There's something quite appropriate about Evil Dead being a video game. With the three films taking the story from being an arguably serious attempt at a horror 'video nasty' through to a comedy horror cliché, the premise probably couldn't have survived another outing on celluloid. But that's no barrier to making a game while there are fans out there that might buy it, and so here we are, the third video game, and titled by some as 'Evil Dead 6'.
The game kicks off with the well known hero, Ash, banged up in the loony bin after killing all his friends and telling the authorities that the book of the dead, 'The Necronomicon' made them all go evil and try to eat his brains. As part of the investigation into what happened, Ash's psychiatrist, Dr Reinhard, has ended up with his hands on the Necronomicon, and helps unleash its power once again. Time for Ash to save the day. Again.
Now, if that last paragraph sounds like familiar and heart warming stuff to you, then you're obviously a big Evil Dead fan, and this game could well float your boat. Ash is voiced by Bruce Campbell as per the movies, and, like the movies, Ash has plenty of ass-kicking lines and comic moments. His sidekick for most of the game is Sam, a three foot tall, 'wiseguy' deadite, who lets his mouth make up for his lack of stature. Sam is expertly voiced by Ted Raimi (writer/director Sam Raimi’s brother), with the combination of his and Campbell's chatter being the highlight of the game.
Unfortunately the rest of the game fails to sparkle in the same way - there's nothing particularly bad about it, it's just a bit simplistic. Take the combat - Ash can slash with his chainsaw or blast away with a number of different weapons, but there's only half a dozen different combos of his moves, and they're all very linear and samey - there's no way of really mixing it up. It doesn't help that the regular enemies aren't very varied and they only have very simple attacks that you can always avoid as long as you keep moving – I don't think I used the block button once in the game. There are a few puzzles too, but they're all a case of getting Sam to unblock a path for Ash by crawling through a small hole, shimmying across an electrified wire or riding on the back of a huge deadite to smash your way through the blockage. In fact, the game is only saved from getting repetitively dull by the shorter than average lifespan - under 8 hours to the credits for me. If you're a big Evil Dead fan you may need a second play to find all of the items hidden in the game that unlock artwork from the game design (yawn) and short video clips of Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi in interviews and recording sessions (groovalicious), but there's no replay value otherwise.
Although the core game doesn't really shine on its own, there are some good things to say about ED:R. Apart from an irritatingly unhelpful camera, the presentation is good all round – there's the colourful voice acting, a graphics engine that is a cut above average, and the use of the excellent Havok physics engine. Also, although the regular combat is dull, the boss battles aren't - they're varied and each one offers several different types of attack that have to be learned in order to avoid and counter-attack in the 'old skool' manner of boss battles.
As I mentioned in the first paragraph, the Evil Dead games are sort of a substitute for more Evil Dead films (in fact there is a remake of the first film in production, but it certainly won't have Bruce Campbell as Ash), and this game is quite faithful to the films – it contains very little in the way of plot, but plenty of chainsaw/boomstick action and cheesy lines from Ash. Like the last Evil Dead film, 'Army of Darkness', the game is really just a vehicle for the character of Ash, isn't actually very good, but entertains in an inane kind of way. While I can't recommend it against other action/platform games such as the Devil May Cry, Prince of Persia, or even Ratchet and Clank series, it will certainly pull all the right strings if you're in the need of a bit of Ash. Groovalicious.
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