Line #25 Headscratchers/HouseOfTheDead


1	* So I saw a small amount of gameplay footage and there were zombies with blowtorches. Where did they get these things? Are they créme brulee zombies? For that matter, where do any of the zombies get their weaponry?
2	** That would be 4, where Goldman did his magic on an entire city (not even any poor innocents to rescue). When everyone around is a zombie, you'd expect at least some of them to have/be able to round up some weaponry.
3	** According to Overkill, they're mutants, not zombies. Some are even capable of speech.
4	*** Yes, but those were created by an entirely different project from what Curien and Goldman were up to. In the rest of the series, they're zombies.
5	*** Except Curien and Goldman's work was based on Darling's, and in every game in the series mutants/zombies can wield weapons, which would imply that 'mutant' is the more accurate term.
6	*** For what it's worth, the warden's research was itself based on the research the government did in the secret lab under his prison. Probably doesn't mean anything for whether the main series is all mutants or zombies and some mutants, but it's there.
7	*** Presumably, zombies in this setting can use weapons. It's not something that completely negates the zombie term.
8	* Way back in the original House Of The Dead, the battle with Hanged Man takes place on the balcony over a courtyard. The final leg of the battle has him knocking your agents off the balcony, hanging by their fingers over a five (Or so) story drop, while Hanged Man tries to divebomb you. My question is... How did they reload? I know reloading is awfully nebulous in the games already, what with being able to carry five hundred clips and replace them in under a second, but still...
9	** It IS slimly, slimly possible to reload almost any kind of gun (particularly one-handed pistols) with only one free hand. It is HELL of hard, and when suspended as they are, it would probably involve ejecting the clip and letting it drop while trying to "fit" the clip in with half your hand while holding the pistol with the other half. Like I said, harder than hell. But under such circumstances, you would be amazed at what a person can accomplish.
10	** All that AMS training really paid off, it seems...
11	* Why is the big headless armored guy who accompanies the first boss of "House of the Dead II" named "Karl" of all things? Seems like a silly name to give to such a menacing character.
12	** Watch [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvhT990DSDU this]] at the very end, 10:37. It's not Karl, it's Kuarl. The imp is Zeal, incidentally. Together, they form Judgment Type 28.
13	* How could The Emperor rule, destroy, and hate mankind ''in that exact order?''
14	** He was created by Mr. "Protect the loyfe cycle" Goldman. I'm surprised that statement was as coherent as it was.
15	** You expected a coherent worldview from an artificial tyrant? Anyway, he doesn't stand much of a chance of ruling, destroying, or hating anyone now, y'know, being vaporized and all.
16	** For the sheer hell of it, I'm going to guess that first, he rules mankind, then he exterminates mankind, and then he spends however many years he has hating mankind and its memory after the fact.
17	** Hell, [[Literature/IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream AM ]] exterminated all but five humans, and he still has a hate-on to end all hate-ons for humans. Just look at his [[Quotes/IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream quote]] on the matter.
18	** I'm gonna go ahead and guess that he was going to destroy and hate mankind simultaneously.
19	** I'm guessing that the Emperor wasn't going to ''completely'' destroy mankind. Just bring about a mass die-back, maybe slightly over 99.9% of the world's population; still tens of millions of people left, more than enough to avoid a genetic bottleneck. Then, the survivors and their descendents would have the Emperor's liquid metal boot stamping on their faces into perpetuity.
20	** My guess is that it was a mistanslation, perhaps hate would've gone first before destroy. Like "I'll hate mankind for what they did to the loyfe cycle, and then I'll destroy them as punishment for their foolishness" or something along those lines.
21	* In [=HotD=] 1-4, is there any reason given for the BigBad to do the initial [[NotUsingTheZedWord undead]] outbreak, rather than just unleash the final boss? The ultimate plan always revolves around the final boss being unleashed, yet they bring out the zombies first, which turns the AMS on to the fact that there's a plan in motion in the first place; the AMS kills the zombies, then they kill the boss. Why not just unleash the boss?
22	** Well, HOTD 3 has no endgame plan. Lisa and G were simply looking for Rogan, and they wind up releasing the final boss in a bid to wipe out the last of Curien's projects. HOTD 3 also provides some insight into ''why'' Curien attacked his own staff with an army of zombies in the original game; the depth and possibility of his research drove him nuts. As for why Goldman waited before releasing the final boss in HOTD 4? His snide remarks implied he was testing humanity's worth (and desire) to live. You still got me on HOTD 2, though.
23	** There's some kind of "statement" (I'm not sure where it comes from. Japanese fact file, maybe?) that The Emperor "wasn't ready" when it confronted the AMS agents atop the Goldman building (by the time you get to HOTD 4, The World had plenty of time to fully mature and - as demonstrated in the game - was essentially indestructible). This explains why Goldman didn't just unleash The Emperor right away and how the AMS agents were able to defeat it at all.
24	** Also, Curien talked big, but seeing how the Magician instantly turned on him, perhaps he wasn't finished (or at least tested) either.
25	* Okay, it's been long enough. Who is that mysterious man in the suit in the "best" endings for both 3 and 4? Seems to be a pretty blatant SequelHook, but right now we know exactly jumping jack squat about him.
26	** It's assumed by most fans that this mysterious guy is Harry Harris from the second game. Signs point to a similar voice and the limp (Harry suffered an injury in the second game which could have left him with a limp).
27	** As of Scarlet Dawn coming out and its additions to the overall series’ plot, its actually a crippled man named Thornheart.
28	* What is wrong with the infamous voice acting of HOTD 2? It is just so bad that it reaches a level which feels like they deliberately told the voice actors to sound as boring as possible. Even if they just get some random people off the street, they can most likely do a better job then what they had.
29	** Same as the voice acting problem for most games in the 90's: no acting instructions. They were also possibly recording each character's lines separately, as was the practice then. Also, picking up random people off the street and casting them for voice acting is ''not'' a viable alternative, remember [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil1 "jill sandwhich" and "OH MY COD"?]]
30	* About the second game: Apart from being set in "Venice"..... after getting through the city, you reach Goldman's Skyscraper, kill him, and that's all. In the fourth game, however, you go again in the very same building (the bridge even has the hole made by the Hierophant boss), but the city is totally different!! What the heck!?
31	** They rebuilt it?
32	* What caused the apocalypse in HOTD 3?
33	** The events of HOTD 4.
34	*** Maybe not. Scarlet Dawn is set between 4 and 3, and the world seems to still be okay. Whatever caused it may still be coming...
35	* How did Curien survive HOTD for HOTD 3?
36	** Hmm, good question. It's possible that he died normally at his mansion, but he had copied his brainwaves or something similar into the Wheel Of Fate at the research lab.
37	** In the intro of HOTD 2, we see Goldman approaching Curien's body. He presumably fitted him into the Wheel of Fate, a resurrection device that operates over the course of twenty years.
38	** Alternatively, he was only wounded by the Magician, not killed.
39	* When the Magician is rebuilt for HOTD 2, why doesn't Goldman protect his weak spots?
40	** Considering that Magician is apparently a genetic creation rather than a robot, it may not be that easy. It may have taken a lot more work than just welding a few metal plates to him (Or those parts are exposed for a reason. What the reason is I don't know, but still...) and Goldman was busy designing the Emperor anyways.
41	** Equally plausible is the idea that the Magician was revived and rebuilt purely as a stop-gap measure, possibly as either a temporary guardian or commander of the undead forces while the Emperor was still in development. This explains why the only reconstruction work done on him appears to be metal spines holding his crippled limbs together. Considering he crashes through a window at the top of the DBR building to confront James and Gary, it may be that he was still in the process of being fully "healed" as well and was never meant for an engagement, but impulsively crashed out of his "chamber" and into the courtyard just to fight the agents of the AMS he seems to hate so much.
42	** For that record, why does the Magician hate the AMS agents so much?
43	*** Wouldn't you hate the group that crippled and killed you (he was ressurected in the 2nd game not just being healed) alos they are humans, the Magician charbroiled the guy who made hi, for being a "lower being" to him.
44	* In the second game, why does Zombie Goldman appear in the Bad Ending? What kind of Bad ending is that supposed to be? And how could he be zombified after falling from the roof of a skyscraper?! He should have turned into zombified hamburger instead!
45	** Short answer: Sega's love of {{Gainax Ending}}s. HOTD 1 had Sophie become a zombie in the bad ending (Which is really more of a moderate ending), so they decided to repeat it with HOTD 2. As for why he's not mush, I may be wrong, but while falling from the top of a skyscraper onto concrete is quite messy for one's internal organs and bones, I'm not sure you'd actually splatter. Your blood and vital organs, perhaps. Mix in some handwaving about the virus repairing and revitalizing as it reanimates, and there you go.
46	* HOTD2: How the hell can Kuarl (a huge suit of animated armor with ''no visible head'') roar?
47	** Who knows what's under the armour? He still seems to breathe, somewhat, so it's possible that somewhere in whatever passes for internal organs there's still a larynx. It's not like he spoke any actual words, so he doesn't need a tongue.
48	* When going through Goldman's building in HOTD 2 & 4, why do you have to face these cybernetic/futuristic zombie things in place of the regular zombies? They just feel like a load of [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere space fleas]]. Does anyone have any idea what they're doing there?
49	** I always assumed they were elite and/or prototype and/or super-evolved zombies. You're right at the source of the zombie plague, so it makes sense that these are Goldman's special projects. Magician was a blend of genetics and robotics, it looks like, so these zombies are probably further experiments on that basis.
50	* How come there are no bosses representing the High Priestess, Moon and Devil cards?
51	** Most likely they're being saved for a fifth game (Overkill [[GaidenGame kinda doesn't count]]), if one is even in planning.
52	** With Scarlet Dawn coming out recently in 2018, the High Priestess and Moon cards have been used. But now the only one that remains is the Devil.
53	** Curien and Goldman must've thought "Devil" was too on the nose and unoriginal.
54	* When battling [[RecurringBoss Magician]] in ''House Of The Dead 4 Special,'' why does the PDA not know Magician's weak points? They were clearly marked in the files G gave to James and Gary in ''[=HOTD2=],'' due to G having battled Magician before, if nothing else. Even if, for whatever crazy reason, G didn't share this knowledge with the AMS and so their files don't have information on it, he should have known since he was fighting Magician along with Kate.
55	** In HOTD2, the information regarding the Magicians weak spots are just scribbled down on a convenient piece of paper. In 4, a PDA analyses and points out the weak spots. Reasons for it not picking up on the Magicians weakness could be;
56	## General computer failure.
57	## The Magicians newer form having some kind of shield that confounds electronic analysis.
58	## The Magicians newer form having genetics so radically different from the original that the PDA can't make heads or tails of it.
59	* How exactly is Sophie Lisa's mother? Here are some oppositions:
60	##No evidence, though there's hair color. Problem is, the first game had graphics considered primitive compare to the third game, so it's hard to tell whether Sophie's blond or brunette, though there's genes.
61	##How can Sophie survive getting hit by Chariot. If she survives, doesn't that lead to the bad ending, where she's a zombie?
62	** Despite our wiki page's current contents (Which probably should be fixed) and the House of the Dead Wiki (Which seems awfully unreliable), there is no direct quote that Sophie is Lisa's mother. At least, not in the game itself. Of course, there's no evidence she isn't. It was probably left intentionally ambiguous.
63	** As for surviving getting hit by Chariot: Rogen and G could survive getting hit by Chariot twice! More if they found a health pack along the way. What's so odd about it? So she's wounded enough to pass out from the pain. It's not a guarantee of death.
64	** In [[http://www.thewebsiteofthedead.com/?tag=the-house-of-the-dead-interviews-takashi-oda this]] interview, [[WordOfGod the director of The House of the Dead series, Takashi Oda]], confirms that in canon, Sophie did survive, and that she is the mother of Lisa.
65	* How did G survive long enough for James and Gary to find him in HOTD 2? There were zombies crawling all around outside and INSIDE the library. Odds are he should've been killed off pretty fast, especially since we don't see a gun anywhere on him and he's grasping his side in pain. Plus, the first boss insists that G is a lost cause and is implied to have already killed him, but it seems he and the horde simply didn't finish him off, so what's he bragging about?
66	** Early supplementary material, namely the manual for the Saturn port, seem to imply G is a robot or android or at least cybernetically enhanced. Though this idea has clearly been dropped since then, super science machine people are probably harder to kill or somewhat self-repairing.
67	** It is possible that G might just be that badass, or he was that good in hiding. Besides, the zombies in the library were lying down before James and Gary entered, so G must've snuck in to avoid having his face torn off.
68	* In HOTD3, who made Death's security guard uniform and why would they bother?
69	** Why not? The series is kinda wishy-washy on whether these things were ever human, but if Death was, presumably he was a security guard before becoming a monster. And if not, well, nearly every other creature in the series has clothes, even some of the other bosses. Its just a thing they do for these games.
70	** Possibly Daniel? He seemed to have some measure of control over Death, being that he saved Rogan from it in the prologue. I mean, stuck in a tower for god knowns how long, he'd need a hobby.

Context Headscratchers / HouseOfTheDead