The House of the Dead

Sega's light-gun series turned the arcade cabinet into a horror ride. You hold a plastic pistol, the game moves you down a fixed track through mansions and labs, and waves of shambling creatures lurch into frame to be shot before they reach you. The branching paths and civilian-rescue scoring gave it more strategy than its grindhouse surface let on.

The core entries lean into B-movie schlock with straight-faced glee, while the Overkill spin-off and its typing-game variant push that camp all the way to parody, swapping reloads for spelling.

It is firmly a coin-op experience translated to consoles, and its zombies have wandered far enough into Sega's wider catalog to turn up as guest racers in the All-Stars Racing crossovers, a reminder of how recognizable these gun-game ghouls became.

The The House of the Dead franchise spans 4 games in the CrossBinge catalog.