House of the Dead: Overkill is a pleasant surprise on many levels. Surprisingly gory, surprisingly transfixing for all its simplicity, surprisingly playable for a "Light Gun" game that doesn't actually use a Light Gun but instead the motion-sensitive Wii remote control (Wii-mote) that thinks it's a Light Gun.

Most surprising is that Overkill is even a Wii game at all.

The long running and usually lauded House of the Dead series has never been shy on violence; just straight-up games of gunning-down zombies; as cathartic as Monday is long. Overkill is all that, but shoved far over the top with obscene humor, plentiful profanity, great heaps of vulgarity and unambiguous grindhouse raunch.

Small irony: Overkill is all the better a guilty pleasure with two-players, though the typical Wii household might be hard pressed to find a second player that a) is of appropriate age or otherwise allowed to play such graphically violent, f-bomb laced games, or b) is of appropriate age and doesn't think graphically violent f-bomb laced games are stupid (fair enough) and would rather play Boom Blox.

House of the Dead Overkill TIP: Successfully completing Story mode will unlock the harsher yet Director's Cut mode. Completing that will unlock Dual Wield so you can brandish two guns (with two Wii-motes) as a single person.