The House of the Dead: Overkill – The Lost Reels Review

Posted 05/01/2013 at 7:10pm | by Mikel Reparaz

On consoles, The House of the Dead: Overkill took one of the most well-trodden premises imaginable — shooting zombies in first-person, on rails — and used it to create one of the most memorably over-the-top games of all time. Taking tropes from '70s grindhouse horror movies and cranking them to ridiculous levels, HotD:O was gruesome, hectic, and — as its characters clumsily shoehorned f-bombs into nearly every sentence — so deliberately crass that it was impossible to see it as anything other than a comedy.

The iOS version, subtitled The Lost Reels, scales all that back considerably. Once again following the exploits of Agent G, his absurdly foul-mouthed partner Detective Washington, and two hyperviolent strippers out for revenge, it does its best to approximate the original as players blast their way through two creepy environments (a dilapidated mansion on the bayou and a filthy-looking hospital) filled with flesh-hungry zombies. Power-ups and secret paths occasionally pop up to offer players something new to gun for, and while there are only three zombie types per level (or four, in the $1.99 "Naked Terror" add-on level), they mix up their attacks just enough to keep you on your toes, and to keep the action from getting too stale.

Compared to the console versions of Overkill, The Lost Reels feels like a pale imitation. Its characters still swear copiously between levels, and zombie heads still explode on a near-constant basis, but the gameplay's slower, the zombies far less diverse, and the levels — which cut some of the original areas and recycle the remaining ones — are more drab and repetitive than crazy and threatening. And while it packs in two of the boss fights from the full-sized version (or three, with Naked Terror), they've been simplified to the point that any personality or challenge has been sapped away.

Taken on its own, however, it's a fun (if somewhat expensive) rail shooter that packs in an awful lot of blood for an iOS game. Aiming with its virtual-thumbstick controls works surprisingly well, and being able to swap between a pistol and shotgun to keep from being mauled while reloading adds a light element of strategy. Also, as stingy as the game is with its levels, it's generous enough with its in-game currency that you'll be able to rapidly upgrade your guns and abilities to near-unbeatable heights. And while you'll revisit the same areas frequently, the fact that the game charts different paths through them each time definitely helps. 

The bottom line. The Lost Reels is a pale shadow of the original, but it does a decent job with what little it's been given.

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Not only will shooting zombies interrupt their attacks, but you can blow off their arms, or force them to the ground by shooting their legs.

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The still-image cutscenes between levels are just as sweary as their console counterparts. This was one of the only word balloons we could show you.

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Reloading can take a little while, especially at first. Keep an eye on your ammo to make sure you're not caught out when the zombies shuffle close.

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Occasionally, zombies will stand in the background and throw knives. These travel surprisingly slowly, so shoot them out of the air at your leisure.

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Sometimes you'll be able to shoot a power-up that slows time and lets you perform actions you wouldn't otherwise, like slow-motion shooting leaps past hordes of undead.

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Upgrades are pretty easy to save up for, and extremely useful to staying alive.

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Three of the console version's bosses appear here, but mostly they've been reduced to throwing barrels.

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Each level puts the zombies in different outfits, hence the patients and nurses in this dingy hospital.

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For $1.99 more, you can have a third level set in a strip club. To its credit, this level is a lot more varied than the other two.

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Every once in a while, you'll have to gun down zombies in a hurry to prevent a civilian from being eaten. Succeed, and you'll get a fat currency bonus.

iPad, iPod touch or iPhone running iOS 5.1 or later

Fun and bloody, with enough variety to stay interesting throughout its short run time. Looks great. Generous with in-game currency and upgrades.

Three enemy types per level can get pretty repetitive. Floor plans get recycled a lot, especially during the first level. No sweary character commentary (or any voices at all) during gameplay. Having to pay another $1.99 to unlock the third level (and its two stripper characters) is annoying.

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