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Dom Robinson reviews
Empire Interactive 
- Windows 95 or 98
- Intel Pentium II 233Mhz
- 64Mb RAM
- 8Mb 3D graphics card
- 800Mb Hard Disk Space
“Type or die”, proclaims the box.
Well it’s true. You see, just a few short years ago a great gory game wascreated in the form of House of the Dead, which was similar to classicslike Quake in that you stormed castles and mansions stuffed with baddiesand popped a cap in their ass to send them back to meet their maker.
The difference with House… was that you were seemingly placed oninvisible ‘rails’ that ushered you from location to location allowing you but ashort time to finish off the baddies before they tucked into your entrails.The arcade version was a lot of fun, pointing a gun at the screen and shootinglight at the zombies – there’s never been so much fun since the Tin CanAlley toy in the late 70s/early 80s…
Now enter, Typing of the Dead. Whoever came up with the idea deservessome kind of award for ingenuity but it doesn’t quite come off as well as ithoped: Zombie appears, but instead of blasting seven shades of shit out of it,you and your trusty keyboard – strapped to your chest, as can be seen duringcut-scenes – will fight off the evil invaders tapping away such narrativesas “Film subtitles”, “Police dog with flu” and “Cute school girl”.
Do you wanna be in my gang? Well, if so you’d better have a crack and thein-built typing tutor first if you’re not already proficient in such matters.
While they move fast, the graphics appear a little jaded like a Playstationgame that’s been blown up to show the rough edges. I don’t recall the arcadeedition being quite like this but then it’s a lot more fun to dish out thesilver bullets than it is to press a few keys in the right order. The zombiesgo down quite well when you blast them, but if you have to look down at thekeyboard to complete a mission you’ll miss the spectacle!
Most of the sound FX consists of gunshots. It’s very loud and packs a punchbut there’s not much more to it than that. The better you are at typing, theeasier the game will be and I can type fast, but it’s still frustrating whenyou inevitably miss a letter and break the flow and then before you know itthere’s an axe in your head!
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ORIGINALITY
ENJOYMENT
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.