The shotgun. Bliss rarely comes in so pure a dose as the video game shotgun. With its massive wallop, wide spread, and satisfying boom, the virtual shotgun will put a smile on the face of any gamer (provided he or she is on the right end of the shotgun when that trigger is pulled.) Enemies get knocked the #%$ back. Glorious holes get blown straight through whatever’s in range. And oh, that sound… “shuk-SHAK!”
House of the Dead III is the “shotgun game” in this lightgun series, and thus, it’s the game that racks my rounds. Sure, HotD 4 has an Uzi and it always seems cool to just paint the world with bullet holes, but full-auto weapons and better graphics do not equal a freaking shotgun. The most recent House of the Dead: Overkill had a wide variety of guns to pick up, but every moment spent away from my beloved shotgun was time spent feeling like there was a hole in my heart. House of the Dead is nothing more than a lightgun shooter, but if you’re going to get a point-and-popper, get the one that screams, “BOOM!”
You might think I’m making too much of this whole “shotgun” affair, but House of the Dead 3 proves just how well a job can be done when you come at it armed with the right weapon. Every aspect of this game is built around its gun. Blubber-assed blob enemies could suck up rounds from a Desert Eagle all day long, but if you punch a hole the size of a paintcan through their guts with a shotgun, they’re suddenly much less imposing. A rifle could put a round through an axe-wielding walker’s skull, but a spread of buckshot can take his head clean off, and might take a decent-sized chunk out of the lamebrain behind him for good measure.
The PlayStation 3 version of House of the Dead III (available on PlayStation Network for about $7 USD, less than five quid in the UK) is about as good as we’re ever going to get in a home version of this game. After a so-so showing on the Wii (the system just barely kept up with all this arcade carnage), the game comes to PS3 with a liquidy-smooth framerate even with two players blasting away. Adding a couple PlayStation Move controllers adds to the fun (especially if you have the Sharp Shooter, as the button configs puts the reload on the sliding action bar), but you can also shoot with standard DualShock controllers. Extras are sparse; you can unlock further difficulty levels and there is a short interview included in addition to the Time Attack mode not seen in arcades, but this PSN version at least packs in Trophy support and Ranked Leaderboards.
