Slay the undead in the privacy of your own home

Videogame classics can be as stubborn as the undead. The “House of Dead 2 ‘ 3 Return” package… Videogame classics can be as stubborn as the undead. The “House of Dead 2 ‘ 3 Return” package shows it’s for good reason.

Reviving two golden arcade titles that robbed many gamers of their spare change, “The House of the Dead 2 ‘ 3 Return” is an entertaining amble down zombie lane. This time, luckily, only a single purchase is necessary, then you can play all you want.

“The House of the Dead 2 ‘ 3 Return” Nintendo Wii

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Because it’s just the bare basics, the package combines two games on one disc. There are some extra play modes, co-op and unlockables, but it’s up for debate whether or not the game is worth $30.

The storyline driving the games? Who cares. It all builds from the first game, which is unfortunately missing from the combo, in which someone created a zombie-making virus by accident.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to blast the zombies back to the hell from which they crawled.

This is done pretty seamlessly on the Wii. Wiimote functionality basically replicates the light gun from the arcade, down to the rumble feature, so it’s really as easy as point, click and shoot.

A calibration menu helps to fine-tune your aim, but any arcade veteran will jump into the gore fest with ease. Is there really any need for the Wiimote’s low quality speaker to make the gunshot noises? That feature gets a little annoying, but at least the player can shut it off.

That’s pretty much all you do for the duration of game play: Point the Wiimote at the screen and press the B-trigger to shoot. Point the Wiimote away from the screen to reload, and shoot some more.

These games, for those unfamiliar, are rail shooters, which mean you don’t move your character, just the targeting reticule. That’s fine, because your attention will be on watching those zombie heads fly.

But that doesn’t mean you have to go down the same path over and over again – depending on whom you save or let die (it’s sometimes more fun to shoot the civilians), you can take various paths. The third game lets you choose your path, since there aren’t any puny civilians to save.

Unlockables can boost your gun’s power, allow you more bullets or give you infinite credits, which would’ve been a godsend for the arcade versions.

Graphically, “House of the Dead 2’s” visuals have aged about as finely as Velveeta, whereas those of “3” have aged more like Gouda and hold up reasonably well to today’s standards.

Speaking of all things cheese, these games are rife with enough cheesiness to make anyone cringe. The dialogue is a joke and the voice acting can be unintentionally funny or just downright dumb, especially in “2.”

But that’s what makes these games so damn good. Sure, who doesn’t enjoy blowing a hole through the undead’s gut, but without the stupid one-liners, a lot of people might not remember the experience.

The audio makes you feel like you stepped into a B-grade horror film, one that’s so bad it’s good again. In fact, it’s fairly obvious why the Uwe Boll film based on the series is thought of in that way.

Even the new developers seem to address the inherent cheesiness, as the first menu of the game has awkward-sounding zombie moans and screams.

Thankfully, these scenes can be skipped by pressing the one button on the Wiimote, but they’re too hilariously bad to miss.

“House of the Dead 2 ‘ 3 Return” will leave you wanting more awesome splatter-fests, and the dumb dialogue and voice acting will spark a craving for nachos to dip in that cheese. It all culminates in a solid shooter game that makes itself at home on the Wii.