Just like the Mansion Incident, the zombies in The House of the Dead are accidental byproducts of a much more sinister experiment. The House of the Dead plotline is laughably similar to that of Resident Evil’s, including the virtual duplication of some boss monsters and overall “biological weapon” theme. The obvious light-gun potential of the Wii Remote helps make the game a whopping success, although there are instances when its arcade roots hold both games back from their true potential. Now, the latter two games have been compiled onto a single disk: House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return for Wii. In 2002, House of the Dead 3 shambled into arcades, but because the American arcade scene had largely dissolved, the game was also ported to Xbox in 2003.
Two years later, Sega released The House of the Dead 2 in the arcades and later ported it to the Dreamcast, where it remains a system favorite.
In fact, the original title penetrated our American arcade scene in 1996, which, ironically, was the year that Resident Evil took over our PlayStations.
