Classic HotD all the way. Kudos to Headstrong for reanimating an aging series.

Uppers:
Buckets of blood
Entertaining dialogue
Great presentation
Four player!

Downers:
Samey enemies
A bit glitchy
Short story mode

One-time arcade habitués should be well acquainted with the twisted delights of House of the Dead – the acme of gore-splattered zombie dismemberment. Now that the arcades only play host to tumbleweed, Sega has revived the franchise on the Wii (you can buy a plastic gun to accommodate the Wiimote) and rethought it to an extent.

Each level is prefaced by a hilariously cheesy and astonishingly profane B-movie pastiche, which gives way to prolonged bouts of dispatching waves of zombies, followed by a boss. You must also shoot med-kits to restore health, green chemical symbols to launch short slo-mo phases and orange brains to unlock goodies. At the end of each level, you win cash to spend on weaponry. Not exactly cerebral stuff, but the sheer satisfaction that accrues from timing your gunshot and anticipating the direction of a zombie's lurch so that you blow its head clean off cannot be overstated.

A game you might want to lock up somewhere inaccessible to the kids.

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