Reviewed: October 6, 2005
Reviewed by: Daniel Sayre

Publisher
THQ

Developer
Cranky Pants Games

Released: September 13, 2005
Genre: Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Mature

7
8
8
6
7.5

Supported Features:

While having, by my count, the most games of any horror film ever, Evil Dead: Regeneration is the latest chapter in Ash’s gaming itinerary. Brought to us by upstart developer Cranky Pants Games, will Ash’s new adventure live up to its potential, or will Regeneration fall victim to the typical shortcomings we’ve seen in the past Evil Dead games?

The game opens with Ash confined to mental institute, the inappropriately named Sunny Meadows, for not being able to explain (to the authorities satisfaction) what happened to the other people he was with in the abandoned cabin in the woods.

Here we learn the evil Dr.Reinhard has been experimenting on patients to unlock the secrets of the Necronomicon. One of them, and his only success, is a patient named Sam who has become a deadite but still has control of his soul. As can be expected, things get out of control and Ash is charged with kicking copious amounts of undead butt and rescuing the requisite female (with Sam tagging along for assistance.)

Weapon selection is also available and by the time the game ends; you will have three different weapons for each hand. A pistol, shotgun, and “bomb lance” for your left hand and a chainsaw, harpoon, and flame thrower for your right hand. Each of these has a different attack, reload time, and so on. The most powerful weapon isn’t always the best for each situation and the game does a good job of making you switch between the different weapons during the course of the game.

Targeting is done by holding the right trigger and then flicking the analog between targets. The system here, as is often the case, doesn’t quite work that well. Numerous times I tried to switch to different enemies and the game wouldn’t comply. I had to manually re-aim and that usually allowed an enemy or two to get a couple hits in. The left trigger handles blocking, which works quite well.

Sam is a neat little addition. It gives you a different way of solving puzzles, some slapstick comedy, and someone for Ash to constantly torment with witty banter. Sam has two main functions. Football, where you can kick him onto enemies to help defeat them (or keep them occupied so you can blow them up) and often to solve puzzles, usually to Sam’s detriment. His other ability of note is possession where, at certain points in the game, Ash can transfer his soul to Sam. This allows the player to control the smart-alecky pipsqueak to clear a path for Ash to take to complete the level.

There are around ten levels you must guide Ash and Sam through. Enemy diversity is pretty good, especially for a so-called ”budget” title and the puzzles aren’t too hard or too easy. One of the biggest minuses however is repetitiveness; you’ll do the exact same puzzle three times. It’s not at all challenging, but long and time consuming. It would’ve been much better if they had found a different way to have you proceed then using the same creature and strategy time after time.

The Boss fights are hit and miss, in some you need to figure out a strategy while others you can merely circle strafe your way to victory. The final Boss is by far the most satisfying, forcing you to use most of your arsenal to finally defeat him.

Power-ups are consigned to “stat stations” where you can enlarge your life bar and/or evil essence. Evil essence is collected by defeating deadites and allows you to assume the form of “Evil Ash” once you collect enough of it. Evil Ash is just a vastly more powerful version of Ash that can go through deadites like a hot knife through butter.

Now once the enemies have been damaged enough, they’ll emit a green vapor that signals you can kill them with the action button. This is usually a neat little animation showing Ash dispatching foes with flourish (like resting his shotgun on his shoulder and firing backward.) If you kick Sam into certain enemies, he’ll hold them for you to quickly eliminate them.

The player model of Ash is exceptional, looks film perfect, and the animation is smooth. Sam’s animation is a little worse, as he’s often a little stiff. Physics are handled by Havok, a famous middleware physics publisher, but most of the death’s are animation and not physics based.

The enemies are also fairly diverse, as you progress, each stage offers different enemies. Except towards the end where the enemies start repeating themselves and when you reach the final stage, the only new foe is the boss.

The stages themselves are also wonderfully distinct, you move through an entire area from sanitarium to a hellish alternate dimension and everything in between. You never feel like you’re playing the same stage over again. That’s a welcome change from most games.

Now when you use the action button to finish off foes, it’s *always* with the shotgun and chain saw. Even if you don’t have them selected as your current weapon’s load out. It doesn’t change them afterward, but the fact they’re just stock animations (and there’s only about five or so) is disappointing. Especially since they could’ve been so creative with the other weapon combinations.

Even though the special attacks are lacking, a lot of “little touches” shine through. When you use the chainsaw it’ll emit smoke even if not in use for a little while. Some of water even has faux environmental reflection. It show’s the developer’s cared, and makes the absence of specialized attacks all the more puzzling.

As usual both of them are at the top of their game and the hilarious dialogue is one of the highpoints of the game. The biggest part of nailing Ash is his personality and Bruce shows he still fully understands the character.

The environmental sounds are largely absent, most of the noise comes from the shrieking goals, Sam’s incessant whining/talking, and the boom” of your boomstick and noise from your chainsaw.

These extra’s are of the throwaway sort, clips of the voice acting, game art, and so on. No extra costumes, new character, different game play modes or anything like that. The game is just the single player play through and that’s all. They do allow you to play thorough stages from the main menu once you’ve passed them. Something I wish more games would do.

You can pretty much complete it 100% over the course of two days and I enjoyed myself blasting and sawing deadites into pieces. If you’re a real fan of the Evil Dead mythos I’d suggest you just go ahead and buy it. At $20, it’s just the cost of three rentals and the extras with Bruce and Ted are hilarious.