about 8 or 9, I walked into the living room, my face a grim mask of determination, and informed my parents that they could dispose of all of my toys, as I would no longer be playing with them. They could throw away my die-cast Voltron, my Star Wars figures, my Transformers, my Madballs. I would spend the rest of my childhood in quiet intellectual pursuit, reading Proust and the like. I've regretted it ever since.

I really wish I was joking, but I'm not. I was spurred to this momentous decision when I discovered a 17-year-old neighbor of mine enthusiastically playing with some G.I. Joe fortress on his front porch. In retrospect, he may have been a bit retarded... clinically, I mean. But even at 8 years old, positively envious of the toy he was using to enact all sorts of amazing battles against Cobra, I still realized he would probably be better off utilizing his time chasing girls.

It seemed like a pragmatic investment in my future at the time, but I've spent the rest of my life regretting that mistake. I eye covetously all the cool toys that I denied myself. Ironically, if I'd played with toys as long as I'd wanted, I probably wouldn't be so into them now. This is also probably the reason I'm into games — my parents wouldn't let me play them growing up, because it "rots the mind." They had a point there; I write for Kotaku.

This is only tangentially related to why I got drooling over the Dreamcast Junkyard's gallery of Dreamcast-oriented toys and memorabilia. Still, even as I check eBay for the collection of Street Fighter or House of the Dead toys, I can't help but wonder if toys aren't more for adults like me as collectibles now than they are for little kids to play with. Which is sad, really — toys aren't meant to be mint and pristine and kept in a cardboard box. They're meant to be ripped open by little kids and used as the avatars of grand sandbox adventures. Florian Eckhardt

Dreamcast Memorabilia! Swoosh. [Dreamcast Junkyard]

Next week, the Sci Fi Channel will be broadcasting its original, made-for-cable sequel to House of the Dead. We've heard from starlet Emmanuelle Vaugier before, when she said this sequel is "trying to erase the first one from people's memories." I dunno, if they wanted to do that, why make a sequel? It's like picking at an infected wound. Nothing but irritation and redness.

Like the film's prequel, House of the Dead 2 looks like it had nothing to do with the game (nor with Uwe Boll, either). The movie broadcasts at 9/8 Central Time on February 11th. For obvious reasons, it actually might not suck.

Watch the Trailer [Official Site] Thanks, Ben!

In what has to be the oddest IGN video in a while, the game site sits down to break bread with filmmaker and chowderhead Uwe Boll. Now, what Dr. Boll had to say wasn't strange in the least. He actually came off relatively well and charming even as he talked about his parents and denied full responsibility for the tripe known as House of the Dead. No, the strange part was the contrast of red wine and a lit candle with a can of soda and a white Styrofoam box. Talk about classy.

Watch Uwe Here [IGN] Thanks, Lewis!

The plot made no sense whatsoever, the acting was cheesy, the special effects ineffective, the casting absurd, and what the fuck was with that ending? I mean.. what the fuck?

Did I mention that this movie sucked?

From the one-and-a-half minute text crawl at the beginning to the nonsensical camera zoom at the end, this movie was two hours of pure drivel. Don't go check out the movie to see if I'm exaggerating. Instead just pay someone $5 to punch you in the neck; it'll be a more enjoyable experience.

Now that I have officially seen all three of Uwe Boll's game movies I feel like I am adequately versed in his technique to summarize his art of movie making:

1. Take a game with a following and extract from it the plot. Place plot in nearest trash receptacle.

2. Cast a bunch of nobodies, has-beens and at least one used-to-be.

3. Get everyone drunk.

4. Shoot interaction scenes.

5. Create at least one mammoth fight scene at night and then chop it up into a bunch of segments less than 2 seconds long. Insert lots of distracting special effects and lighting. Throw the whole thing into one mammoth, never-ending denouement.

6. Get the lead character to do a voice over to summarize all the shit you forgot to put into the film.

And for all of you following my Uwe Boll reviews, I still stand by my original assessments. Boll is a man in over his head who is very much trying to do something different with the video game genre, but he is also in way, way over his head.

These movies are not the work of someone just trying to make a buck off a following, they are the failed attempts at directorial creativity, the ugly side of thinking outside the box.

I still loved House of the Dead for all of the wrong reasons, and I still think Bloodrayne was firmly ensconced in mediocrity. Alone in the Dark alone, of all of Boll's movies, deserves the drubbing it took at both the hands of critics and fans alike.

To summarize:
House of the Dead: C
Alone in the Dark: Somewhere in lower intestines of F.
Bloodrayne:D

And if you really want to enjoy Bloodrayne, watch Alone in the Dark first, then you can't help but be pleasantly surprised. As a matter of fact, I suggest keeping AITD around in the house to use as a sort of move viewing palette cleanser. After a month of watching really good movies, just when you're starting to not appreciate good movies anymore, spend some time with Christian Slater.

So I watched House of the Dead last night and I'm starting to think you guys need to find another director to pick on. OK, so it was mostly crap, but did you expect Saving Private Ryan from a plot about a bunch of zombies killing people? Sure, this wasn't even up to George Romero standards, but it was a enjoyable trip and it seemed like everyone making it had a lot of fun. I think I actually enjoyed House of the Dead more than BloodRayne.

For slasher flicks, this movie fit right into the genre, nothing overly bad or good. Having seen more gore-packed, blood-oozing movies than I'd care to admit, I think I can speak on this topic with some expertise.

The first half of the movie is action-packed and full of amazing special effects. If you haven't seen it yet, Boll uses some pretty interesting technology to create some huge bullet-time scenes. Instead of the scenes including two or three people, he managed to squeeze in a whole graveyard worth of actors. The effect is pretty cool. The middle drags a little, but fortunately it's a fairly short section. The end jumps back into the action, but isn't as enjoyable as the beginning of the movie.

Boll also did a lot to turn this slasher flick into a homage to the game. There are bits of footage from the game actually in the movie, and lots of the game elements show up as well. Whenever one of the main characters dies, the background fades to black and the camera slowly rotates around the character, just like the drop-a-coin countdown in the arcade shooter. One of the last shoot-out scenes of the movie features the characters walking down a long hallway blasting zombies as they jump out of the dark.

I bought the UMD version of the movie, which comes with two featurettes. The first one, about zombie boot camp, is rather crap and just shows the female stars of the movie playing the arcade game and shooting up a bunch of extras with paintball guns. The second one, a behind-the-scenes short, is definitely worth a watch. It talks a lot about making the movie, shows some of the very cool technology behind the zombies and bullet time and even has interviews with George Romero and his special effects guy.

If you like any of the Friday the Thirteenth movies, especially the later ones, or Nightmare on Elmstreet or Chucky, then I'd recommend buying this UMD. On the whole, Boll produced a fairly fun gore flick that manages to pack in tons of elements from the game. Personally, I think the movie overcame the obstacles created by basing it on a rather flat, plotless game.

Now, that doesn't mean I think Boll is a great director, but so far, from what I've seen, he certainly doesn't deserve the verbal lashings he's been getting. Granted, I say that having not yet seen Alone in the Dark.

Boll certainly isn't the best director I've seen, but he's also by no means the worst. And he's the only one we really have. He's a real live gamer who doesn't want to just slap a game's name onto a movie and be done with it. He works to incorporate bits of the game into his movies. Personally, I think that's the problem. He's trying to do something different with the genre and mainstream critics don't like it. But he's not making the movies for them, he's making them for us. And right now he's paying the price for making movies for a passionate and very vocal audience.

We'll be able to see what this movie is like without the gaming elements when House of the Dead 2 hits DVD in March. This one is directed by Michael Hurst.

I'm curious—how many of you Boll haters have actually seen his movies? I'll admit that I hadn't seen any until last week, and had jumped on the bashing bandwagon based on the reviews I had read and because, well, it's just fun smack-talking someone.