Official Website

Platform: Playstation 2, Xbox

Genre: Action

Number of Players: 1

When you have a horror franchise that’s managed to transcend being “just another horror film” to a cult classic, what’s the logical path to take? Simple. You market it in just about any format that you can think of. IN case you’ve already missed the title up at the top, we’re talking about none other than the good time splatter-fest of the Evil Dead movies. A Fistful of Boomstick isn’t the first time that Evil Dead has managed to jump from video to home console, but the fact is that the first Evil Dead game wasn’t quite as well received as what was hoped for, proving that you can’t always do something clever with a license. We already saw that however with feeble attempts to turn A Nightmare of Elm Street and Friday the 13^th into dismal failures of games, and fortunately that plan to make Hellraiser into a first-person shooter never came to pass. While fans may have cringed at the premise of yet another game that could possibly mar the good name of the Dead, things are a little better going this time, and it looks like some developers may have very well did their homework.

The Deadites are back, again, and if you’re familiar with either of the Evil Dead films or Army of Darkness than you know that there’s just one man that can stop them: Ash. This time, the Deadites are accidentally (at least, it might be an accident) revived when a talk show has Professor Eldridge on for a segment. Eldridge was a friend of Professor Knowby, and unfortunately, Eldridge also has the reel-to-reel that contains the incantations for the Necronomicon, and it’s played on-air, with obvious results. Now, the dead are terrorizing Deerborn, and Ash picks up his shotgun, straps on his chainsaw, and arms himself with his sarcastic wit to send the stumbling corpses right back where they came from.

First off, the answer to the question I’m sure you’re all wonder, and if you are then you obviously don’t pay attention to anything dealing with video games: Bruce Campbell is back as the voice of Ash. Who else did you expect to be doing it?

Now, if you’ve played the original Evil Dead title that was released, just pretend for a moment that you never heard of it. Thankfully due to bad reviews and warnings from friends, I managed to avoid it like one might steer clear of a run down cabin out in the middle of the woods; at least they would if they were smart at least. But, don’t think for a moment though that this is just another one of your standard survival horror tiles trying to rip off every cliché that’s already been done. No, instead A Fistful of Boomstick is more of an action title filled with over the top gore. Imagine a fast paced Ratchet and Clank for a minute, take out all of the high tech weapons and gadgetry, then place in legions of the undead and of course a chainsaw/shotgun wielding hero. We can’t have Ash limited to just those two weapons however, and there’s plenty more things that he’ll be adding into his arsenal.

Ash gains quite a few nifty accessories in his slaughtering rampage to vanquish evil, get the girl, etc. Different types of shotgun shells can be found, he’ll be picking up dynamite, and then throwing it away just as fast, and even get the use of a crude rocket launcher. If you run out of ammo though you’ve always got your trusty shovel that you can use to beat zombie back into the ground. Bullets aren’t the only things that are going to keep our hero alive though, and he’ll be getting a few extra weapons to replace that old chainsaw with, including a all-purpose flame thrower. How’s that for firepower? And if weapons aren’t’ enough for you, than you always have the option of casting spells that you’ll find along the way.

It may sound like it could be survival horror, but trust me it’s not. Those zombies in the Resident Evil games are nothing compared to the ones in here. These things are quick, and they tend to attack in swarms, leaving you vulnerable at times. The good news though is that you can target them, giving you the option of alternating between foes, and you’ve got some nice combos you can use as well, my personal favorite being the chainsaw impalement. Slaying your foes will give you more than just a warm, tingly feeling though. Some zombies will drop ammo, other health icons, and every one of them will let you absorb their energy once they have dropped like a sack of potatoes, and these undead souls are the perfect thing for spell casting.

The idea of spells isn’t too bad, and the system is set up in a combo fashion as well. Obviously, you’re going to need to find the pages of the spell book in order to know exactly what buttons to push, and messing one up will result in Ash saying something witty, then getting zapped by the supernatural energy. The spells range from things like being able to increase your strength to being able to temporarily summon a faithful dong to help you on your way. The best one though is Possess Deadite, which does just what it sounds like. The effects don’t last forever, but the initial phase of attempting to possess one of the numerous undead that roam the streets of Deerborn in the fun part. The camera switches to a sort of “shaky-cam” effect while you search for a zombie to take control of. If you get tired of being dead, you can break the spell, returning to good, old lovable Ash.

The game itself is set up in a sort of mini-quest fashion. Ash will talk with people, get some information, and his “to do” list will be updated with some sort of new objective. The quests are fairly easy for the most part, but it involves quite a bit of backtracking as well, occasionally causing you to bypass something, or someone, along the way. Some quests are rather vague however, and Ash doesn’t have any sort of map to take a look at or mark changes on, which comes as a bit of a surprise since he carries around a pad a paper as it is. There are puzzles as well, much like the quests, none of them prove to be very much of a challenge to solve, some even being almost as ridiculously easy as those in the Resident Evil games.

Where Evil Dead really excels though, is in the amount of sheer gore. The game may not be too much of an innovation when it comes to the overall game play or event the way it’s performed, but when the blood and guts start to fly, that’s when things get real interesting. The RE series may have had a lot of gore, but just like the films, Evil Dead has buckets of it, and it doesn’t let up for anything. What’s great is that Ash has that sort of cocky look when he’s taking advantage of using the boomstick, including doing some cool things like shooing behind his back, or spinning his pistols if you let him stand still long enough, but it’s all about the chainsaw, baby. You’ll find yourself doing some rather aggressive and brutal acts like severing limbs, lobbing off heads, pr powering up your chainsaw in order to do a swinging strike to take out multiple enemies. And, every hit you land means more blood.

A great touch is the option to save anywhere, and it comes in handy. During the course of play, you will run across save icons that can be used simply by accessing the menu. With the amount of zombies that tend to flood to you, occasionally making your game a little shorter than expected, being able to load from the last tie you saved is not only important, it’s applauded. Even the load time isn’t bad, and that’s always a definite bonus.

The graphics and music are decent, but not spectacular either. Overall, the graphics are very dark, which is fitting for the game, but the zombies are a little bland, especially when it comes to the movements of them at times. Even the town of Deerborn itself is a little uninspired, and it’s obvious the designers were aiming at be being more of a maze that an city that would be in any way easy to navigate. The music doesn’t have the dark vibe that most horror type games do, but it has an almost way too dramatic feel at times that’s very befitting. At times it is slightly similar to the soundtrack for the second Evil Dead film, but then again my memory could be failing me slightly as it has been quite a number of years since I last sat down and watched the film.

Even with all the improvements, there are still some things that make A Fistful of Boomstick is slightly problematic. The menu set up isn’t designed nearly as well as it could be, and you’ll spend quite a bit of time while trying to find an item having to scroll back and forth through the menu to find that one thing that you’re looking for. At times, the quests aren’t too well laid out, and there’s no any one thing will really give a better course or direction to follow in order to succeed. And, while Bruce Campbell does Ash as only he could, most of the other members of the voice cast aren’t even third rate and are very unmemorable.

If the original Evil Dead game was a great example of what not to do with a film license, than Fist is the complete opposite, even with some of the problems that the game has. It doesn’t necessarily take away from the game at all, and I’m sure that we’ll probably see more games for the series in the future. It’s still far from being perfect, but the development team is definitely on the right path, and even better is that there was no effort made to clone the survival horror games. Best of all though, the game retails for just $20, but it’s not going to be a huge strain on your wallet, and if you’re looking for something that combines senseless killing, a B-film story, and some mild puzzle solving skills, this is certainly the game to buy. In fact, with such a low retail price, you could use that extra $30 to pick up one of the Evil Dead films, assuming you don’t already own them all as it is. It may not be filled with scares, but it certainly is something that will give you a little bit of sugar, and that’s the most important thing.

- mike -