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| | Title:
Evil Dead Regeneration
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System:
Playstation 2
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Genre:
Action
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Publisher:
THQ
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Developer:
Cranky Pants Games
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Release:
September 13, 2005
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Online:
No
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ESRB:
Mature (M)
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Foul, rambunctious, bloody, rude and vulgar; and that's just Ash's sidekick, Sam. Evil Dead: Regeneration is a regretless, bloody masterpiece of hack and slash mayhem infused with nidbits of platform enjoyment. Now this is not to say that this is one of the best that I've played, or even one of the better of the hack and slash genre, but it does do what it does well, and that is worth some adequate amount of praise, given its leaps and bounds over its predecessors.
Gameplay
The game starts with a brief recount of what happened in the Evil Dead series (viz., Ash cutting off his evil possessed hand, and murdering the deadites at the cabin who also included his former friends.) Players actually start from the scene in the game, as they blast away at a couple of deadites and furniture in a short recreation of the cabin massacre, in order to get a good feel for the game's mechanics. It works as a tutorial considering that there isn't a difficulty setting, so what you get is all you get, for the entirety of the game. Most of the time it's all rather simple with a couple of hard-to-complete segments scattered throughout; although a button configuration would have been quite dandy; also turning auto-targeting off or on would have helped, given that it is always on, which makes it a bit difficult to shoot certain select enemies at times; and a two player mode wouldn't have hurt since Sam accompanies Ash throughout most of the game but is A.I controlled.
Most of the game is played with two buttons that fire Ash's weapons (i.e., one for his left hand and the other for his right hand). His right hand is typically melee oriented and his left hand feeds any oncoming nasties a good dose of lead, or possibly a rocket.
After getting used to the controls and understanding why Ash's life is the way it is, we find that he has been sentenced by the court to rot away for a while in an asylum, which for him, doesn't seem all that bad. But, what would a hero be without forfeiting the benefits of his vacation? (Even if it's behind bars.) Shortly after a visit from his lawyer, who is carrying a vital piece of evidence that will help Ash possibly get out of the asylum, a very terrible thing happens. The evil head of the Psychiatric ward, in an insane attempt to control the dead, has released the powers of the Necronomicon. Yes, that evil book of the dead and all it's hellish powers have brandished it's mark once more on the life of Ash, and all that surrounds him when the portal to the nether world(s) are opened.
The evil Psychiatrist still needs a vital piece in order to unleash true chaos though, and it lies in the hands of Ash's lawyer, Sally. Unless we need to discuss the rule book for action story-lines, I think any and everyone might have an idea of where this is going, if you've even seen just one action flick, or played one action game. The hero must relinquish his idle stay in the asylum, rescue the girl, and murder the evil Doctor Reinhard. But first, he'll need a hand.
After escaping from the asylum and retrieving your chainsaw and trusty sawed off shotgun, players must emerge deep into a world torn apart from the creepy crawlers of the underworld. But saving the world isn't possible without the help of a little, half mutilated, regenerating deadling that runs around by the name of Sam, conveniently voiced by Sam Raimi's brother, Ted. Unlike the other deadites, Sam's soul isn't infected with evil, thus, it makes him a prime candidate for locating and shutting down the evil portals that the Doctor has opened in his attempt to arrest any further continuation of human life as we know it.
Now this game makes some impressive steps forward and backward with the whole sidekick thing. The steps forward are the sickly entertaining ways you can mutilate, beat up, inflame, or explode your sidekick. For instance, the puzzles in this game are not silly and annoying puzzles like in other games, they are more-so just silly. There is one part where you have to activate some elevating stairs, and in order to do so, you must use Ash's grappling hook to bring down a green flaming plate that must be ignited with a seemingly normal orange flame. But even after lowering the plate, it's still too high to use Ash's flamethrower on its own, so instead you must ignite poor ‘ol Sam and send him packing high into the dish with a good kick in the rump. The results are nothing short of explosively mean, in a fun sort of way. The backwards step would have to be that a second player can't control little Sam, despite his constant stay throughout the rest of the game.
But despite the mean-spirited puns and gruesome acts of violence, Sam actually has some of the better parts of the gaming experience in Evil Dead. The platform oriented segments are played out as Ash uses an icon to possess Sam, some strange, but rocking music kicks in and you're off as the little sidekick who must overcome the seemingly impossible. Unlike Ash, Sam only has an energy blast that he can charge up, and a couple of quick little boxing combos that don't hurt too badly, but if you weaken an enemy up enough, he can finish them by jumping on their head and pulling it off. The odd part about the segments with Sam is that the camera work is pretty stable, and rotates finely. Ash on the other hand, has a camera that aims to get him killed at times. Rotating during battles can be a hassle and sadly, for Ash and Sam, auto-targeting doesn't allow you to switch easily between multiple foes without receiving more damage than necessary. But you only play as Sam to activate or deactivate a certain object or two that gains for Ash, access to an area he otherwise would not have been able to reach on his own.
If these segments were a bit more frequent and varied, it could have made up for a lot of the repeatedly boring hacking and slashing that takes place. It seems the designers caught note of this after the first two stages and decided to spare the player so much of the repetitious fighting scheme to give them spurts of baddies in some areas here and there, to try and keep the player alert but unsuspecting. Most of the time Ash and Sam will stop, make a comment or two (or three) and then engage a set amount of baddies that emerge from anywhere that would seem plausible for evil to reside. This wouldn't have been much of an issue had the fighting been more varied and original outside the one-two-three (and sometimes four) hit combos that we've seen in about ten dozen other replicate hack-‘n-slashers.
Although, what hacking that does go on is fairly entertaining to some degree; the finishers aren't bad if the same ones weren't so commonly put to use. Ash's weapon and position are suppose to determine which finisher is put to the bad guy and where, much like Dead to Rights. But most of the time players will find themselves witnessing the same thing over and over, especially when using the grappling hook, since the most effective way to killing a deadite is to grapple it close, and blast it with a shotgun in the air until it disperses. Or when it falls, pressing the “finisher” button at the appropriate time will show Ash kill off his foe for good, only that you'll see about the same finisher several dozen times over, unless you frequently switch up your weapons, which don't come in abundance. Simply given that the game only has six weapons in total; three for his left hand and three for his right hand, which include: A .45 pistol (which isn't very effective but has decent accuracy), his trusty sawed off shotgun (that is the most all-round efficient weapon in the game) and a timed rocket launcher. The rocket launcher is okay, even though he doesn't have to reload, it takes a little too long to explode to be highly effective in heated battles; which is not to mention that all his weapons have infinite ammo, so there isn't even a need to worry about cheating to that end.
His right hand allows you to wield a chainsaw which allows him to melee attack, a grappling hook, which proved to be the most useful when paired with the shotgun, and a flamethrower. Now the last of the three for his right hand would have been all right had the flaming been as effective on the enemies as it had been on Sam. Most of the bad guys ignore their fire engulfed bodies, burning black and crisp, and keep charging you for the heck of it. That definitely kills the buzz of utilizing the flame thrower, the whole effect looks great and the charcoaled bodies add to the feel of the weapon's use, save that they don't die all that easy to it, which defeats it's purpose outside of holding a couple of baddies back for a bit in a corner or if Sam has to activate a door or lock at a certain point in the stage.
As for the stage designs, they aren't bad, and prompts for some creative interaction, but Ash's stiff mobility and deeply lacking skills in getting height (and much less) distance proves to be somewhat annoying when it comes to platform hopping, albeit the designers must have noticed this minor trifle and set the game up where no matter how many times you fall off into that endless pit, the scene just fades and shows Ash reach up from the cliff's edge, so players can start the jump routine over. Sam's platform antics aren't quite as forgiving, and when he dies from falling into a pit, you have to start over from the possession point. But then again, Sam seems to run faster and gets much better distance (for his size) when jumping from platform to platform. So that even outs somewhat.
A high point though, would certainly have to be its uninhibited grasp on violence and gore and the game's boss battles. Unlike some games out there that prompt a heavy ‘M' warning label for “Violence” and “realistic gore” (give me a break) this game eats it all up, purposefully. Despite an uninspired combo system, the game's gore factors and fast paced fighting can sometimes blind players briefly from the fact that it's still repetitious and extremely redundant. Watching Ash destroy the legs of a deadite and before it can catch itself from hitting the ground face first; he severs their arms just before blowing off their head. It would have been a bit more entertaining if Evil Ash was given better, more gruesome (or at least different) moves, (i.e., Evil Ash is exactly like The Suffering's Insanity mode, minus a believable element to the story and the devastating attacks.) But for the most part, it's so ridiculous sometimes it's actually fun enough to overlook the incessantly drab faults.
Replay
It'll take a minimum of maybe 5 and a maximum of 10 hours to complete. The boss battles, next to the platform segments with Sam are the next fun thing about this game. The bosses use old school techniques to defeat them, requiring players to find the gimmick that takes their life down, such as: One monster's weakness is in it's tail, another requires a well timed kick from Sam, another simply requires great timing skills, etc. But the tedious fighting leading up to the boss fights can be discouraging for a second or third time for replaying this game. A mode called “Extras”, featuring around 20 different unlockable pictures or movies, have been tossed in to compensate for purposeful replay counts. Some of them are interesting, but most are on the level of what “hidden” content you might find in Star Wars: Battlefront. Although, Evil Dead fans might get a kick out of Bruce Campbell's comments regarding the rumors surrounding an Evil Dead 4.
Graphics
The visual look of this game is slick. Being fair in comparison to newer titles out there, this game could have looked better for what seemingly minor things it offers for the in-game content. The Cut-scenes are rendered well, using polished and well animated renditions of the in-game characters. So it switches back and forth without obvious graphical changes in the quality. But the real stars in this game are the face expressions. Literally a scene will start or end simply with the facial reaction of another character. Especially when Sam makes some belligerent, yet funny comments to the evil Doctor Reinhard at the end, which plays out as a cue to laugh with the Doctor's, and Ash's, face expressions alone. Some games out there prompt high-end graphics but lack the use of its depth; this game prompts good use of what was available without the high-end stuff, and it all worked out quite well. The detail in the environments aren't striking, and the character designs don't especially standout, but for what it's worth, with crystal smooth frame-rates and short loading times, I honestly can't say they took a wrong turn in their decision for this game's graphical presentation.
Audio
The sound effects aren't richly detailed, but they do provide enough depth to be effective. The zombies or as Ash calls them “deadites”, moan and groan and shriek and scream and pout (a bit) as any unrest-full, undead creature might. The effects for the body explosions and guns could have been just a bit better, as Sam is killed quite a bit (and that's being modest) throughout the course of the game, accompanied by sounds that don't quite live up to the effect of his death(s). The gun sounds are a bit daft as well; as there were times I couldn't tell the sound of the rocket launcher from that of the shotgun.
As for the voice-overs, they weren't bad, but Mr. Campbell at times sounded bored and unenthusiastic when compared to comments Sam had made, was in the middle of making, or was soon to make, that was normally giddy and overly-excited in his obnoxious voice. It was also more annoying to listen to Ash not want to listen to Sam speak than it was for Sam to speak. Only because Ash was the one who repeated himself more times over than Sam, with a lot of “Will you shut up...” or “Please, can you just shut your pie-hole for one second.” In which Sam would comply for about half a second, before starting up again. This is constant throughout the entire game up until near the very end. The Cut-scenes have some fairly interesting dialogue that takes place, with plenty of savorable chuckles intermingled between the back and forth comments from Ash, the floating head that gives you directions, and Sam. Most of the intended laughs are on cue, (even if wickedly pungent in their intent).
The music wasn't much of anything shine worthy, but it did do its bit in keeping the tension. Things rarely ever intensified to the point of which the music would help in keeping the player tense, the only time the music becomes notable is when you're in a battle and you turn into Evil Ash. Or alternatively when playing Sam. Otherwise most of the music is there just for ambient reasons, or because most gamers expect some sort of sound to accompany their actions that consists of something instrument related.
Overall
This game has some good things going for it, just not enough of them. Anyone who isn't a fan of the Evil Dead series will quickly get bored with the uninspired originality in the fighting system. But for the price that this game is going for, one can't complain too much for a couple of hours of gory fun. Anyone looking for anything beyond a good time filler may be looking too hard in a (preferably) rent-worthy title like this.
| The Core Score |
Overall
6 |
| Fun |
|
7.5 |
| Gameplay |
|
6.5 |
| Graphics |
|
8.5 |
| Audio |
|
7 |
| Replay |
|
5.5 |
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