Sega is dropping a nice surprise on arcade enthusiasts and PS3 gamers as they’ve announced that both House of the Dead 3 & 4 are receiving a HD release on the PlayStation Network. Sega has already given PS3 gamers some zombie action with the release of House of the Dead: Overkill Extended Cut last year, but now they’re going retro with some old-school House of the Dead mayhem.
Both House of the Dead games will be released on the PlayStation Network separatly with HOTD 3 kicking things off on February 7th. A release date for the console debut of HOTD 4 hasn’t been revealed but Sega is currently aiming to have the game out sometime in the Spring. Sega seems to be putting some effort into these HOTD releases as both games will support Trophies (yay to that), and also include co-op play, cleaner visuals, and the pre-requisite feature of having online leaderboards.
Receiving an HD upgrade isn’t the only major thing being added to the old HOTD games as both titles will also support the PlayStation Move. It hasn’t been clarified if the PlayStation Move Sharp Shooter will be supported, but seeing as how HOTD: Overkill Extended Cut supported the peripheral, I don’t see why such a thing wouldn’t be available in HOTD 3 & 4.
For arcade gamers and longtime HOTD fans this news is incredibly good. Sure, receiving two HD upgrades of old HOTD games may not be as good as a sequel to Overkill or an entirely new title, but HOTD3 still looks like fun and HOTD4 is a blast, or at least it was when I played it in the arcade. Sega may have been off the mark for a while in the past few years but moves like this show that they know what their audience wants. I used to have a huge amount of fun with HOTD3 so being able to replay that again on my PS3 with the Move should make for one of the best PSN experiences I’ll have in 2012.
