“Am I insane? I wouldn't necessarily say I'm crazy. Simply because I've heard the voices and battled the godless things in the woods. But I must be crazy to believe.”
These are the words of Bruce Campbell in the opening of the game; let this be a warning of what hell is to follow.
This ad however is just awesome:
“Hail to the King” actually isn’t the first “Evil Dead” game, there was actually a game based upon the first film for the Commodore 64 back in 1984, however I doubt a lot of people who knew this fact played it when it first came out. As for the subject of the review it is the first notable “Evil Dead” game, it’s produced by THQ and Heavy Iron Studios, features Bruce Campbell reprising his role as Ash, and was its major selling point. Aside from the fact you play Ash slaying deadites, and looking like another “Resident Evil” clone, me and my brothers were hyped… and then it got scathing reviews, yet we bought and played the damn thing anyway. Maybe we thought we were going to play an underrated gem. Yeah, and I’m a Chinese Jet Pilot.
“Well hello Mr. Fancy Pants.”
The game starts out promising with a prologue to the title providing exposition recapping the events of the three films, and providing new exposition showing after the events of “Army of Darkness” (The theatrical cut obviously) he worked back at S-Mart, and even got a new girlfriend named Jenny. He is however haunted by nightmares of the cabin, and the forces of evil, so his girl get’s the brilliant idea of revisiting the place that haunts him so much. Even Ash puts it himself at the end of the prologue “Big mistake.” Then when you start up a game (“Let’s Go!” Ash says as you press New Game) they arrive at the cabin, seemingly perfect as though nothing happened, until Ash’s bad hand makes a return then turns on Knowby’s tape recorder which starts it all over again, then Jenny get’s kidnapped. Ash also has an evil version of himself again, who serves as this games head honcho. So Ash goes back to the “workshed” builds himself a chainsaw arm and sets out to recover the pages of the Necronomicon in order to fight the evil. What is particularly odd about this game is that it seems very plot heavy for a series that didn’t really focus on the story as much as the scares and sick humor, but at least the story serves as nice continuity from the movies, having such in-references as the blood on the camera from the first film, the return of Annie Knowby as a deadite even inheriting her mother’s snake neck, as well as Ash’s one-liners which you can summon by the press of a button as well as different variations of his infamous quotes (To a Tree Boss: “Yo, Tree-bitch, let’s go!”).
“You found me beautiful once.”
I will say this about the game the sound design is really good, the music by notable game composer Tommy Tallarico adds to the moody and haunting world of the game. There are also nice ambient effects, putting you in the mood being lost in a dark-and-haunting forest, the demonic sounds of the deadites as they chase or get hit by your axe, and the sounds of your chainsaw revving up. As far as voice acting Bruce is the only real standout playing Ash and his evil doppelganger (Which is essentially the same only put through a demonic filter), the other voice actors are kind of weak.
“Honey… you got real ugly.”
The presentation outside of the sound design and opening/ending cinematic are very unimpressive. The backgrounds do justice to the look of the Sam Raimi films but the character models and animations are stiff and poorly animated, the model lighting isn’t that good, not to mention the pre-rendered backgrounds means static camera angles opening up for cheap hits. The in-game cinematics are dull, aside from Bruce Campbell’s performance, the FMV’s are underwhelming, and other than Ash’s quips they are humorless and not frightening in the slightest, so it doesn’t have any of the charm of the films. The way the FMV’s play out they could have just as well been done with the in-game engine, because the characters are just as stiff, and the only reason I can see they are video is for a few more “dramatic” camera moves. I hear the Dreamcast version is a minor improvement in graphics but plays pretty much the same.
“Oh you bastards! Why are you tormenting me like this! WHY?”
Things go really downhill when you start to play the game; while it plays like the early “Resident Evil” it is nowhere near as functional or thrilling. The tank-like controls from RE apply to Ash, only he walks, runs and turns unbearably slow. The combat involves dual wielding with a chainsaw in one hand, and a melee or gun in the other hand, including Ash’s trusty Boomstick. Problem with this is that the combat is dull, what it amounts to is pushing the buttons over and over again until a deadite falls dead, occasionally doing a somewhat ineffective dodge. Another problem, no matter what weapon you have the difference in damage from the weapons you gain is very slight to say the least, you can’t tell the difference. So what else can you do? Avoid combat completely. Sorry but like Cheryl says in the first film, they aren’t going to let you leave. Deadites are constantly on your ass, and they spawn at points where getting hit by any of them combined with the wonky movement controls is just unavoidable, so you’d find yourself having no choice but to use the tedious combat system. The only thing remotely nifty is the finishers, where you impale a demon on your chainsaw and finish with the weapon you hold in your other hand, but those get really repetitive fast.
Enemies do come in a lot of forms so I’ll give it points for variety, floating deadite ghost things, possessed rednecks, warthogs, skeletons, boy scouts (it’s not often you mutilate kids in a game), medieval deadites, enemies that play dead, and more. However they still are pretty much a pain, and take a lot of hits to put down. There are also boss fights, which do break up some of the tedium but generally have obvious weak points, like the Granny-spider boss who you have to wait until she turns green, a Camp Consoler, which you have to dump rocks on by hitting some conspicuous looking stands and a boss during the second disc where using molten hot lead comes to play. For some other bosses it just takes the usual button mashing.
All the combat and boss battles are offset by numerous fetch quests and puzzles like “Resident Evil”, which needless to say are not that good enough to mention. One cool highlight though is what looks like would lead to a complicated lever puzzle; Ash just uses his boomstick to solve, a nice moment in a sea of generic quests.
“I don’t want your bullshit. Just send me back, pronto, today chop chop…”
Aside from a change of setting the second disc plays a lot like the first disc, and if you think it is going to be worth it to toil through hell to see the ending… well I’m telling you now the ending is akin to “Evil Dead II” and the original ending to “Army of Darkness”, where Ash and his girl end up in a bad situation. Ash even belts out a big “Noooooooooooo” at the end. Well I would too, not because of the ending which I feel is appropriate to the series, but having to think of what hell the programmers have inflicted on “Evil Dead” fans and gamers alike just to get to a cruel yet appropriate ending.
This king is not worth hailing to. Even if you are a curious fan this game is not worth searching, it will swallow your soul and spit you out into a giant blood geyser. Even if you are slightly interested in the story you can just view the cinematics on YouTube. If you are an unfortunate soul that has witnessed this game, I think an appropriate response would be to take it to your workshed and slice it in half with a chainsaw.
All right you screwheads, listen up! This… IS MY RATING!:
And its funny how “Hail to the King” sets up a sequel yet the next “Evil Dead” game “A Fistful of Boomstick” ignores it for a different story, which leads to an uninspired game using the engine of the Rockstar game “State of Emergency.” Then the next game “Regeneration” ignores that continuity instead goes for an alternate one taking place in one loosely based on “Evil Dead II”, copies off of games like “Devil May Cry” but actually is the most decent out of all the games.
So far no new “Evil Dead” game has been announced for this generation of consoles, but I would be very thankful if THQ didn’t try again, I’d fear what they may try and copy poorly next.
End of Rant
“Good… bad… I’m the Ash with the chainsaw.”
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