E3 2011: House of the Dead: Overkill Extended Cut – hands-on preview

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3D and Move controls zazz up the exploitation gore guzzler

Two years ago, we wondered out loud why House of the Dead: Overkill was an exclusive to Wii consoles, what with Nintendo being known for family entertainment and Imagine Party Babyz. Don't get us wrong, we enjoyed Sega's counter-programming and clever ruse to get Mom to buy a game gorier than Cannibal Holocaust.And we dug the hell out of it.And now House of the Dead: Overkill Extended Cut is bringing its Grindhouse-movie aesthetic and relentless torrent of gore to PlayStation 3, complete with HD-ified graphics, fancy Move controls and 3D effects (perfect for cheesy pop-out effects).

The level we demoed tasked us with blasting through a hospital. Utilizing the Move controls – the only way to play the game in our opinion – we had a bunch of fun targeting limbs and liberating them from our undead enemies. Overkill is just as disgusting as the Wii original – there was no holding back in blood spurting from neck holes, as head-exploding ran rampant.

Eventually we ran into the Screamer, a long-haired ghoul resembling the possessed girl from The Ring. We fought her in an operation theater, where she attacked us by slowly teleporting about and well...screaming. If we couldn't shoot her in time during her advancing, letterbox bars would come on screen and she'd crawl on top of them, wave her arm at you in all its cheesy 3D glory and shriek. After many deaths, we were finally able to put her down. Remarking on its difficulty, we were told Extended Cut is being made to be harder than the original because it's geared towards hardcore players.

One last note: the 3D is not very good so far. Like headache-inducing brain-hurting awful. Overkill's 3D feels like someone just flipped a 3D switch on and didn't take into account how your brain reacts to stereoscopic images. We're blunt on the subject because well, this shit hurts to look at and 3D is such a fickle thing that you have to get right in order for it to work well.

Steering us back into the positive, Overkill Extended Cut is shaping up to be what gore fans want and shooter fans will be excited about. One awesome last tidbit revolves around the ability to shoot the censor bars that cover up the curse words, making the game extra filthy. PlayStation is lacking in Move titles, so we're excited to see how this one shapes up. We should have more on House of the Dead: Overkill Extended Cut Really Long Title in the coming weeks. Stay tuned to our E3 coverage for more details.

Jun 14, 2011