The video game preservationist RockmanCosmo revealed earlier this week that a rare trial version of the mobile port of House of the Dead has just been preserved by a member of the feature phone community online.
House of the Dead mobile was originally released in Japan for a select group of Vodafone back in February 2005, with a one-chapter trial version also launching that same month. It was initially rolled out exclusively for the V602SH and the motion-control compatible V603SH.
However, it appears that it was also later released for some other Vodafone handsets too, with a community member called Cuebus managing to extract the trial version of the game from a V804SH — a phone that was launched by the mobile phone provider in January of the following year.
From what we were able to find out, the game appears to be based on the 1996 arcade original and features many of the same locations and enemies. But rather than aiming with the use of a lightgun, players would instead use either motion controls or button presses to move the character around in 3D space, with the reticule always remaining firmly in the center of the screen.
In one of the only reviews of the game we were able to dig up, the journalist Shiori Komatsu (writing for IT-Media) seemed to focus her observations predominantly on this motion-control scheme. In particular, she argued that the motion controls weren't exactly suitable for those prone to motion sickness and acknowledged that the game was slightly embarrassing to play in public, due to the need to physically turn around to aim.
She recommended players take regular breaks to avoid getting "Zombie Drunkenness" and suggested playing the game with a group of friends to get the most enjoyment out of it.
If you want to discover more about how you can emulate this game, or simply want to find out more about feature phone preservation in general, we recommend joining the Keitai Wiki Discord for more information.