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Evil Dead: Regeneration Playstation 2 Cranky Pants/THQ  The last 'Evil Dead' game 'Fistful Of Boomstick' was... well, it's hard for a game to absolutely suck when you're playing as the film's enduring hero Ash, with a shotgun in your left hand and a chainsaw replacing your right, but it was still a pretty standard hack'n'slash effort with a lot of running around trying to find keys to open doors to find keys to open doors, to find... you get the idea. Hence my expectations for 'Evil Dead: Regeneration' weren't exactly high - and fell further when the game began with a training level based on scenes from 'Evil Dead II' (fine and dandy) followed by Ash sitting in an asylum. Excuse me? We all know Ash was sucked into a terrifying vortex at the end of the film and emerged in medieval England as per 'Army Of Darkness'. What the hell? Continuity issues aside, Ash is now under the care of the mad Germanic Dr Vingo Reinhard who's gotten hold of the dread Necronomicon Ex Mortis and the notes of Professor Knowby (the scientist whose translation of the Necronomicon let to the events of the films). Hence, it's up to you to close a series of portals to prevent the Evil getting into the world, and in so doing save the girl: Sally, your lawyer, who rather inconveniently has Knowby's notes and has therefore made herself a target of Evil. Fortunately you're not alone in this quest: you have a smart-talking zombie - sorry, "Deadite" - sidekick by your side, and Professor Knowby's ghostly floating head appears every so often to instruct you on what needs doing. Gameplay's pretty straightforward: you venture through reasonably linear levels, hacking and slashing away until the inevitable boss battle. The character models are a little boxy, but the voice talent is excellent: Bruce Campbell, naturally, voices Ash, but the delightful surprise is that his diminutive sidekick Sam (Sam? Geddit, 'Evil Dead' fans?) is voiced by fellow 'Evil Dead' alumnus Ted Raimi. Both characters are primed to quip and the dialogue's often surprisingly witty, which at the very least should distract you as you walk through the ruins/catacombs/forest/nether void fighting deadite after deadite. A lot of care has also gone into making the battles interesting with a variety of combo moves with which to dispatch your enemies and you'll occasionally have to be ready to bash a button to throw off a deadite or move something. There are times you'll have to possess Sam's body to clamber through small tunnels and the like, but even when you're playing as Ash Sam isn't dead(ite) weight: not only will he fight alongside you in battles, you can kick him into oncoming enemies or those you can't reach where he'll rip 'em to shreds. What's more, since Sam is undead he can't actually get killed: when shredded he just emerges from the earth again seconds later (except when you have to protect him while he opens a door for you or something). There's nothing unique about it - it's pretty much a bunch of things you've seen in a hundred other games mashed together and painted in 'Evil Dead' colours - but dammit, it's fun. Hail to the king!  |
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