Ahead of ‘Evil Dead Burn,’ we revisit the forgotten 6th-gen console-era adaptation ‘Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick.’
The newer Evil Dead movies are not nearly as fun as their predecessors. That is definitely not me saying they are bad, but we can all agree that they aren’t nearly as fun as they used to be. They have traded much of the slapstick humor and witty commentary for a much darker and intense tone. With Evil Dead Burn right around the corner, I thought it would be a good time to take a look back at some of the franchise’s history. Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2003. That makes the game almost as vintage as I am.
A Fistful of Boomstick was developed by VIS Entertainment—creators of hits such as, uh… Tom and Jerry in Fists of Furry, Brave: Search for the Spirit Dancer, and Powerpuff Girls: Relish Rampage. The game was published by THQ (now THQ Nordic). While there don’t seem to be any publicly available figures on the game’s development budget or sales, at release, it was a cool $20. GTA VI, eat your heart out. A bargain, for sure. That 20-dollar price tag was likely the only reason it did not entirely flop. It got low-to-middling review scores pretty much across the board. It was praised, however, for being significantly better than its predecessor- Evil Dead: Hail to the King. I haven’t played Hail to the King, but if the review scores are any indicator, I am not missing much.
The game itself follows a unique story in the Evil Dead universe set 11 years after Army of Darkness, and three years after Hail to the King. Dr. Eldridge and a woman named Trish team up with Ash to look for a lost Kandarian Stone in order to stop an outbreak of Deadites that Trish and Eldridge caused. Except, of course, Dr. Eldridge (Eldritch? Get it?) is actually a bad guy.
The game follows Ash as he tries to fight the hordes of Deadites invading his (sometimes) hometown of Dearborn, Michigan. There is time travel (because of course), a bunch of different monsters to fight, and a pretty bare-bones story. Unfortunately, all of that is wrapped in bad controls, middling graphics, and ridiculous puzzles, though luckily, there’s some damn fun combat. For a movie tie-in game, it is surprisingly decent. That said, however, if you have not seen the original Evil Dead movies, you would definitely not understand a lick of what is happening here.
Bruce Campbell reprises his role as the voice actor of Ash. His performance helps liven things up considerably. When the game starts to drag, Campbell’s one-liners keep things entertaining. While not every joke lands, it keeps the same style of humor that you could expect to find in Army of Darkness. Ash’s trademark sarcasm gives the game a lot of personality. Plenty of licensed games from this era felt disconnected from the feel of their respective franchises. The same characters might appear, you might see a familiar locale, but the vibe just doesn’t hit the same. Thanks largely to Campbell, A Fistful of Boomstick feels like it fits in with the franchise. And without his work, the rougher edges of this game would have been much harder to overlook.Voice actors Debi Mae West, Rob Paulsen, and Tom Kenny round out the cast, and they’re expectedly excellent.
Now, as far as the actual gameplay goes, A Fistful of Boomstick shows its age. The game throws you in with basically no tutorial whatsoever. The controls are iffy at the best of times. The vast majority of the puzzles have no clues or explanations. There is no map, no mini map, and most of the actual areas you explore are a decent size. There are a few areas with pretty winding roads, alleys, and paths through the woods. The lack of a map and the fact that you regularly have to go back and forth between points at opposite ends of the area is definitely frustrating. Honestly, most of my gameplay was me wandering around with no idea of what to do. Ash would never.
The sound design was pretty solid, however. One detail I appreciated was that the sound of footsteps changed based on the ground you were walking on. I know that is a given these days, but back in the PS2 era, this was actually a really neat addition. The soundtrack itself was also pretty solid. Seeing as the composers for the game did not do much else (that I can tell), I think they did a pretty solid job.
Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick‘s combat, on the other hand, is one of the game’s highlights. It is a typical hack-and-slash, but you have a variety of weapons. One in each hand. As expected of Ash, his right hand is primarily a chainsaw. This can be swapped out with others, including a flamethrower. His left hand wields a bunch of different weapons. Including his titular boomstick—a double-barreled shotgun. But Ash can also equip a pistol, a sword, or even a shovel that ends up being necessary for a boss fight.
Oh. And dynamite. But the dynamite sucks. Unless your enemies are completely stationary (and they are never stationary, even when they haven’t yet noticed you), your dynamite is going to be completely ineffective. Well. It has a couple of purposes, but they are entirely story based. For regular combat, stick to the shovel.
For a sequel to a movie tie-in game, with both a (probably) low budget and a lower price tag, this was actually a somewhat decent game. I know I harped on it a lot, but aside from the lack of direction, the janky controls, and the infuriating lack of any kind of map, it was a fun time. I even knocked this one out in a single night. So if you are looking for a return to the fun hack-and-slash vibes and witty (?) one-liners of the old school Evil Dead franchise, you could certainly do worse than dusting off that PS2, plugging in those AV cables, and chainsawing your way through hordes of Deadites. All hail Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick.
