Review SIGINT 3/5 · Apr 14, 2021
Getting Down and QWERTY
I loved this "type to shoot" game, very entertaining and unique way to spend an hour or so. Its absurd story and gameplay are heightened by unbelievably cheesy voice acting and an often hilarious selection of phrases to type to take these zombies down.
I've always liked on-rails games for their ability to create challenging and engaging experiences that purely …
I loved this "type to shoot" game, very entertaining and unique way to spend an hour or so. Its absurd story and gameplay are heightened by unbelievably cheesy voice acting and an often hilarious selection of phrases to type to take these zombies down.
I've always liked on-rails games for their ability to create challenging and engaging experiences that purely concentrate on one actiony mechanic. Whether it's painting over targets, aiming with a physical light gun, or typing random sentences, this is a great way to make an accessible and concise arcade-style game that is fun from start to finish. This one, based on the original The House of the Dead 2, is very well-paced, demanding your attention almost constantly but spacing things out to give just enough breathing room. The difficulty was perfect for me, with sentences often getting finished riiiight as the zombie was about to hit me -- very fun and tense at times.
Typing random sentences to kill zombies sounds gimmicky, and it is to an extent, but I really liked what they did with it here. Not only are the sentences and phrases themselves often funny, but they have many different types of things to type that challenge in different ways. Quickly hitting one key to block a projectile, finishing a section prioritizing accuracy over speed, actually having to think to answer a multiple-choice question. It creates a good sense of variation. Typing is as intuitive as pointing a light gun at an enemy for most people these days, so I think almost anyone could have fun with the game.
If this game has one major flaw that detracts from the experience, it's the occasional visibility issues where either text is blocked by the UI, or the big text boxes making it nearly impossible to read relatively how far incoming projectiles/zombies are from you to determine the priority order you should shoot them in. In a similar vein, you're often going to suddenly get something flung at you mid-sentence and not be able to deal with it in time. I'm sure this is just to encourage replays for full mastery.
If anyone is interested in this game, the 2000 PC release is available on a site called "My Abandonware" for free download. Lots of fun!
