Ask any person who may not even consider themselves a gamer, per say, what it was that they enjoyed about any game made prior to the year 2000. You’ll most likely notice a glaze over their eyes as they stare into space, as if they were literally looking into the past, and then present you with information concerning simple stories, epic struggles of good, evil and turtle shells, hours spent playing with friends and family, and how enjoyable every last bit of it was. I, for one, remember waking up early and running to the houses of friends and cousins, getting there before even our parents were awake, to play games of Mario, Star Wars and the like.

Years later, when gaming had evolved and become more interactive with various peripherals, most notable of the lot being light guns, arcades seemed more fun than playing the consoles at home. Many of my favorite games of all time involved shooting aliens, zombies, and various other baddies. Unfortunately, I didn’t always have the money to attend the arcades or to even, later, buy consoles, games and peripherals to play the old games I fell in love with at home in my very own bordello of game lust. It is thanks to, let’s be real, emulators that I was able to play many a classic title, and many more obscure ones. One of the best, lesser known titles of all being The Typing of The Dead.

There are many awesome things about arcade games concerning their peripherals. There’s the light guns, sure, and ones that embarrass you a bit, like the Dance Dance Revolution stage, but then there’s cool ones. Cool ones where “cool” equals “geeky”, but not “nerdy” because you’re totally using a keyboard in an arcade to kill zombies by typing.

[-] What is it?! [-]

TotD, not to be confused with “thought of the day” … though it should be one, wasn’t originally a typing game, oh no. TotD is, actually, a modified version of House of the Dead 2, which is part of a series of awesome all about using a light gun to blow away all sorts of creatures who have no business living, dammit! **SLAMSFIST**

There is a bit of story that prequels TotD, seeing as how it’s actually a sequel, and all. It’s got something to do with some sort of evil corporation that developed some kind of something that turns animals into giant, evil things and people into zombies. It basically is just another version of the same story that’s in Resident Evil and the like. All that’s important is that you are here to kill zombies by typing at them with the SEGA Dreamcast that’s attached to the back of your sexy, sexy suit.

[-] My Experiences [-]

GRAPHICS

Considering this is a game from 1998, and it’s a SEGA game (you know what I’m talking about, here), the graphics are pretty suck.

The characters look like someone took those cardboard blocks you used to play with as a kid, stuck them together and made people. The textures are pretty lame, too. Somehow, though, the game is able to combine enough sucky graphics in just the right way to let you get a good picture of what’s going on. It really does give you a sense of urgency.

I blame the constant camera movement, a technique that action and survival movies only recently started using en force.

SOUND

The sound is pretty crappy, too. I have to admit.

Sound effects get the point across when coupled with animations or graphics, but probably couldn’t stand alone. I know that when I hear something that sounds like yetti screaming at me from ten years ago through a microphone connected to a guitar peddle set to “grunge” using the sound production quality of an ear bud, something bad is probably about to happen. When I hear the same sound, only shorter, I know someone shot a gun.

The music is also pretty terrible quality, but not terrible composition. I can feel the emotion they’re trying to convey (terror), especially when the music is used in the background, as it should be.

Voice acting? Except for the typical SEGA announcer guy with the dead voice, the voice acting is crap. It’s not really acting. I suppose I could give them credit for being the most monotoned persons ever to speak into a microphone and then have it published, but I’m not.

GAMEPLAY

I really like light-gun games. I don’t have to worry about moving my character around with a controller, mouse or keyboard. I just let the camera go around and I shoot things. It’s much more of an interactive movie experience, really, and TotD does it well.

As I mentioned before, the constant screen movement, even while focused on one scene, helps add to the realism and sense of urgency. The flowing hordes of zombies flying at the screen helps with that feeling quite a bit, too.

Another huge feature that adds a lot to this game is, of course, the keyboard. Typing to kill zombies may sound ridiculous to read, but think about it. If you had to type like your life depended on it, could you survive a zombie apocalypse? Oh, it starts out easy enough. Just type a quick “To” here or a random “KO” there, but pretty soon you’re blasting out sentences connected to a central theme while a giant, headless monster is chasing you with a chainsaw as you run backwards through a maze. Here’s a video of it.

What could possibly add more awesome to something already that awesome? How about making the sentences and phrases you type to stay alive have nothing to do with zombies, death or survival, at all? One of my favorite sentence series to type was “It’s hard to ride a bicycle uphill” [dodge zombie attack] “I have to push hard with one foot and then the other” [dodge zombie attack] “My kid brother has polio” [dodge zombie attack, start laughing, screw the next sentence up and die].

ISSUES

I don’t really have any issues with this game. It’s so old that it is what it is. It’s come, it’s gone and the only people who play it are people who think the same way about old games as many think about old movies. They’re classics.

[-] Overall [-]

If this were a new game, I’d rank it something terrible, I’m sure, but as this is a retro review and I’m playing something the likes which we don’t get the chance to play any more (novelty, I’m talking novelty, people!), I’ll give it a nine.

This game is really fun, at least to me. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who was even remotely interested. It has very helpful tutorials, various game modes, and even training and practice levels to help you with your typing speed and accuracy.

If you play this game, you will get better at typing and learn to not look at the keyboard. Also, if you’re in an office with the sound turned off, you’ll look like the busiest employee in the history of looking busy.