Here's a ranking of The House Of The Dead arcade games from worst to best. The franchise is produced by Sega and debuted in arcades in 1996. The developers originally envisioned making a cop-themed light gun game, but since that niche was already filled by Sega's own Virtual Cop, they focused on zombies and monsters instead. The arcade game with a huge hit with players and was later ported to the Sega Saturn.
A sequel followed in 1998 but outside of the main games, The House Of The Dead series has spawned a lot of unusual spinoffs. There's the famous - and surprisingly enjoyable - The Typing Of The Dead, which is exactly what it sounds like and swaps out shooting for typing enemies to death. There was a mediocre beat 'em up Zombie Revenge and the fantastic House Of The Dead: Overkill for the Wii, which took inspiration from Grindhouse. There was also 2003's House Of The Dead movie from director Uwe Boll, which was met with hideous reviews and is still considered one of the worst game to movie adaptations. This received an STV, Boll-less sequel in 2006 which was greeted with (marginally) better notices.
For pure, adrenaline-soaked arcade fun, The House Of The Dead series is hard to beat, so let's rank the main game's from worst to best.
The House Of The Dead 4
Truth be told, there are no truly bad entries in series, with even the "worst" game The House Of Dead 4 being a lot of fun. It continues the proud tradition of cheesy storytelling and awful voice acting, as AMS agents armed with Uzis' face down another undead horde. The game was a noticeable graphical leap for the series and featured an impressive number of enemies onscreen, in addition to a sweet new machine gun weapon. If there's a downside it's that game didn't add a whole lot that was new to the series.
House Of The Dead: Scarlet Dawn
There was a major gap between games as House Of The Dead: Scarlet Dawn came a full twelve years after the fourth game. Scarlet Dawn refined and improved on most of the series' core zombie-shooting gameplay but its big gimmick was the so-called "five-dimensional gameplay." It was housed in a cabinet that came with a 5.1 surround sound system and occasionally blasted players with air, in addition to the light guns simulating gun recoil.
The House Of The Dead 3
The House Of The Dead 3 is set in the bleak future of 2019, where the zombie outbreak has destroyed the world. The arcade game armed players with a shotgun and let them choose their own path through the story, while a ranking system can dish out extra lives. It's a tight little arcade experience, though some of its changes were controversial among fans.
The House Of The Dead
While the graphics and gameplay may not have aged well compared with the rest of the series, it's hard to beat the simple thrills of The House Of The Dead. It's an immersive, fast-paced shooter framed in a delightfully silly b-movie plot. Alongside the original Resident Evil, The House Of The Dead is credited with the pop-culture revival of the zombie genre in the 1990s.
The House Of The Dead 2
The pinnacle of the series is 1998's The House Of The Dead 2, which in terms of looks was a huge upgrade from the original. That aside, it tweaked and improved upon what worked in The House Of The Dead and threw in more creatures, more bad acting, and relentless gunplay for a superior arcade experience.