I have been playing several House of the Dead games.

Q. What do you cal a light gun game where you have to shoot the cast of cheers?
A. The House of the Ted! (Danson)

Las week I had a bit of a House of the Dead bonanza as I bought House of the Dead: Overkill and House of the Dead 2 + 3 Returns. From now on I will be typing HOD instead of House of the Dead because it’s quicker and acts as subliminal advertising for my hilarious SImpsons knock off “The Whack-taculour world of Gomer Jumpson.”

Gomer Jumpson: “Greetings men, don’t forget annual picnic day.”

Moger Jumpson: “I’m helping myself to the grog.”

Bizmar Jumpson: “I will be making problems.”

Gomer Jumpson: “Hod! What terrible men.”

Dr Mufasa McEnroe: “I can fix these men.”

Gomer Jumpson: “Press the button?”

Dr Mufasa McEnroe: “This is not the way to get healthy!”

What I learned is that the old HOD games are miserly, cantankerous old sinners, designed purely with the intention of you dying a lot and putting more pound coins into the slot. That is why the old HOD games feature zombie midgets that throw knives at you and apathetic voice acting. Even I could have put more emotions into saying “My God” and I’m a robot from the future. (But not so far in the future that robots have emotions.) Overall these HOD-bominations can only be awarded a “Don’t Come” out of a giant zombie sloth with a man’s face.

Overkill however is a totally different kettle of fish, because the fish are still alive instead if being killed by unfairly quick zombies. Also they aren’t fish at all they are a delicious cup of faux blacksploitation tea. Tea is a more sensible thing to put in a kettle. (Unless it is a fish kettle) That is because Overkill ditches the apathetic dialogue of the earlier games and replaces it with a man who uses a lot of bad language, it also replaces being impossibly difficult with being rather easy! But before people start complaining about it being a “cake walk” they might like to know that the challenge lies in getting a high cake combo rather than finishing the cake. It’s also worth noting that the draft board was quite happy to play through this game with me but when I tried to make her play Lego Star Wars she got annoyed because she couldn’t get to the top of the Jawa Sand Crawler.

Therefore I can happily award HOD Overkill a doting sister out of a crippled brother.