Evil Dead Preview

Who Wants Some?

You might wonder if we actually need another film-to-game adaptation. Well, Sam Raimi thinks we do. The creator of the classic Evil Dead cult film series has given the go-ahead to turn his creation into Evil Dead: Hail to the King, a 3D survival-horror offering in the vein of a more action-intensive Silent Hill.

The game picks up eight years after the events in the movie Army of Darkness. You play as Ash, the S-mart clerk with a chainsaw for an arm, as he ventures back to the cabin in the woods to put an end to a disgusting and unspeakable evil.

Of course Bruce Campbell, who played Ash in the movies, isn't sitting this one out. Expect plenty of pithy commentary from him as you hack, slash and ponder your way through this phantasmagoria.

Puzzles are scattered throughout the game and involve learning how to use various ingredients to your advantage while piecing together the missing pages of that dreaded fount of chaos, the Necronomicon. And there promises to be enough fighting and running away to keep fans of action games happy.

Hail to the King features upgradable weapons, ambidextrous attacks and more than 20 bloodthirsty enemies. As you fight the good fight, you'll be plagued by soul-swallowing deadites, zombies and some other freaky looking minions from the 9th level of the abyss. You may have an altogether different feeling about pork after your entrails are rearranged by a pissed off zombie pig.

Using familiar settings and characters from the Evil Dead film trilogy, the game seeks to bring the Evil Dead to life. The makers of this game boast that it will be true to the movie mythos, but who's following that anyway? It was the gore and the imaginative visuals that everyone remembers...I mean, who's going to forget the zombie-eyeball-in-mouth scene from Evil Dead II?

There's always room for more horror-themed games and the Evil Dead movies were fun and entertaining. If this game is as fun as seeing Evil Dead II for the first time...well, you can't beat that with a thick stick. Of course, movie-to-game adaptations have produced stinkers like The Fifth Element and Jurassic Park: Warpath. Let's hope ED:HtotK isn't another doofus-bait trying to ride on name recognition alone.

The combination of THQ and Evil Dead certainly give this game the pedigree for a damn good time, but it certainly has big shoes to fill. You can check it out for yourself when it creeps into stores this holiday season.