Look, I'll keep it real: I don't think it gets better than this. Playing this at an arcade is sublime, playing it at home is sublime. There is not a bad time to be playing House Of The Dead 2. Play it at Grandma's house, who gives a fuck!

I don't want to say that House Of The Dead 2 improves on its predecessor in every meaningful way, as I think both are functionally perfect at what they are setting out to do. It feels being needlessly nitpicky to try and denigrate one versus the other. I will say though that going from a fantastic gothic mansion to a beautifully rendered gothic European city is what gives this series that extra bit of spice. The locales are just incredible looking, the unnamed city clearly being Venice, Italy with a thick layer of grime applied to it. It's a visually very striking game, one of the earliest games I remember seeing and it absolutely struck a chord with me.

The monster designs are still the same level of high detailed grotesqueness that HotD1 showcased. I gotta say though, they outdid themselves with some of these guys. The "Bob" zombies who appear to have an executioner's hood stitched to their necks. The "Patrick" zombies in military fatigues with a pained look on their face. My absolute favorite, the "Ken" variant of the Kaegos, with a sick metal mask and pair of claws. Sega's ability to design the most entertaining group of guys to blow apart limb from limb is some auteur shit. This is an art game just by how cool all these fucking dudes are. The way they challenge the player's aiming is also more dynamic this time around. Randys hop around madly and can move from each side of the screen in an instant, Gregory uses a giant sword that can block your shots, requiring you to carefully hit him during openings. Gregory specifically comes before a boss based around that exact strategy! Cool stuff! There is also a greater variety of enemies who throw stuff at you, often in pairs, so you have to juggle priorities while shooting. For a game that by its very nature doesn't have a lot of depth, enemy design is absolutely trying to test the player as much as it can.

The violence in this bad boy is pretty graphic though. Was this a problem back in the day? This was such an established arcade cabinet to me I never thought about how gruesome it was. I can imagine someone's mom turning pale and fainting at the sight of the legendary Booger Monster as my friends and I christened him.

Bosses are a pretty vast upgrade across the board without question. There are more of them and they are actually challenging this time. I was going to go into depth about them, but I think they are all pretty much perfect. The way their weakspots aren't always visible means you no longer have total pushovers like Chariot was in the first game. Hierophant's chest flaps means you have to actually time your shots and can't just unload on him. Strength has very slim windows you can get a shot in on his head, and he scared the SHIT out of me as a kid because of that. The Magician, my beloved, returns, because honestly when you have a boss with THAT design and THAT banging theme, you really ought to bring him back. I'm glad they did! He rocks! The final boss, the Emperor, is actually a bit underwhelming in comparison to everyone else. He isn't quite as visually stunning, his theme is pretty average in comparison, but his pre-fight speech about hating mankind is pretty fucking awesome. Classic House of the Dead shit. The boss fights being framed with G's Files showing the weakpoints against taped pictures is another great aesthetic choice for a series that lives and dies on its visual flair.

I also think the rescues require more dynamic actions from the player. Remember, I'm using dynamic VERY lightly, as the main actions you take in this game are "shooting" and "not shooting." But a lot of the survivors will be positioned just awkwardly enough you'll have to place your shots carefully, or use trigger discipline that they don't get clipped by your shots. The amount this game requires you to carefully not shoot civilians, you have to imagine this is banned in every police academy in the country.

I should talk about the voice acting, actually. I'm gonna be honest, it might be that I have heard it so much in my life that I can recite it word-for-word, but I think it's mostly just funny bad. I don't think it's ASTONISHINGLY bad like Resident Evil 1. That game didn't sound like it was recorded by physical humans. I can tell actual people voiced James and Gary, very funny people, but people nonetheless. I don't know, it's still entertaining! But you be the judge.

Which is easy to do since you can actually play this pretty easily! It's on the dreamcast, PC, xbox with HOTD3 and wii, and while none of those versions are exactly READILY available, it's still a vast improvement over HotD1 only being playable via a putrid remake that looks like a 2010 shooter. Realistically, there should be a law that this has to be in every arcade or else it's not a legitimate business, but until then, play it anyway you can! It's fun! Play it with friends!