Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick

Personally, I love this game. Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick is a game based on one of my ******** Horror/Gore flicks of all time. The game is also extremely fun as hell to play and it features the coolest cat on the planet, Bruce Campbell! The game also has a ton of blood and gore. And at an extremely low price of $19.99 for the Playstation 2 and the Microsoft Xbox videogame systems, you just can’t go wrong with Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick. If this game was $50, I would have given it a lower score, but $20 for a new title, that is fun as hell to play! I am here to tell you that it might be the best $20 you will spend for a new game.

Now I know a lot of you out there remembers the first Evil Dead game for the Playstation, Dreamcast and PC. Now I will admit, I was a bit disappointed in the game, but hell, it was a Evil Dead game. Just the fact that Sam Raimi’s horror classic was finally getting some props, I was in total bloody joy! The game could have been a smash hit, but it fell short in many sections, leaving a lot of fans pissed off! I was rather forgiving though, and decided to give the guys at THQ a second chance to get it right. From what I have played in the last few days, All I have to say is Bravo to THQ and VIS, and also bring on more Evil Dead games like this! So let me stop drooling and babbling on and get to my review of Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick.

Listen up, you primitive screwheads! This is my review of Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick. For fans of the Evil Dead movies this review will only consist of four words: Buy. This. Game. Now. For everyone that's never seen the movies, shame on you.

A Fistful of Boomstick is definitely for Evil Dead fans. The repetitive combat won’t wow hardcore action fans, but committed zombie-hunters might enjoy the challenge and the attitude. Hail to the king, baby.

At this point I have to bring up the subject of Evil Dead: Hail to the King. This game too had the trilogy license but was essentially, err, rubbish. It was fiddly, annoying and quite frankly I threw my pad down in disgust after minutes. The developers made the crucial mistake that has ruined so many movie tie-ins over the years by simply not capturing the spirit of the films. The Evil Dead movies are violent, graphic and gory, but they are simultaneously shamelessly hilarious. They are all cheap, but all the same timelessly watchable. Thankfully, the developers made no where near as many mistakes this time around and Boomstick captures the Evil Dead essence beautifully.

Not really a survival horror game, Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick really acts more like an action game – which works rather well, since the first Evil Dead film was more horror than action, and the third being more action than horror. The shift in emphasis makes a natural transition to videogames. But, take away the Evil Dead license, and do you have a good game? Yes. Not a great game, but a decent one. Without the various bits that make Evil Dead what it is (Ash’s cheesy dialogue, chainsaw beheadings, etc.) this would just be an average game. As it is though, this belongs on the shelf next to your 3 different DVD versions of Army of Darkness.

Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick is a fun little romp with plenty of gratuitous violence, witty one-liners, and hilarious cutscenes. Thanks to the collaboration with the film’s creators and leading man this is perhaps – and oddly enough – one of the better movie translations to release on the Xbox. $20 could buy you the latest Evil Dead DVD (just in case you don’t have the rubbery face special edition version yet), or you could go get this game and live the movie.

Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick is a fun little romp with plenty of gratuitous violence, witty one-liners, and hilarious cutscenes. Thanks to the collaboration with the film’s creators and leading man this is perhaps – and oddly enough – one of the better movie translations to release on the PS2. $20 could buy you the latest Evil Dead DVD (just in case you don’t have the rubbery face special edition version yet), or you could go get this game and live the movie.

Campbells erster Auftritt auf der Xbox ist grafisch und soundtechnisch in die Hose gegangen, regelmäßig habe ich außerdem geflucht, wenn ich mich in den unübersichtlichen Spielabschnitten verlaufen habe – hier hätte eine Hilfskarte gut getan. Warum aber machte mir das Kettensägen-Massaker trotzdem Spaß? Zum einen ist der spezielle Charme der Evil Dead-Filme gut eingefangen. Bruces Sprüche kommen gewohnt lässig rüber, die Zauber sorgen neben der Kettensäge für weitere Kurzweil. Wem wie mir Armeen der Finsternis gut gefallen hat, sollte sich dieses Spiel zulegen. Andere tasten sich vorsichtig an dieses Schlachtfest heran.

For a 20-year-old movie franchise, Evil Dead has had a decent showing on contemporary consoles. Released on the PlayStation, Dreamcast, and PC, Evil Dead: Hail to the King served as a mildly entertaining diversion for fans of the series when it was released in 2000, sparking VIS Entertainment to take the reigns from Heavy Iron Studios, and develop a new Evil Dead for both the PS2 and Xbox. While technologically more advanced than its predecessor, Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick proves to be no deeper or innovative than Hail to the King.

I'm surprised more companies don't release games for $20. At $20, more people will take a chance on it and be rewarded. The game isn't bad. In fact, it's fun, mainly due to the chainsaw and shotgun action. The one-liners themselves are worth at least a rental. It isn't the most technically stunning game you'll ever see, but it does have Bruce Campbell and a brand new storyline within the world of Evil Dead. Those burned by Hail to the King, give this one a try. It's a lot better. Fans should pick it up for $20, and everyone else should probably rent it.

I can remember when spending twenty dollars was a huge deal. I'd save my money for weeks, hoping to amass enough to buy a new spaceship for my action figures or a cheap-o skateboard at K-Mart. Putting that twenty dollars down on the counter represented accomplishment, sacrifice and discipline. Therefore, I can remember a lot of my hard-earned purchases from my childhood until this day.

This game is specifically for Evil Dead fans. Aside from Ash, the game doesn’t have a lot to offer hardcore gamers. This is a budget title, and for under twenty bucks, its production mirrors the low-budget feel of the movies.

Though the game specifically targets the niche market of gamers who already have a strong propensity toward the Evil Dead franchise, even fans of the films will likely be disappointed by what A Fistful of Boomstick has to offer. If it's Evil Dead you want, you're better off going back to the films. If it's a satisfying action game you're looking for, look somewhere else.

It seems unlikely that Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell could have known just what they were starting back in 1981 when they shot a tiny independent horror film called Evil Dead on a shoestring budget. Yet, here we are, 22 years later, with a hyperstylized indie sequel/remake, a bizarre high-fantasy sequel, a video game, and a massive cult following. Now, THQ and VIS Entertainment are trotting out Bruce Campbell's Ash character and the twisted deadites once again for Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick. The gameplay is a mix of sloppy third-person action and even sloppier puzzles, putting the weight of the game squarely on Ash's tongue-in-cheek macho colloquialisms.

Encore un raté pour Evil Dead avec un titre d'une fadeur à faire peur. Si l'esprit du film aurait pu parvenir à combler un gameplay sans saveur, son absence ne fait qu'enfoncer le clou. Seuls les fans les plus accrocs trouveront un intérêt dans ce soft, histoire de retrouver leur héros favori à un prix relativement bas pour un jeu (mais relativement élevé pour la qualité).

Encore un raté pour Evil Dead avec un titre d'une fadeur à faire peur. Si l'esprit du film aurait pu parvenir à combler un gameplay sans saveur, son absence ne fait qu'enfoncer le clou. Seuls les fans les plus accrocs trouveront un intérêt dans ce soft, histoire de retrouver leur héros favori à un prix relativement bas pour un jeu (mais relativement élevé pour la qualité).

In the end, this is a fans only game. It will not win any new fans over to the series. Those who love Evil Dead will enjoy the game and the one-liners. The ending alone is worth playing through the game for. It retails for under $20, so there is no excuse not to pick it up and enjoy Ash’s latest exploits.

Ever seen Evil Dead 2? Well you should have. It's great. It's a fantastic argument for never reading archaic texts aloud, particularly those bound in flesh and called "The Book of the Dead". It's an even better argument for never going out to a cabin deep in the woods, particularly a cabin belonging to an erstwhile occult-obsessed doctor. Other tips: never play his tapes, never go into his basement, and, oh yes, blood works surprisingly well as part of a boomstick/chainsaw ensemble.

Overall, Fistful Of Boomstick is a weak game with some good features; namely, the combo system and the fact that it sells for only 20 bucks. Yep, 20 bucks. However, waves of meaningless enemies, stupid objectives and a very limited shelf life make it quite evil indeed. After an hour or two, you might want to cut off your own hand...

Talking of repetition, the gameplay soon becomes so repetitive due to the regenerating Deadites that any novelty supplied by the extreme but comical gore soon wears thin. The saving graces are that it gives you plenty of save tokens so you don't have to replay to much should Ash die, and it comes packaged with the Evil Dead 2 movie DVD. The game itself is just another example of multi-format pap, without a single original idea of its own. This wouldn't be so bad, but the ones it does copy are all so poorly implemented and the no-brainer gameplay so lacking in any sort of addictiveness or fun that you'll soon wish you bought something else instead. It's hard for us to believe that an Evil Dead game that has so much killing in it, and Bruce Campbell involved could turn out so mind-numbingly poor. The Evil Dead movies have been given the videogame 'treatment' twice now to my knowledge, and we're still yet to see a game that does them justice.

Det är svårt att inte småle lite för sig själv när Ash drar igång den rytande motorsågen, nonchalant blåser bort ett par zombieskallar bakom ryggen eller - precis som i Army of Darkness - desperat harklar sig efter en misslyckad besvärjelse. Men det räcker inte för att dölja ett grådaskigt utseende och ett hopplöst linjärt och föråldrat spelupplägg.

Evil Dead and its craptacular control is nothing that helps the game at all. It doesn't help that the camera angles can be extremely frustrating. There is an original story that kind of helps the game out a little bit, but nothing many people will take interest in. With no multiplayer and gameplay that won't horrify you because it is simply horrifying, but because it just looks so damn bad. Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick doesn't even deserve to be even looked at nor thought about. It may be one of the worst games available in the next-generation market today.

Battling zombies in the streets hardly feels like an Evil Dead movie, and it's frustrating not being able enter most buildings. In addition to fighting, you'll also talk to people and collect keys to open new areas. Spells gradually become available, but trying to execute a spell in the heat of battle is hazardous to your health. In later stages medical kits are in short supply and the zombies swarm you from all directions. Fistful of Boomstick was an ill-conceived project, and even Evil Dead fans will find it hard to justify shelling out $20 for it.