YMMV / The House of the Dead: OVERKILL

• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Mother, aside from the last phase. Probably deliberate, judging by the cutscene before the fight.
  • In the Typing spin-off, this is invoked. Anything you type causes damage, even gibberish. However, you should still try to follow the prompts so you can nail Critical Hits on her.
    "FINAL EXAM: WORD ASSOCIATION — Type anything, as long as you...Type like a Motherfucker"
• Best Level Ever: Carny. Cool setting, cool soundtrack, several neat setpieces, and plenty of Monster Clowns to blow to smithereens.
• Catharsis Factor: The Final Boss in Typing. What can we say about a boss that is damaged by simply typing anything you want? Feel free to kill her by cussing her out, ranting about things that pissed you off today, or simply mashing on the keyboard!
• Cliché Storm: The game is a loving parody of B-movies, so of course this is in effect.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • The Puker explodes in a shower of its damaging puke when killed normally, with enough of a splash-radius that, most of the time, you will take damage even if you shoot them the very instant you see them. Letting them grab you and quickly shaking them off is the only viable way to avoid damage, except not really between the possibility of letting others get in close and not shaking them off quickly enough to avoid getting hit normally anyway.
    • The last boss spawns them, and they break your view — you can't shake them off, and you have to give them about five seconds of sustained fire to make sure they're dead for sure. Most of the time, they'll be stunned, then resume barreling towards you.
  • The riot shield-equipped mutants to some extent. It's taken up to eleven in the Extended Cut exclusive Hardcore Mode where you're required to kill only with headshots. It's not that bad, until you face these guys - not only do you need to get rid of their shield, you still need to take out their helmets. And you've also got a swarm of other zombies getting pot shots on you.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Varla Guns. The PS3 version of Overkill even has two exclusive chapters where you play as her, because people loved her so much on the Wii version.
• Game-Breaker:
  • The Automatic Shotgun. While pricey to purchase and upgrade, it's the best weapon to mass murder mutants in the game thanks to a high rate of fire; wide shot radius; unbelievable damage; and a quick reload time.
  • Even the Regular Shotgun makes going for high scores easier, as you'll keep your combo going as long as a single pellet hits a zombie, even a missed shot won't end your combo as long as a single pellet wounds a mutant, and a high score will result in a higher money payout at the end of a level.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Candi's death, when she screams "Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!" If you remember she is censoring herself, you realize it isn't a Major Injury Underreaction.
  • Play the game normally till you reach "Carny" and Washington will say something to Varla about him and Agent Gwendolyn going to check out the place. In the Extended Cut, after clearing "Classic Mode" (you can only use the default gun and nothing else), you get the Gwendolyn gun; Isaac's favorite guns.
  • In this game, G is against calling the enemies "zombies". Years later, a video of unused dialogue from The House of the Dead III would surface. Some of G's unused lines have him doing the opposite of that!
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: Despite being longer than any of the main games and having largely-similar gameplay, it still gets this from professional reviewers, who are likely not aware of how long the game is relative to its arcade counterparts. It's still small though for a home console.
• Memetic Mutation: The scene where Isaac and G fight over music in the ice-cream truck has garnered a few parodies.
• Narm Charm: Despite the game being presented like a horror B-movie with characters swearing for the utter hell of it, this game still manages to have some legitimately scary bosses like The Screamer (who Flash Steps at you and then screams in your face for massive damage) and nauseating moments like the Final Boss birthing hordes upon hordes of flunkies.
• Nausea Fuel: From his filthy, ill-fitted suit, to his creepy face, voice and posture, to his horrific sexual proclivities, there's nothing about Warden Darling that isn't flat-out disgusting.
• Player Punch: Varla's brain transplant and her body's subsequent mutation in the final chapter.
• Polished Port: The PS3 and PC ports. The PS3 version adds 3D support, reanimated cutscenes, and a few extra levels, while the PC Port came with all of that minus the 3D Support, as well as a Typing of the Dead mode.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The scoring mechanic in Director's Cut, unlike other games in the series, penalized missed shots by breaking score multiplier combos, including shooting zombies that already killed (and the hit detection is wonky), and trying to shoot money, health, and collectibles.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: In comparison to previous games, where the difficulty was higher in order to eat your quarters in the arcades. In this game, it's largely due to the ability to upgrade and switch weapons. The Typing of the Dead is easier here as well, with more than generous breathing room to type.
• Squick: We have macabre, disgusting bosses like the freaks in the Carnival, the Lobber, and Mother itself. It doesn't help that when she spawns mooks from her... erhm... womb, it looks like she's defecating. Also Warden Darling kissing his old, withered mother on the lips and Varla after her operation, with Mother's brain sticking out of her head. After the final boss fight, Darling also tries to atone by returning to the womb. Literally.
• That One Achievement: Challenge Accepted. The requirements for the achievement are pretty straightforward: complete all challenges in the director's cut levels. Most of these challenges aren't particularly difficult (save all civilians, finish on one life, earn a high accuracy score, etc.) save for one: the high score challenge, where a player has to beat the high score assigned to each level. It doesn't sound too bad...until you realize that in order to earn enough points to get those high scores, you have to pull off a PERFECT run and keep your combo going throughout the entire level. Making so much as a single mistake will cost you the challenge, forcing you to start all over from the beginning.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Both Varla and Candi the Ms. Fanservice Heroines are cases of this as both of them got killed off in which the latter got killed off fairly early in the PS3 port (Varla's a borderline case, as she is implied to still be alive, but reduced to a Brain in a Jar). Heck the game pretty Lampshaded the former become a case of this in the ending (though fans are not entirely sure if that makes things regarding Varla's role okay or not). Granted the PS3 and PC ports did try to subvert this as Varla and Candi became playable in a couple of stages but then this ended up as a Double Subversion as Candi got quickly Killed Off for Real after the PS3-exclusive stages were done in which Varla returned to her original role right afterwards.
• Unexpected Character: The ios/Android mobile port has Vectorman, of all characters, as an unlockable. Go figure.

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