Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick

Written by John Scalzo on August 23, 2002

First Impressions: Duke Nukem can kiss Bruce Campbell's ass!

Many people look back on the first Evil Dead game, Hail to the King, as a poor man's Resident Evil that wouldn't have sold for crap without the Evil Dead license. I never played Hail to the King due to my lack of a PSone but it calls to me every time I'm in my local game store. So why would I want to play a game that was almost universally hated? Because I'm an Evil Dead whore that's why.

Allow me to explain. In 1982 Sam Raimi released his blood soaked movie masterpiece The Evil Dead. It was a small independent movie made with the help of his friends over the last several years. The story was simple: reading from The Book of the Dead (a.k.a. the Necronomicon) awakened evil spirits known as deadites. The deadites can possess humans to do their killing, raise the dead in ways Romero never dreamed of or literally make the forest come alive to do their dirty work. Only Ash (played by the immortal Bruce Campbell) was able to survive the carnage of the night. The movie gained an underground audience over the years by the spread of dubbed copies passed along by one friend to another. Two sequels would follow. Duke Nukem would steal all of Ash's best lines in his quest to save the world in Duke Nukem 3D. Finally, a few years ago the phenomenon exploded when Anchor Bay released a huge video/DVD run of the whole trilogy. Now The Evil Dead is everywhere.

That's where Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick comes in. THQ has tapped Vis, developers of the freakishly overhyped State of Emergency, to bring the second Evil Dead game to the world. Evil Dead: FOB will use the State of Emergency engine and shape it to that special kind of mayhem Evil Dead fans know and love. The game will bring Ash back to his home of Deerborn, which has been infected by the Necronomicon. Most of the townspeople have been transformed into deadites. If you don't get to the humans that remain, they'll be turned over as well. Running through the city hacking and slashing (much like in State of Emergency) will be Evil Dead: FOB's main focus. So it's a good thing the game is fast.

The early videos THQ has released show Ash running up and down the street doing what Ash does best: kill deadites. The frame rate is solid even at this early time and THQ has said when it's done the game will feature up to 50 deadites on screen at once. The graphics appear slightly dark in these videos and it's hard to tell just how much detail is there. Evil Dead: FOB might end up giving the brightness knob on your TV a workout.

What the graphics may lack in full on wow factor, they do make up for in pure Evil Dead style. It looks like an Evil Dead game should look like. I'm more than willing to sacrifice a little detail to ensure 50 deadites appear on screen at once. That is Evil Dead style. Non stop, balls to the wall action.

Of course no story in the Evil Dead saga would be complete without the man himself. Bruce Campbell has signed to provide the voice of Ash yet again. So at the very least, Duke Nukem will have new material to steal (if Duke Nukem Forever is ever finished that is). The sound of Ash is not the only sound FOB has recreated as it should be. The preview videos also have that wonderful hum of a chainsaw going on in the background. Ah, the chainsaw. I think it's time to talk weapons.

Ash always had an arsenal at his disposal that would make The Terminator jealous and FOB is no exception. Ash will be able to carry a weapon in each hand and in addition to his shovel and chainsaw there's his ever trusty Boomstick (or for the non-Evil Dead fans, a shotgun). Just like in the movies Ash will be able to perform special moves like behind the back shooting, over the shoulder shooting, and full on deadite decapitation. For the true gorehound FOB is supposed to allow you to shoot or cut off any body part of a deadite you want. Sick? Absolutely. Fun? Hell yeah! Adding a new wrinkle into the fighting system though will be the use of magic. Ash can find magic spells that will give him more power. Later the spells will be used to time travel to different time periods including slaying deadites during Civil War times, colonial days, the 60s, and the future.