THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD: Remake Reviews
When it all works like it should, The House of the Dead: Remake is a fun update of a Sega arcade classic. The performance can be janky and the controls clunky on its default settings, but if you're willing to put the time in to tweak them you should get something you're happier with. You shouldn't have to do that with a light gun shooter, though, and the fact you do has to go down as a failing on the game's part.
The House of the Dead: Remake is a lukewarm game that lives on reflected light and has several glitches in the control system. Only for those who sleep with a light gun under their pillow.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The visual facelift and extras added to The House of the Dead are spoiled because of the control system. Playing with a pointer is not funny, and the joy-con motion sensor aiming system is inaccurate and requires us to constantly calibrate it. The experience is a far cry from Sega's legendary arcade.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The House of the Dead: Remake can be an enjoyable return to the classic arcade rail shooter, but performance hiccups and frustrating controls are scarier enemies than the zombies themselves.
The House of the Dead Remake is a game rooted on nostalgia and zombies, but fails to bring an entertaining experience on Nintendo Switch due to the many issues with its control scheme. A pity, since the juicy arcade gameplay and extras would have deserved all of your love.
Review in Italian | Read full review
A remake of the second game has already been confirmed and with that game being my personal favorite, I’ll certainly be picking it up, but I’ll be the first to admit this setup isn’t perfect. As with all games, there are things you like and things you don’t, but not having a Light Gun in a Light Gun game is always going to be a problem. Let’s hope we see a VR release later on down the line.
More remaster than remake, it takes good advantage of the Joy-Con's gyroscope for gameplay. The feel of the game remains on the same lines as the original, but still suffers from other issues regarding accuracy and shooting. Still remains a short and enjoyable game with enough "patches" to these problems.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The House of the Dead remake is characterized by a faithful embodiment of the elements of the original. However, it does not reproduce the sophisticated manipulation and immersion, which are characteristics of the gun shooting genre, so it stays in the remake as a rip-off of the original, not a remake beyond the original.
Review in Korean | Read full review
I enjoyed my time with The House of the Dead: Remake but it's certainly not as fun as the classic games. It does a lot of things exceptionally well while failing at others so it ends up feeling more like a fan-made adaptation than a true remake.
THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD: Remake is an excellent remake in the true sense of the word. It falls short in some corners such as longevity, new content or even the lack of a proprietary online mode, making it hard to justify the asking price at launch. It is, however, still a fun experience with the frantic pace at which the levels progress and the new unlockable weapons. Given the simplicity of the title and how faithful it is to the arcade experience, you need to set your expectations correctly before hitting the buy button.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The House of the Dead: Remake brings the original game up to today's standards when it comes to its graphics and controllers, and adds a very welcome and addictive game mode, all good reasons to see this as a successful work on the Nintendo Switch. Its technical performance could be better though, with slowdowns taking place in busier moments, especially in multiplayer, and long loading times that will test the players' patience.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
It's a shame, but House of the Dead: Remake is a game for few. Although it's fun to shoot zombies and monsters without worrying about more complexities, after a while the experience becomes demanding and repetitive. It lacked more stages and a more balanced difficulty level, especially with regard to unlockables. There is life in this title, but it ends up being recommended only for fans of the shooter and horror genre.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Still, even with the control issues, The House of the Dead: Remake is good fun. And while a playthrough will take you less than an hour, this is the type of game you’ll come back to time and time again. MegaPixel Studios has done a good job of bringing new life to a classic, even though its work is somewhat sabotaged by the fact that modern TVs have made traditional light guns defunct. Let’s just hope that a solution is found, and soon. But until then, blasting zombies with a controller will suffice.
Your enjoyment of The House of the Dead: Remake is going to be highly dependent on your nostalgia for the original arcade game and a firm understanding of what you're getting into. It's a lightgun game on a platform where it's almost impossible to encounter another one like it unless you're into emulation. It is a faithful enough arcade experience that you have time for at least two runs of the campaign in an afternoon. It remains a fun, fleeting experience if you have no intention of going through all of the paths and uncovering all of the secrets. It's good enough to recommend for arcade nuts, but everyone else might want to wait until they feel the need to play a game like this or when they acquire their own lightguns for a more authentic experience.
Closing out our The House of the Dead: Remake review, the game is held back by the limitations of the joy cons, but getting past that is still one of the cheesiest guilty pleasures to have. Anyone who enjoys having huge gibs of gore splatter across the wall like a Jackson Pollock painting will be pleased by the absurdity of The House of the Dead: Remake.
The House of the Dead Remake is everything you'd expect from a revamp of an old-school 90s zombie rail shooter. It's fun, all too brief, but still provides enough entertainment solo or with a mate in tow. However, it still feels like a missed opportunity to stuff it full of some worthwhile new content.
House of the Dead Remake is a fun, quick romp perfect for a night in with a friend, but will most likely wear out its welcome after a couple of hours. The HD graphics help update the game to the modern era while the addition of unlockable weapons, a horde mode, and multiple difficulties help to extend a rather short campaign, but still doesn't offer much reason to continue playing after you've completed the game a few times. The thing I was excited for the most, the motion controls, ultimately became my biggest disappointment and I can't help but feel that there was a huge missed opportunity to not package the game with a gun peripheral. Still, the core game remains fun despite being released over 25 years ago.
The House of the Dead: Remake doesn't reinvent the wheel, is brief in length, and does have some niggly control issues, but this is a welcome addition to the library of any Switch owner who enjoys on-rails lightgun shooters.
Overall, this is an accurate and faithful remake of the original The House of the Dead but lacks the bespoke light gun controls to really make it work. While games like Virtual On have had their TwinStick peripherals over the years, it’s a shame to see The House of the Dead denied a proper light gun.
It’s silly, and it’s pretty janky, but the overall campy nature of the franchise made me overlook some of the issues present in The House of the Dead: Remake. As of now, its performance needs some tinkering, and the developers really need to fix the responsiveness of the gyro aiming functionality. Still, I had a lot of fun with it.