The Typing of The Dead: Overkill

Classic The House of the Dead!

If you need to improve on your typing muscle memory it's a great game to play, the explicit talk can abit too much but otherwise i love the game.

Fast typers may finally put their skill to good use :)
And the game story has a very cool vibe.

great game.
works great on Steamdeck.
i use bluetooth keyboard and ps4 controller.
need gamepad for certain parts of game.
didn't play house of the dead, i think you can probably hook up a lightgun? not sure. or just use mouse?

Shockingly good, shockingly funny, but tbf I'm pretty much a five-year-old. Buy it anyway. On sale if you must.

A grindhouse humour pulled-off real good and zombie shooting that is fun whether you're typing or clicking 🤠

This game is ridiculous in the best way possible. A rail shooter where the only weapon is a keyboard and the only way to survive is by typing out increasingly absurd phrases at undead freaks shambling toward your face. The absurdity is the point. It takes the over-the-top action of House of the Dead and replaces the mindless trigger finger with frantic, high-stakes wordplay.

It starts simple. Basic words, short phrases. Then it escalates. Sentences get longer, words get weirder, and before long, you’re hammering out entire paragraphs in a panic while some grotesque abomination closes in. The difficulty curve isn’t just about reaction time—it’s about staying calm while your fingers try to keep up with the madness on screen.

The voice acting is gloriously terrible. The story is nonsense. The graphics are pure arcade relic. None of that matters. The real joy comes from the sheer chaos of speed-typing your way through waves of zombies and somehow surviving. It’s a dumb idea executed perfectly.

I am a big fan of the House Of The Dead games. I've played and beaten all the arcade cabinets - 1, 2, 3, 4, and Scarlet Dawn. Yeas ago, I played a lot of the original version of this game (Overkill) on the Wii. I also played a lot of 2&3 Return on the Wii, but that's irrelevant to this review. Most people could probably guess this, but I can say without a doubt that the PC port of Overkill is the far superior version. (I never played the PS3 version, so I can't comment on that.) Unlike the typing of the dead game that was on the Dreamcast (based off of House Of The Dead 2), this game does not teach you how to type - you just type the words/phrases/sentences that appear by the mutants in order to defeat them. It should be known that this game includes the regular story mode and director's cut that can be played entirely with your mouse. So if you want a break from typing but still want to blast some mutants, there's a mode to use the mouse! (For some reason, the game does not seem to advertise this.) You can even use various weapons just like the Wii version. The PC port is MUCH more generous with giving you money, so you'll be able to unlock and fully upgrade everything in a little over one play-through of both the story mode and director's cut. The story and director's cut are nearly identical. The only difference being the director's cut makes the levels a little longer by taking you through alternate paths. Although most people will probably play for only a few hours and stop, I find this game to be a fun challenge and the story, although silly, is very quotable and has a charm to it that I enjoy. It is very different from all the other HOTD games in terms of tone and especially language. Despite this, it is one of my favorite video games.
Some day, I will be able to put "Cleared "The Typing Of The Dead: Overkill" on hard mode" on my resume as a skill.

>game allows you to import custom dictionaries
>install the japanese weeb pack for shits and giggles
>base game usually makes hostage saves one word or so (custom dictionaries ignore this)
>try to save civilians while typing "Ore wa ochinchin ga daisuki nandayo?"

i rate it 10 motherfuckers out of 10

Love it. Please make more.

This game surprised me! A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
I wanted to try this game for the typing. I'm not a fast typer so I struggled with the typing part of the game. That game mode is too hard for me. That struggle is on me not the game but I found out it has the option to play the House Of The Dead Overkill gun mode as well!

You have the option to play a typing mode or a gun mode. 2 different ways to play a full game is great!

I love the humour and characters.

The funny songs and voice clips you hear at the main menu reminds me of the funny ads and radio talk stations in the classic GTA games.

I mean yeah. nothing wrong here.

This is just a straightforward typing game, but I really enjoyed it. Experienced a few crashes, but going into my Windows resolution settings and changing the graphics to "Power Saving" seems to have fixed that. Still, the game is a bit rough around the edges, game audio will drop out during dialogue and the menus can be very slow to load, but it's still a lot of fun.

The game is full of dumb humor that I really enjoyed. It also includes the original House of the Dead: Overkill, and you can play that with controller, mouse, or lights guns, which is a nice bonus! This is the Extended Cut of the game, similar to the PS3 port. It includes some levels and content that weren't included in the original Wii version. All in all, it's a pretty good package, but in my opinion, unless you really love the game, there is very little replay value (although I think that is pretty standard for on rails shooters like this).

Dandy Highwayman

This is an interesting game which I liked but is also hard to outright recommend. I bought it on sale for I believe 10 bucks so I wasn't into it for too much. If I spent more, I might have been a little disappointed. I beat the main campaign in 3 hours.

On its surface, it is a really basic typing game. It never gets more complicated other than making 3 word sentences. I was also a bit disappointed in the final boss. However, it is fairly bloody in a fun way. This kind of humor will either drive you nuts or you will love it, there will probably be no in between.

in the end, if it's on sale and you like typing games, go for it, I'm sure there are a lot worse. But don't be expecting anything earth shattering.

This is one of my all-time favorites. It's the quintessential fun computer game. I've been playing this game since 2014 in small bursts, but I always come back to it. The humor is over-the-top, the constant grindhouse film references are top notch, and the goofy interplay between the text prompts and the "story" are often chuckle-worthy. You'll probably need to run it in compatibility mode these days, but this game is just plain FUN. Definitely recommend it if you enjoy some gore and laughter or if you need to improve your typing speed.

Best educational game I've ever played.

na

Unfortunately this game does not meet the high narrative standards that typing games and on-rails shooters are known for

In 2009, I was a child at GameStop with my parents. They grabbed a copy of House of the Dead: Overkill for the Wii. The nerd at the cash register kept darting his eyes back and forth between me and my captors as he continuously mentioned that this video game contained "a lot of f-bombs". Trying to dissuade them from buying it. He wasn't successful.

Now look at me, I'm playing a version of that same game in 2025 except I'm typing the "f-bombs". I'm pressing combinations of keys on my keyboard to spell out "b-o-o-b-i-e-s" and "sexy sour shrimp" to shoot zombies in the head, all the while I'm smoking a joint, a cigarette, and a cigar at the same time. The amount of burn holes in my leather trench coat grows, but so does my style rank in Devil May Cry (Dante was based on me).

Sometimes I wonder if I would've turned out as badass as I did, if the cashier was successful that fateful day in blocking an 8 year old from experiencing the f-word in a video game for the Wii. Then I wonder why I'm even wondering, because I'm too cool for that now and I literally don't care.

Well you might, like me have played and loved Typing of the Dead back in the day - a goofy typing based House of the Dead game for PC which replaced the Dreamcast backpacks (and guns) of the original arcade conversion with ridiculous little keyboards on the characters as they typed those House of the Dead zombies to...death. Well this is that, but

INTERMISSION

Adult. I mean really adult. purposefully adult in every way. Not just more gory (it sure is) Not just more sexualised (it SURE is) and not just more gross (it really REALLY is!) but adult like phrases such as "Muthafuck...what does a brotha have to do to PACIFY a bitch" and "when you two have finished admiring each other's dicks can I remind you that we have a mass murderer and psychopath to find?"

Yes this is Typing of the Dead in fully NSFW mode, and it is excellent. Do not think those quotes to be intended racism or misogynistic - it is a 90s arcade gun game gloriously wrapped up in and contrived to be 90's blaxploitation, pulp-fiction and fully satirical culture and, boy, does it deliver. There are whores, there are genetic freaks, there is death of innocents but there are also strong female leads, black leads, mysterious g-men leads and they all wanna do one thing - kill the zombies, with words! (or not...) while sounding really corny.

There is a huge amount of game here - you need to type words quickly to shoot ever more articulate zombos (words are randomly generated but get progressively harder and longer the further you get) over several levels within which you earn money for better guns, efficiency and skills. It is an awesome experience, the game doesn't want you to fail so re-buys are generous, and there are fripperies to collect and leaderboards to add more replayability.

And then, unbelievably, they give you the whole thing to play but as the shooty-on-rails game it originally was before this abomination version - use mouse or pad to just shoot those mothafuckas in the head for a completely different but also rewarding experience. Add in bonus modes and levels too and you have great value.

So, I should be clear - this is either a game that makes you learn how to touch or fast-type really quickly or point a mouse / pad quickly and press a button while zombies explode, with an exploitatively delivered and very inappropriate episodic grindhouse structure and plot from a time long gone.

If not easily offended, it is very hard not to love, and there is pretty much nothing like it.

found the G spot

great for entertainingly scaring the kids into typing using a occasional interest or gaming addiction to feed their minds with a skill along with improving vocabulary as well...... Or yourself for those of us yet to have any and just appreciate learning in a less than rudimentary standard way that some of us aren't wired for and defeats the purpose.

You type stuff to kill zombies. What more do you need?

Fantastic game and soundtrack definitely stays true to the original

The Typing of the Dead: Overkill is a fun, chaotic and hilarious twist on the classic rail-shooter formula, replacing gunplay with fast-paced typing challenges. Set in a campy, grindhouse-style world filled with zombies and crude humor, the game tasks players with typing words and phrases to defeat undead hordes.

The game’s standout feature is its unique gameplay mechanic, which makes typing both thrilling and absurdly fun. The grindhouse aesthetic and over-the-top humor add to its charm, offering a self-aware, deliberately cheesy experience. With a variety of modes, including multiplayer and word challenges, there’s plenty to keep players entertained.

On the downside, the humor and dialogue, while intentionally crass, might not appeal to everyone. Some sections of the game feel repetitive, especially as the typing challenges can become predictable over time. Additionally, the visuals, while intentionally retro, may seem dated or lack polish in places.

The Typing of the Dead: Overkill is a fun and unique spin on zombie shooters, perfect for players looking for something offbeat and entertaining.

Great for fans of typing games and over-the-top humor. 7.5/10.

fun game that increases typing skills

uh oh

i never learned home row

I LOVE HOUSE OF THE DEAD!!!

The cinematic scenes are littered with childish swearing - like a messed-up-in-the-head rebellious teenager wrote the script. It is so unbelievably cringe and utterly ridiculous.
That aside, the game is a good idea on paper but it's hard to enjoy the experience when you are only staring at the words you are typing - in contrast to classic rail shooters where you are far more immersed in the experience. If you wanted to practice typing, this would technically help - but the narrative would be a very negative influence on the typical age-group for learning typing.
Overall it is not worth playing for the experience and there are more enjoyable ways to learn typing.

"As you well know, Isaac, I enjoy House of The Dead Overkill. It's like a good Chinese dinner, you know, with the sweet and the sour. Expanding on that analogy, I will smile with delight one this game is fun and works well as the rail shooter it is but when this game is buggy and sound cuts out of course, that's the sour."

What a fun game. You can play multiple episodes, its all tongue and cheek humor in a grind-house horror zombie setting. Get on sale, you wont be disappointed.

https://youtu.be/mrTVRdiZmMk

Fun to relax and try to play and watch a long as the story progresses. Simple movie comedy. Would Recommend.

Time to beat: 4-5 Hours
Time to Complete 100%: Roughly 25 hours

I played this game a ton in highschool, and still just as good (Though a pain to set up nowadays, though there are guides for that). It's campy, has a memorable soundtrack, and best of all, FUN! If only the other typing & house of the dead games were ported to steam :(

I swear, if half of the games in the last 3 years had taken this tone, they would have done much better. Fun game, but the writing seriously has me impressed. "Funny bad" through a grindhouse lens works SO MUCH better than "funny bad" that was intended to be serious. I'm honestly surprised how often I laughed at the bad jokes, and my typing skills have never been better

I died because I couldn't type "hippopotamus" fast enough

In Typing of The Dead you have:

- Gore;
- Hot chicks with big tits;
- Incredible writing, where every second sentence contains a curse word for no reason;
- Jokes about disabilities, race and other funny topics;

If you enjoy this game, you are an Unfathomably Based Giga Chad.

10/10

The game's a really good fun, and as a fan of the series, I'd like to see more adaptation like this. I'm definitely rooting for The House of the Dead series!

Currently not letting me open the game. Fails to launch.

TLDR: Fun for a bit with a humorous story that doesn't take itself seriously. Could use some extra features to really make it stand out, but worth it on sale.

PROS:

✅Cheesy B-Movie vibe brings some humor
✅Contains both typing and shooting game variants

CONS:

➖Excessive loading times
➖Some audio issues
➖Graphics/animations

Content (Game world/Narrative/Length) – [5/10]

Game World: Typing of the Dead: Overkill (TotD) takes place in on-rails levels across multiple different zones, each with a strong B-movie vibe. You’ll start in a farmhouse, then go to a strip club, then a hospital, ect. Since the levels themselves are on-rails, there is no exploration aside from some very slight camera movement.
The levels overall display a nice post-apocalyptic feel with zombies everywhere and just a general drab/destroyed look and feel. I say “Drab” in an appropriate way, not a negative way, though the graphics definitely didn’t age well.

Narrative: TotD has an over-the-top action/comedy feel to its very traditional storyline of stopping the bad guy. There are minor twists and turns along the way, but really it's all cliche and the story in no way takes itself seriously.

Length: A relatively short game, each level takes about ~15-25 minutes to do, there is something like 10 levels, so a few hours and you can finish one version of the game - either typing or shooting.

Gameplay (Mechanics/Difficulty) – [7/10]

Mechanics: Because TotD contains the obvious typing game, and also the shooting game, you have 2 very different mechanics at odds with each other.
First the typing - Very good. This is my first typing-specific game and I am impressed by how well the gameplay has transitioned from shooting to typing. Not only does it feel somehow natural to kill zombies with phrases like “In war there are only losers”, but it's also humorous at the same time. Also regarding the words, in my ~4+ hour playtime, I rarely saw repeat words/phrases, which is nice.
I generally type around ~75 WPM, but I felt like my typing here was much lower for two factors - the words themselves are not words that you would typically type very often leading to a hesitation while trying to figure out the next letter, and the words are not sentences, so the flow is harder than normal. Despite being a very good typer, these factors lowered my score a bit and ultimately the game became slightly frustrating as I would make errors frequently. Thankfully though, the game is generous on the typing side and with multiple zombies on the screen you’ll only ever have one attacking you at a time, allowing you to focus on a single word/phrase.
Gunplay - Equally as good. Since the game was originally an on-rails arcade shooter, it's no surprise that the gunplay is good. The shooter side has the additional positive of having cash that you can use to buy guns. I would have loved some sort of upgrade system on the typing side, perhaps to buy easier words, or maybe more free mistypes allowed, any upgrade system would have been welcome.
Overall, I enjoyed both typing and gunplay. I wish typing had an upgrade system to make it a bit more interesting.

Difficulty: I actually found the game fairly difficult. I completed the typing variant on the easiest difficulty and often got rank C’s through B’s on most of the levels, with an A or two. As I mentioned above the typing can be off putting because it's not like you’re typing a paper or any sort of complete sentences. I found the shooting variant to be slightly easier because you can aim immediately without typing, but reloading often made me take more damage than the typing side since the zombies are staggered and stunned as you type words.

Graphics (Quality/Performance) – [3/10]

Quality: Perhaps the worst part of TotD is how bad the graphics have aged. Maybe it's intentional with the B-movie vibe of the game, but at times the levels just look like a PS2 game. It’s just not great at all. The movie-filter grew on me and did help take attention away from the graphics themselves, but I still had a lot of issues trying to get over the animations.

Performance: Performance wise, I experienced no issues with crashes or bugs. I do want to note that the loading times felt excessive, even when the game is installed on a SSD. It’s common for each level to take upwards of ~15 seconds to load, which isn’t awful, but the part that really got me is also taking ~10 seconds to load the gallery to view collectables.
i9-13900KF | RTX 4090 | 64GB RAM | 1440p @ 240hz | installed on SSD

Audio (Sound Effects/Music) – [5/10]

Sound Effects: Subpar. I did notice many cases where it seemed like the sound bugged out during speaking parts. I’m not sure if it's intentional, but it was very noticeable. Aside from those issues. Aside from those issues, there is ample voice acting, and I found the voice acting to be good. The banter between Washington and G is funny. Also Varla’s comments towards Candi are pretty funny.

Music: Good and appropriate for a comedy/action game. Much of the music is rock n’ roll.

Replay Factor (Longevity) – [6/10]

Fairly good - there are achievements, leaderboards to chase, and collectables. Also as well as the typing/shooting variants mean you replay the same levels with either typing mechanics or shooting+gun upgrade mechanics.
To add more replayability, there are DLC word packs that add in many new typing words/sentences, and you can also upload your own word list into the game.

Final Verdict – [6/10]

Typing of the Dead: Overkill is a fun game. I can’t see it having much staying power, but it's fun to go through at least once. I think the option to add in your own word list as well as the game including both typing and the original shooting games is enough to give this a purchase. I do wish it had more features - typing upgrades, perhaps online multiplayer like you’d have in the old House of the Dead arcade with 2 players. Just something else to give it that extra oomph.

At its sale price right now of $10, I think it's a good purchase if you like on-rail shooters and want to give the typing aspect a go. Since TotD contains 2 games you can’t really go wrong.

Recommend? [Y/N]

Yes

You can find my curator page here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Synik_GR

This game is so much fun! Albeit a bit short it has plenty of replay-ability. The homoerotic tension between Agent G and Issac Washington is insane, they really should've kissed. 8.5/10.

Excellent deal. I didn't know it includes the regular fps version. Game play is fun and forgiving and continuing cost like 50,000 "score" (The counter on the top left). Only downside is I haven't figure out how to set the display into 2k.

Easily the greatest game ever made.

I can type without looking at my keys now and I can just pull out the 9 if I get bored anyways

I can only type 16 wpm

Fun! that's wt i'm lookin for in a game and this is absolutely fulfilling

Fun campaign and had me laughing out loud a few times. Worth picking up on sale!

Very fun to play. The final boss fight is poorly designed and disappointing but it doesn't ruin the rest of the game. The story itself isn't that interesting but the characters are funny.

This game is terrible. There is almost no gameplay. You just type a word every once in a while. There is 0 danger of ever being damaged let alone killed. There are long stretches of time where you don't type anything. There are power ups that don't feel remotely rewarding. There are a lot of audio bugs. And the writing/humor are completely cringe and stupid. Avoid at all costs.

If I had this type of formal education during typing class, I might have developed a trauma bond love for typing.