Though some have wondered why Ash is being everyone's gofer, it does keep the story moving and the action flowing, so I didn't have any problem with it. Though Evil Dead only has six levels, they are large and non-linear and Ash basically gets to be an errand boy for every person or group of people he runs across, running hither and yon across the map and through clumps of shambling undead. Thankfully, there are hordes upon hordes of Deadites wandering the streets of Dearborn to unleash all these wonderful toys upon. One two-hit move leaves a Deadite impaled and hanging off Ash's upraised chainsaw, where you can either let it hang, blood flying everywhere blast it off the end with whatever gun you have in the left hand or jam a stick of dynamite into its mouth and watch it run around screaming (straight at you, run away!) before it explodes. One hard push on the chainsaw button will do a slash, while a lighter push will make Ash crouch down, releasing a powerful swing when the button is let go.
(Mistyping the spell gets a time-, but not health-, consuming zap.) There's even a basic combo system for the non-ranged weapons that involves the pressure sensitivity of the PS2 buttons. Topping it off is the magic system, where holding down a shoulder button and tapping in a face button sequence activates a spell, with spells of possession, strength, lightning, summoning, and even an earthquake available. Adding to the mayhem are different types of ammo for the guns: standard, shrapnel, piercing, incendiary, and explosive. The left hand is usually the shotgun and the right usually the chainsaw, but a good selection of toys are waiting to be discovered for either hand: pistols and handguns, swords and scythes, dynamite, Molotov cocktails, a flame thrower, a Gatlin gun, and assorted upgrades to certain weapons.
Though a good selection of hardware is gained throughout the course of the game, these two weapons will be your best friends through most of it.Ĭombat is done wielding two weapons at the same time, with a button for each. Starting off with the basics of a shovel in the left hand, Ash quickly advances to a two-fisted armament of shotgun and chainsaw. Thankfully, there's quite a variety of weapons to do this with. It's up to you, as Ash, to leave your comfy bar stool and go fix things, again.
An overly clever occultist has read the Necronomicon on live TV, setting off an invasion of the Deadites all over town. In the small town of Dearborn, bad things are happening.
Thankfully, the fine folks at Vis have not only addressed this problem but cross-licensed it with one of the cooler B-movie series out there, giving us a game that lets you sit back and revel in gorily dismembering as many undead (or in this case, "Deadites") as you could ever hope to. But in the rush for every game to try and differentiate itself from every other game out there (military-themed first-person shooters notwithstanding), we tend to lose sight of a core gameplay desire: sometimes you just wanna take a chainsaw to the undead. Without it, we'd never get games like Rez, Ico, or Gitaroo Man. Innovation in gameplay is a wonderful thing.