Nobody leaves here alive! That is the slogan of The House of The Dead Remake. A cult and arcade classic making its way to the Nintendo Switch. The question is: Is it a good fit or an undead nightmare waiting to happen?

Let’s talk, I’m dead serious

For those not familiar with the long-running franchise of The House of the Dead let me explain a bit. The House of the Dead is a classic arcade rail-shooter franchise that started out in the arcade in 1996 with The House of the Dead, the game that this remake is based on. In the games, you only control your gun (cursor) and go on a set path to clear the level. In the arcades, this was done with an actual light gun.

Along the way, you will encounter zombies or trigger cutscenes. The goal is to make it through the level with the highest score. In arcades, the challenge came from not dying, because if you died you had to put more money in. With The House of the Dead remake, the game receives a whole new coat of paint in terms of graphics and gameplay to suit more to the modern gaming standards.

Gyroscope, is it dope or nope?

The House of the Dead: Remake fits very well with the Nintendo Switch. You can play with a single Joy-Con to shoot as you would in the arcade with its light guns. The system on the Switch however isn’t perfect, as you might know from some other game reviews that use pointer controls. The Arcade & Wii systems use Infrared. This makes it so the pointer is super accurate because when the controller can see the sensor it always points at the same spot.

The Switch, however, doesn’t use infrared but instead uses gyro controls. Gyro calibrates are set on a default position but because of all the movements, the cursor will get off-centered. This was sadly the same for The House of the Dead: Remake. The cursor is not accurate enough and requires frequent recentering. It works but it’s definitely not perfect. The gyroscope can be turned on and altered to your liking in the settings. You can opt to choose to play with both stick and gyro or just gyro controls. You can also of course just play with stick controls but I wouldn’t recommend it for this type of game since the charm and the fun come with more flexibility in the controls.

Settings, options, and additions

A lot of settings can be changed which is always nice. These range from removing some HUD elements, individual sound levels, changing the amount of aim assist, crosshair colour, speed etc. Besides this, there is a leaderboard, achievements, statistics, and a gallery that displays the enemies and some information about them that you have encountered. The campaign can be played in a couple of different ways. You can play the game local multiplayer, either cooperative or competitive. Both players can choose their own difficulty levels, ranging from easy to arcade. Lastly, you have the choice between the classic or modern score mode. After finishing the campaign mode you can also play hoard mode where you are swarmed by lots of enemies at once.

I had a great time blasting through the enemies in a pretty face-paced on-rail shooter. The experience can be greatly enhanced when you play it together or against a friend in local multiplayer.

Updated downgraded visuals

Although this game is a remake of the original I still think the game looks somewhat aged. The original release has a similar look to the PS1 in terms of graphics. The remake looks more like Xbox 360. It is a major upgrade in aesthetics, graphics, and visuals but I feel like more could have been done. This probably has to do with the limited power of the Nintendo Switch.

This is also seen in an option to toggle performance mode. With performance mode on the bloom/lighting will be changed/lowered and an average FPS around 50-55fps is hit. Without performance mode, the game runs around 40-50fps. A PC release is coming out on 28 April 2022 and going off the trailer they put up online has cleaned up the graphics to a more acceptable standard. I reckon the framerate of this version will be more consistent as well but only time will tell.

Conclusion

Overall I had a great time with The House of the Dead: Remake. It’s loads of fun to play especially with friends. I however have some mixed feelings about it as well.  On the one hand, the game has been massively improved over the original arcade release in terms of graphics and gameplay. But on the other hand, the Switch still has aged graphics for today’s standard. The stick controls are good but not ideal. You’ll have more fun using aim/gyro controls. They work decent enough and heighten the experience, but are not always accurate and require frequent recentering. I would recommend picking this game up since it only costs €25.

7/10

-Tested on Nintendo Switch