I'm confused, although in theory I shouldn't be confused at all. House of the Dead 2 is a zombie shooter on rails that is known to most of us for starting life on those arcade games you find in motorway service stations. House of the Dead 3 seems very similar; it is also a zombie shooter on rails that is known for starting off in slightly more modern motorway service stations. What's confusing me is why on Earth these two games are being released together. As games they're not entirely dissimilar, but they will appeal to completely different types of gamers.

Both games do share certain features. For example, they can both be completed in a couple of hours, and given that the RRP of this little pack is £29.99, you're not exactly getting value for money. Admittedly there are several game modes as well as co-operative offline multiplayer, but none of this really adds anything to the gameplay. The games also share the same control system. You aim the Wiimote at the screen and shoot with the B button. In order to reload, you wave the Wiimote away from the screen. These controls may be extremely unimaginative but they do work well; they're responsive and intuitive, if occasionally slightly temperamental when it comes to reloading. It's here that the similarities end, however, which is why it's best to split up the two halves of House of the Dead 2&3 Return and examine them individually.

House of the Dead 2

House of the Dead 2 was first released on arcade machines ten years ago. You took control of Harry, a character who would be described as "generic" if you were being charitable. You enter a city filled with zombies and huge meta-zombies that you must dispatch with your trusty pistol. As with all on-rails shooters, the game controls your movement, so all you have to worry about is shooting every enemy and projectile before it can take a chunk out of your health bar. One thing that separates House of the Dead 2 from other light-gun games is that your decisions and skill level can affect the path that you take through a level. Saving a civilian in a boat, for example, will cause him to open a set of floodgates for you, providing you with a nifty short cut. If you let him die however then you are forced to take a lengthy detour.

House of the Dead 2 had something of a cult following back in the hedonistic days of 1998, mainly because if you wanted to survive for more than a few seconds then you had to have lightning fast reactions. Zombies appear from everywhere and are annoyingly hard to kill; the amount of time you have to send these creatures back to the land of the dead is a few seconds at most. This difficulty is part of the reason it gained popularity of course, but it does alienate the casual player. Another thing that will alienate the casual player is the graphics. Now, the game wasn't especially good looking ten years ago and time really hasn't been very kind to it. The visuals are blocky, the animations are ridiculous and the design work seems hopelessly antiquated. Having said that, the game engine is surprisingly powerful and it is very nice to be able to blow individual limbs off zombies with some well-aimed shots. With that said, you hardly ever get to enjoy this particular feature of the game because of the incredibly small window of opportunity that you have to shoot the things. The sound design is sporadic too - the music is pretty bad but the groans of the zombies and the gunshots do sound quite good.

The biggest problem with House of the Dead 2 is its arcade roots. Normally, criticising a game for its origins is unfair, but not when a game was designed with the precise intention of getting as much loose change as possible out of the player. The difficulty level is absurdly high; you are not only expected to kill zombies within seconds of them appearing onscreen (and bear in mind that most of these zombies take at least three shots to kill) but you are also expected to save civilians from the rampaging hordes. Members of the public frequently appear, surrounded by zombies. Most of the time, because the game has spent so much time programming you to blast anything that moves, you will shoot them. If you do this though, you lose a life. If you manage to save them, however, which is a labour worthy of Hercules himself, you are rewarded with an extra life.

Then there are the boss fights, where the game gets really tough. You are usually expected to shoot a very, very small area of an enormous monster as it dances around the screen at high speed, taking large chunks out of you every five seconds. In the world of arcade games, when the umpteenth super speedy zombie has clawed your face off, you just swear and reach for your pocketful of 50p pieces. This is the Wii, though, so you are given a set number of lives before you are greeted with a surprisingly cheerful screen reading "You are dead" and then sent straight back to the start of the game. There are no save points. I know the game is short, but considering how hard it is, that is an absolutely unforgivable choice.

I first played House of the Dead 2 on Normal and only got to the second level before my five "credits" ran out (one credit = three lives and you lose a life every time you're hit by something). I then played it through several times on Easy but still couldn't make any progress. I did eventually complete it, but only because I'd memorised exactly when and where every zombie would appear. If you love games that require lightning-fast reactions and a great memory then you may enjoy House of the Dead 2 (if you can stomach the terrible graphics, story and voice acting) but most people will find it frustrating and alienating.

House of the Dead 3

It's very tempting to say that House of the Dead 3 is simply a version of House of the Dead 2 that has been improved in every way. There is some weight behind this theory - the graphics are much better, the voice acting is passable and it at least tries to have a plot. However, the truth is that House of the Dead 3 is a completely different game with its own set of strengths and weaknesses.

The main difference to the game is in its difficulty. You are given far more time to kill the zombies than you were in House of the Dead 2. You are also armed with a shotgun rather than a pistol, which means that taking out a group of zombies is relatively easy. This fairly small alteration completely changes the way the game plays - you are free to sit back and relax. You can concentrate on killing zombies rather than glaring at the screen, too scared to blink in case a zombie appears and bites your nose off.

The difficulty level for bosses has also been changed, but not necessarily for the better. The bosses are all easier but they are also less imaginative. You are, for example, expected to kill a giant sloth. Who thought that was a good idea? The bosses end up being more of a chore than anything else, thanks to the absurd number of shells it takes to drop them. They were something of a chore in House of the Dead 2 as well, but in that game the ridiculous difficulty masked this fact somewhat.

The way you progress through levels has also changed; instead of your route being selected by which civilians you save, you can select which areas of the level you wish to pass through. Most of the choices are fairly arbitrary, as you often have to go to the alternate locations later on in the game, but it is nice to be actively making choices this time around. The biggest problem with House of the Dead 3, though, is that it's just not as fun as the arcade version. I don't mean the game itself - that's a direct port - I mean that in the arcade game you used a large plastic shotgun to target and kill the zombies. In order to reload, you operated the pump action mechanism. This added so much to the game's overall experience and pointing a Wiimote at a screen can't really compare.

I just can't recommend House of the Dead 2&3 Return. Maybe if you love on-rails shooters - and I mean really love them - or you have very fond memories of these games in the arcade then it might be worth taking a look, but if your interest is more casual then I suggest you give it a miss. House of the Dead 2 is a frustrating game that's best forgotten and whilst House of the Dead 3 is definitely an improvement, it's still nowhere near as good as The Umbrella Chronicles. If SEGA had thrown in House of the Dead 4 as well and reduced the price then this collection might have been more worthwhile, but as it stands you're better off steering clear, unless you are intent on revisiting the light-gun arcade days of yesteryear.

Reviewed by Mike Morwood for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).