Collection essentials #453 & #454: The House of the Dead 2 (DC) and Dreamcast Gun (DC)

It ought to not be a surprise that this game makes my list, since I’m a big fan of the original House of the Dead, which I previously wrote about.


I want to remark…boy, whoever named this gun accessory wasn’t feeling very creative, eh? The gun for the Saturn was called the “Stunner”, a perfectly adequate nickname. And now this one is called…”Dreamcast Gun”? Really?? Not even “Stunner 2”? Oh well…


The House of the Dead 2 is basically more of the same, and that’s a good thing. I love arcade light gun games, and the first game is a perfect example of that type of game done right. You can refer to my post about the previous game if you want to know more specifics of how gameplay works.


The first game already featured voice acting that was a little cheesy. In this game, the cheese is taken up to a whole new level. The voiceovers in this game sound like people who are TRYING to mimic bad voice acting. And that may be what they were doing! Perhaps they wanted a “campy horror B movie” sort of feel. 


This game did come out in America on the Dreamcast as well, and the U.S. release is still very affordable. So why do I have the Dreamcast version? Well, you see…earlier in 1999, a very infamous and horrible tragedy occurred, the Columbine High School massacre. Sega didn’t want to invoke any kind of controversy over video game gun accessories so soon afterward. And so, they did not release the Dreamcast gun in America. Not only that, but they removed all gun compatibility from the game’s code, so even if you were to import the Japanese Dreamcast Gun, it won’t work with an American copy of the game. Playing with a controller is pretty miserable, so that specific release is pretty lousy. The Japanese version is mostly in English anyway though, so it’s not that big a deal.


Truth be told, I haven’t played as much of House of the Dead 2 in my life as I should. I think part of it is that I haven’t beaten the first game, so when I get the itch to play House of the Dead, I want to take another shot at it rather than move on to something different. At some point I’ll have to spend more time with this one, as I believe the consensus among fans is that this is the best game in the series.


There are other ports of this game, but I believe the Dreamcast version with its gun accessory played on an old tube TV to be the best home experience. It’s a great example of the Dreamcast’s unmatched ability at the time to “bring the arcade experience home”, and it’s a definite essential for an old school arcade fan like me.

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