If ever a game deserved its 18 certificate, House of the Dead: Overkill is it.
This unrepentant tribute to, and parody of, grindhouse horror sees you blasting your way through bloody hordes of hideous mutants to a continuous litany of expletives and single-entendres, and culminates in easily the most twisted, sickening and genuinely disturbing finale to a video game, ever.
The spoof B-movie theme is reasonably well executed, with vintage film stylings and humorously-themed levels laying out a hideous story in which even requited Oedipal love and necrophilia are overshadowed by acts so wrong they don’t even have names.
On the downside, while graphics are good overall, sprite glitches and ugly frame rates crop up all too often, making split-second reaction shots all but impossible in some cases, while two player co-op is marred by the cursors being very hard to distinguish.
Given that shooting ‘em up is most definitely the name of the game here, some type of gun add-on is recommended – the wiimote just doesn’t feel right for blasting mutant scum.