Evil Dead Fistful of Boomstick

This time we didn’t have to wait nearly as long for another installment to the Evil Dead game series.  Only three year after Evil Dead: Hail to the King VIS Entertainment developed Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick. 

This game takes place 12 years after the incidents in Hail to the King.  Your girlfriend jenny has been killed in a bus crash.  The game begins as you are telling your tale to the local bar tender in Dearborn Michigan.

Ash is looking a lot better then in hail to the king…

You notice that on the television there is a show about the occult and they are talking about the Necronomican.   The man on the show then begins reading passages from the book of the dead.   The verses are broadcasted throughout the town of Dearborn and the citizens begin to take the effects of the book.   The opening cinematic ends with you blowing your deadite bartender’s face off.  The main plot of the game is to close all the portals in town and vanquish the evil that has risen

The man is back to kick some deadite ass!

Let’s talk about this gameplay shall we?  Alright, if you read my previous review of Hail to the King then you already know I wasn’t a fan of the gameplay style.  This game has improved the controls alone immensely.  The Resident Evil style controls are gone thankfully as well as the menu system.  You have complete control over Ash this time like most third person game today.

For the actual fighting it has been really simplified, but still works very effectively.  You still can use two weapons like in the previous game.  For your right hand you have several weapons you pick up throughout the game but I’ll go into more detail about those later.  The main right hand weapon you use is your trusty chainsaw. There is actually a pretty good combo system that can be quite useful.  It takes some time to get used to however.

When performing combos with most melee weapons you have just a basic combo by just pressing the attack button multiple times.  Then you have different ones you can perform as well.  To do the these alternate moves you must find the right part of the basic combo and stop and hold down the button and Ash with hold the weapon in a different way, and when you release it he will perform a different and most of the time more powerful  movie.  Most melee weapons have these and some have more than one to find. It makes you experiment with your weapons to figure out what works best for you.

I am going to say right now that there are a ton of different weapons in this game as well as upgrades for some.  So let me give you just a taste of what you can expect. For your right hand weapons you get a chainsaw of course as well as a diamond bladed version later in the game which does more damage.  I would like to point out here that unlike the previous game you don’t have to keep refilling your chainsaw gas.  You get a sprayer that just shoots out a burst of air.  It seems pretty useless and it is…but later you get it upgraded to a flamethrower.  You even get a minigun attachment later in the game along with some other gems

For the left hand you get your good ol’ boomstick which gets upgraded later to hold eight shots without reloading.  You also get a simple hand gun and this hand cannon type pistol.  All of these firearms also have multiple types of ammo you can switch between.  You also have several melee weapons you have use with your left hand as well like a shovel, hand sickle, and a sword.

an example of the spell system in use.

Another element they added to this game was a spell book.  As you kill enemies you collect souls.  When you have enough souls you can cast a variety of spells.   Such spells include making yourself stronger controlling deadites and much more.  Usually the spell are more used for just completing certain objectives in the game but there are some that can be used to help your average battle with the undead.

Overall this game surpasses Hail to the King by far.  The controls are better and so is the gameplay in general.  I should mention that Mr. Bruce Campbell is back to do the voice of Ash again.  It was nice to hear his witty banter again.  The game can get a little repetitive being it is a hack n’ slash game.  The game can also get a little frustrating due to the fact that you still have to find save tokens to save your game but you can save whenever you want.   I really do recommend this game even if you’re not a giant fan of the series. Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick is a fun hack n’ slash with a great selection of weapons to raise hell with.