Met with some immediate success from their initial launch on the Nintendo Switch, MegaPixel Studio and Forever Entertainment have started branching out to bring The House of the Dead Remake to more platforms. Starting with the PC, I had to jump on it! After reviewing the game on the Nintendo Switch platform, I figured that it could only be better when played with a mouse and keyboard. In short, I was right about that!

Gameplay

As I went over in the original review, they added some cool stuff to the game that you might expect from a platform game rather than an arcade game. The achievements that can be unlocked, giving players some extra goals to aim for and hidden ones to find, a database of the monsters you’ve encountered, and the new horde game mode and difficulty options to play the game in different ways. All of this is still present in the game, of course.

The only real difference in the PC version of the game is the ability to play with the mouse and keyboard. How vastly different the experience is speaks for itself. It’s no secret that the majority of players prefer to play FPS games with a mouse and keyboard for better control and a classic on-the-rails arcade game is no different. Using the mouse to aim and shoot while only having to press ‘R’ to reload made the control better and added a more fluent option to literally spam fire your gun, which is fun for horde mode.

Plus, playing on Steam gives the option to play this game with a friend online using the Remote Play feature. Of course, this is outside of their systems, but it helps utilize the local multiplayer options better. Whether you want to play cooperatively or competitively is up to you, but unfortunately, no matter how you try to set it up, one of you will be using a controller.

Audio and Visual

This aspect is a bit of the same as the Nintendo Switch version as well. Everything looks like a modernized classic, which is exactly what this game is. They kept the same voice acting, music, and sound effects as the original arcade game, which is always a good note. But at least on PC, I can use my higher grade headset that I don’t have for my Switch to hear the minor details better, like a slight shift in sound effects when in an echoey hallway.

Replayability

I would argue that being able to play with my mouse and keyboard makes the game even more replayable than my Switch version. The controls feel better, the game has a more fun experience, and it’s pretty much as close to using a sensor gun to play the game as you can get. If you would replay this game in the arcade, you would replay it here at home.

What It Could Have Done Better

Why did you limit the multiplayer to one player using a mouse and keyboard while the other uses a controller? I understand that is the usual setup when playing locally, but why actually limit players when features like Remote Play exist? I even tried plugging in a second mouse I have on my end and it still forced my friend to use the controller. Not to mention that it took some silly setup options playing to get their controller to register in the first place. Overall, the multiplayer is fun, but I just wish that they would have considered current age technology when setting it up and allowed us both to use mouse and keyboards.

Verdict

If I had to choose whether to play The House of the Dead Remake on the Switch or the PC, I would go with the PC any day. It is just so much more entertaining and brings a closer experience to the classic arcade gaming! It all revolves around the difference in controls and while a controller does let you play the game as is, the freedom of the mouse and keyboard is always going to be superior.

The House of the Dead Remake is now available on Nintendo Switch and releases on PC via Steam tomorrow, April 28th.