The Typing Of The Dead

Developer: WOW Entertainment, Smilebit
Publisher: Sega
Platforms: Dreamcast, Arcade, Windows, Playstation 2, iOS
Release Date: 30th March 2000 (Dreamcast)

We’re Meeting G Over There

So its been awhile since my last review and thats mainly down to a couple of reasons.

Im a lazy sod and more importantly
I’ve been addicted to the typing of the dead!

‘Woah woah woah there you idiot ‘ i hear you scream ‘its HOUSE of the dead not typing!’. Well sit down and ill tell you a short story on one of the weirdest, most excellent dreamcast/arcade games out there.

This game came out around in an era when SEGA was really experimenting with genres and their own titles spawning such classics as SEAMAN and jet set radio. They were not afraid to try anything. First released in japanese arcades in 1999 the game was a mod of sorts of the 1998 arcade sequel ‘The house of the dead 2’ The arcade cabinet is a sight to behold with a similar shape to the original light gun cabinet but the guns are replaced with bright white keyboards.

Less than a year later a port was released to the new SEGA console the dreamcast but only in North america and Japan, us europeans never got chance to play it except if you exploited the dreamcasts poor piracy restrictions *cough Utopia cough*.

The game is a carbon copy of house of the dead 2 but the characters in the game are all running round with dreamcasts on thier backs with keyboards attached to them, looking like some freaky SEGA ghostbusters. The difference between the two games is in house of the dead 2 you blasted away at the zombies using various guns here we use our typing skills! So for example a zombie pops up with the words ‘You’re Toast’ and you must quickly type this word out using all correct grammar and once completed the zombie dies and you are given a rating on how quick and efficiently you typed out the words.

The game also has the ‘excellent’ voice acting which was most prevalent in zombie games of that era, maybe the a zombie apocalypse is just another day for these guys! Another point I must make is some of the phrases that are asked of you to type, sure you get normal sentences like a ray of hope or small words like DO but its get weirder and weirder as you progress with sentences such as ‘i want to fill a bra’ and ‘touch my wattle’ Yeah it goes very very strange.

With some excellent boss fights and just a quirky concept It’s definitely one to pick up if you have the means to play it.

8/10