When people talk about the House of the Dead franchise, they're usually talking about the best light-gun shooters in gaming history, or the shitty movies. What is often over looked is the little brother, the beat-em-up known as Zombie Revenge. Zombie Revenge stars A.M.S. members (token white guy) Stick Breitling, (generic big breasted woman) Linda Rotta, and (token black guy who's actually Japanese guy) Rikiya Busujima as they are tasked with following the mysterious man with one gold eye, Zed and putting a stop to the zombies. Armed with a pistol and your fists, you take on the city.

Full disclosure: As of this initial writing, I have yet to have actually beaten Zombie Revenge. In '99 I remember getting to the final boss (or, what I assume is the final boss) in Chapter 6, but he killed me and I was so aggrivated that I stopped playing the game. Now, nine years later, I'm having problems even getting up to that part. I had to set the credits to the maximum allowed and turn it down to easy to at least make it to Chapter 6 (which happens to be THE House of the Dead, along with remixed music), but I can't even make it through that level. It's not so much that the game is hard as it is there are some really really cheap enemies that gang up on you at times. Seriously, why the living shit does a zombie need a shotgun/machine gun/goddamn laser arm cannon? That stuipd shotgun takes down around a third of your health, and if you've got a couple zombies weilding the boomstick you're pretty much fucked. And what's the deal with those zombie midgets that run around everywhere? Those guys are so freaking hard to hit it's unfair; and when three of them are throwing hatchets at you, just put the controller down, there's not much you can do.

Enough ranting.

Co-op play really shines in this game, just as long as you're playing with somebody competent. Tycho mentioned that he and Gabe could actually 1-credit this game, which is an impressive feat in the least. Must be nice to have somebody who understand how to play the game. Last time I played this with somebody, he managed so suck up all our credits like something that sucks up credits really fast. Maybe once he's played a bit more, we can be friends again.