Evil Dead Games: Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick

Hey babies welcome back for Day 3 of Evil Dead Games. Yeah even if you drink the juice, say the magic words and get cast through the vortex you never know what's going to happen. 3 years after Hail to the King, Ash is in his cups having whatever Midnight Hobo or Maker's Mark he can get his hands on when apparently on the local news in Dearborn that a colleague of the late Professor Knowby has translated the Necronomicon. Dare we say, problems a plenty? This is Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick.

Hey Slappy, go take a shower and get a meal. Gamers.

From the makers of Tom and Jerry in Fists of Fury and The Powerpuff Girls: Chemical X-traction via N64, VIS Entertainment teams up with THQ to bring Bruce Campbell back into the horrors of a deadite world in Dearborn Michigan. Local TV station KLA2 (or Klaatu for you folks that loved The Day the Earth Stood Still and Army of Darkness) Professor Eldridge converses and explains to news anchor Trisha Pettywood the "real truth" behind the Necronomicon as he is a parapsychologist and now best-selling author describing the Necronomicon has a large amount of history but to say it brings forth demons and opens portals is sensational hooey mocking Ash's claims. Ash continues to drown his sorrows in a watering hole and the bartender (voiced by Steve Blum) points out the loss of Ash's girlfriend Jenny who died in a bus accident. Yup, this guy never seems to get to keep the girl period. Somehow Trisha got hold of Knowby's tape recorder and plays the incantation summoning the evil back into the world through multiple portals.

A little boomstick action later, Ash realizes he has to strap on his big boy boots, grab some weapons and stop the evil YET AGAIN and save the world...all for his minimum pay at S-Mart. 

Bleh, ass ahoy.

This game while gory, is more of an action theme hack and slash rather than the typical horror survival of the previous game and is still single-player. The controls are easier on the to roll with and was released for the Xbox and PlayStation 2.

With a three swipe chainsaw manuever you can spray the streets with the blood of the deadites and boomstick action is pretty feasible and yes I do like the over the shoulder blasting but overall the mechanics of the combats are too simplistic, the boss fights require a bit of strategy but not that challenging. Unlike Hail to the King, ammo is plentiful as is gas for the saw but that does make a bit of sense given you are in town rather than a remote location like the cabin and the surrounding areas.  

The respawn of the deadites is not as often as it was with Hail to the King but even that game didn't feel like they were as constant as many reviews would like you to believe. You find a spellbook that gives you are a fair degree of variety. Apparently you absorb the power, chi or energy of fallen baddies to power each spell with ranges from lightning, stunning large groups of enemies, increasing your strength to that of ten men and temporary possession of a deadite to use against their fellow rotting comrades. The spells do work better for solving puzzles rather than open combat.

The musical score by Stewart Clark is impressive, Bruce chucks out a few one-liners but the waiting or prodding one-liners were the better of the lot. The voice talents of names that I immediately recognized were Phil LaMarr, Rob Paulsen, Tom Kenny, Billy West, William Hootkins as the Professor and Debi Mae West as Trisha.

Overall, gameplay is fair but the levels seem way too easy and the story a bit short but if you are looking to lop arms, legs and heads off or just want a prime example of an action game than you are in luck.

Ew, squirted like a ketchup packet!