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Good...Bad...He's The Guy With The Chainsaw!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 20 / 27
Date: December 14, 2000
Author: Amazon User

THQ has released the Playstation game EVIL DEAD:HAIL TO THE KING! Since the trio of Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi, and Rob Tapert insist that the EVIL DEAD movies never made enough money to get financing for a sequel, they are stating that this game should be considered EVIL DEAD 4. The game has a great plot and cut scenes-HTTK begins 8 years after ARMY OF DARKNESS. While Ash has found happiness with his girl Jennie (assistant manager of the S-Mart arts and crafts department), he is haunted by nightmares of all of his experiences dealing with the Necronomicon. Jennie suggests it would be therapeutic for him to go back to the original cabin and face his fears. Big mistake... The game has a lot of plusses and a few minuses. Let's go over the minuses first. Play control is a little stiff-hit detection is not very crisp and many times Ash will be frozen in place ater being struck by an enemy (he'll be running in place but not move-a sitting duck). The game has many changing camera angles like the RESIDENT EVIL series but in some of the screens Ash is so distant and small it's hard to engage in combat-you can't tell which way he's facing. Likewise you have to aim all your own shots with firearms (I really don't mind this as it is more realistic, but a lot of people hate it). While running Ash will sometimes disappear and reappear on another part of the screen far away. In many areas there are endlessly regenerating Deadites and skeletons, and this gets annoying very quickly. The Deadites also have a tendency to cut and run before you can finish them, popping up in another spot later. This wastes a lot of chainsaw fuel and patience. Ash will take a lot of damage from the Deadites unless he can jump on them with the chainsaw as soon as they appear. But the plusses more than make up for it! The plot, in the best EVIL DEAD tradition, recaps much of the first three films while throwing in some Lovecraftian elements (only fitting for the father of the Necronomicon). There are lots of unique bosses to fight along with old favorites like Evil Ash and the Henrietta Monster (now the Annie Monster). In particular the emergence of the first boss in the Hellbilly House is a true sight to behold! Some bosses require unique approaches to defeat as they can't be harmed. There are new characters to interact with and we get to see the origins of the Necronomicon in Damascus. One of the big selling points of the game is the fact that Bruce Campbell does the voice overs for Ash. While it sounds in a few spots like he's phoning it in, Bruce does a great job in the cut scenes (there are lots of them, too) and most of the taunts. In fact, hitting the taunt button can send a pack of Deadites running when you are in a tight spot-or it can shame a fleeing foe into returning! The weapons are straight out of Evil Dead and are mostly upgradable-I particularly like the fact that when the action shifts to ancient Damascus the firearms must be modified to utilize existing technology. The game also captures Ash's sarcastic attitude perfectly and has some great lines in it (my favorite is from Evil Ash-"The only thing he's prophisized to do is work in retail the rest of his life!"). Backgrounds and scenery are rendered and look fantastic. Interiors are especially detailed. The locations include the cabin (although very little happens there...a disappointment), the Bridge, Hellbilly House, the Church, the Woods, the Graveyard, Wolverine Camp, Mine, Temple, Armory, Town Square, Jail, and Guild Lair. Simple puzzles to solve spice up the combat. And unlike many games, you don't have to hoard items to fight bosses-health, gas, and projectiles will appear from defeated enemies when you get low (but not when you're stocked up!). The game (along with the Dreamcast and PC versions) is highly recommended, especially for fans of the EVIL DEAD trilogy.

EXCELLENT! Gamers need to get a clue!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 18
Date: January 06, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I almost didn't get this game because of some of the reviews here. I'm glad I didn't listen because this is a LOT of fun!

If you are a gamer, you might not like this game for it's "game quality" However I never saw it as a typical game, I saw it as Evil Dead 4, and I was required to pick up a controller rather than a remote control to enjoy it.

As Evil Dead 4, It's great! Bruce Campbell is.. as always, terrific! As a first attempt by the creators of evil dead to move into game format, what it lacks in game quality, it makes up for in storyline and voiceovers. I'm sure the next installment will have revised gaming quality and hopefully keep Bruce's great talent.

Unlike most other games, which go on to become bad movies (like tomb raider.. although sexy Angelina Jolie might be able to save that flop) this game is coming from one of the most loved trilogies in movie history. It carries that quality and fun with it.. Evil Dead fans will not be dissapointed

Bruce Campbell vs. Horrible Gameplay

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: October 05, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Okay, let's start with the good points of the game: It's essentially Evil Dead 4!; Bruce Campbell as Ash!!!; a button just for one-liners (even though they're somewhat few in number); locations and a few surprise characters from the movies; good game graphics that have a certain amount of graininess to them that helps to recreate the atmosphere of the original Evil Dead (with a few great touches like the moving shadows of trees outside the windows in the cabin); Nice music and sound effects for the most part; Chainsaws and boomsticks; decent cutscenes; a few good puzzles..

Despite all of those good points..and regardless of the fact that I'm a huge fan of the Evil Dead trilogy as well as something of a survival horror veteran...I have to give this game a mere 3 stars.. Why? That's easy..the gameplay. You have some of the stiffest and least responsive survival horror controls I've ever experienced. Then you have fixed camera angles where, at times, you're down at the end of the screen and so small you can't even tell which direction you're facing. Couple that with the lack of an auto-aiming feature and it adds up to dozens of deaths just because you can't tell if you're facing whatever it is you're trying to hit.

Next I have to mention the constantly respawning enemies. You kill an enemy and another one pops right out of the ground to take its place... Battles are often unavoidable as the various enemies usually either chase you down or block your way. Each enemy you encounter has the ability to kill you, usually very quickly. You'll find yourself using healing items after every battle, or every 2 if you're lucky. During boss battles, you'll find yourself going into the inventory screen to heal yourself every couple seconds, which really kills the atmosphere of the game and makes things fairly tedious. If he really used that many healing kits, Ash would have looked like a mummy within the first 10 minutes of the game. The respawning enemies are also annoying as they sort of take away your ability to explore the game. There were areas from the movies in the game that I would have liked to have walked around and checked out, but it was really impossible to do with enemies popping out of the ground 2 at a time and chasing you down. You really don't get a chance to take in the atmosphere of it all, and that really is a shame.

Basically, with the deadly respawning enemies and poor control, the game becomes annoyingly difficult, and playing through it is basically just a matter of playing a section over and over until you can survive to the next save point (note: save points are fairly sparse, especially on the first disc).. It's really not fun at all, and it boiled down to more or less just a matter of suffering through the frustrating gameplay to follow the storyline and see a few cool locations from the movies.

Also note that the game is very short.. I only clocked about 3 hours game time (about 5 hours less than I normally do my first time through an average survival horror game).. Apparently the high level of difficulty and frustration is just to cover up for the fact that there isn't much game there to play through.

In the end, if you're an Evil Dead fan, you have to get it just because it's more or less Evil Dead 4 and stars Bruce Campbell. If you're not an Evil Dead fan, but are just a survival horror gamer looking for something new, stay away. This has to be the least enjoyable survival horror game I've played, and it's definitely not worth the high price. I'm a HUGE Evil Dead and survival horror fan, and even I thought about playing frisbee with the disc and a wall once or twice..

I wish I hadn't fallen for this one

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: December 29, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Fair warning - This game is very short, having only half a dozen maps and if it was for the stupidly difficult game-play, you would work your way through this game in an hour. So why is it on two Cd's? To make us think there is actually a game here? Baffling.
Also there isn't any good adventure game play or FPS-type game-play. You are picking up pieces of a book but that just means you go around picking up pages when you see them.
The worst part is the fighting. It seems to make up for the ludicrously short game they made it so you can't take one step without fighting deadites. I thought my game had a bug or something. You just stand there losing health trying to chop away at deadites who (sometimes) drop health but you won't have time to pick it up. It's just boring. Add to that the very annoying controls and you have a very sub-standard game that is way too expensive in my book.

The Movies Did Not Diserve This Game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: June 01, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The story is something like this: after the Army Of Darkness movie, Ash gets a new girlfriend. But he has nightmares, and he decides to go back to the cabin (which was destructed in Evil Dead II), to end this once and for all. The cabin is well-clean and everything (where's the connection with Evil Dead II, partners?). But Ash's girlfriend is kidnapped by Bad Ash (more like Evil Dead II's then Army Of Darkness'). Your objective is to find six Necronomicon pages throughout the game, a boring task, I must say. And you also have to save your girlfriend. That's what you have to do... While you move on, you might notice that, if you're a hard fan like myself, the game is only fun while you're walking inside or around the cabin, those familiar scenaries. All the rest is boring... The graphics are OK for a PSOne game, for all I've played.. Trees move, the fog moves.. No big deal, but it's ok... The sound is good too, Bruce Campbell does great voice acting (as seen in other games too). But it's not fun. And that's a big problem. Deadites keep coming and coming, some enemies are really tough, and you don't feel like you've finnished a masterpiece when you beat this game... It was a try, but I wish THQ can learn from its mistakes to make a cool sequel. In the educational point the game is not approved.. It's Mature-classified, you see.. There is a little blood, violence.. But no big things, you can let your grown-up children play it...
Unless you are a hard Evil Dead fan and you want to have one more item for your collection, don't buy this game. It's my opinion.

I feel let down....

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: January 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I bought this for my (twin) sons birthday along with a DVD of the movie as requested. The movie is great, but we knew right away that this game wasn't worth the exorbitant price. I took it back to the store and complained. Games like this just shouldn't be released at any price. There are so many problems, the game is short, shoddily made, and the controls are horrendous.

The last time I'm trusting a game by THQ.

Great(est?) Liscense... Awful game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 22
Date: December 12, 2000
Author: Amazon User

To the lament of many Evil Dead fans, this game has suffered the fate of most movie based videogames. That is to say, it's pretty bad. A nifty cover and Bruce Campbell voice overs are about the only saving grace, thus one star. The game is an obvious Resident Evil rip-off, which would be fine if it was done well at all. Although a more "hop into it and start killing demons" gameplay like a Soul Reaver or even a Fighting Force might have been more fun. The graphics are pixelated and muddy, the FMV are grainy and undetailed (Ash seems to be wearing a leather glove instead of the awesome metal hand), and the game controls are problematic at best. Gameplay isn't fun at all. Two handed weapon fighting would seemt to be a great idea, if the fighting engine was worth anything. And what fun is having a chainsaw on your hand to hack up zombies when you constantly have to refuel it? I'm a big fan, but this thing is just a chore to play. The Evil Dead movies are almost perfectly suited to a videogame, you would think, and yet the ball is dropped here. Like many liscene-based games, you can't help but wonder what a good develpment team could have done with the franchise. Like a Goldeneye, Spider-Man, or Star Trek: Invasion even. Instead we get a Superman, Batman Beyond, The Grinch. At best, maybe it was rushed out before it could be polished and all the kinks worked out.

Only buy it if you're an Evil Dead fan..

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: March 11, 2001
Author: Amazon User

..otherwise, don't bother. Even then rent it first. The story line is kinda decent. There's two things that turn me off about the game. The controls are crap. I've had better control over a game after I drank 12 beers. The other thing that turns me off is the fact that the deadites never stop respawning. Ever. So you never really clear a board in addition they also hit for a bit of damage. If you're not careful you can die with only being hit 3 times. I really looked forward to this game when I heard it was being done. I'm really disappointed in the result.

Evil Dead

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: June 25, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game has nice graphics and nicely picturesque scenes, but the controls are so horrid that the fight sequences are unexacting. I found it annoying and annoyingly overpriced.

One of the Worst Games Ever

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 21, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The commercials for this game were more entertaining than the game itself.
Poor and unintuitive gameplay, bad graphics, repetitive monsters.
I should know better by now than to buy a game made after a movie(thay all ...), but I couldnt resist; the Evil Dead series is my all time favorite. Bruce, Sam, how could you do this to your fans?

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