Evil Dead: The Game released last Friday, and I wasn't intending on buying it as it is an asymmetrical multiplayer game. However, seeing it was not as expensive as I thought it would be (£35 here in the UK) I decided on impulse to get it. I haven't played nearly enough of it to be able to write a review, but I have played enough that I feel confident in at least giving my first impressions.
There isn't a story to speak of, instead each game features the same objectives that take place within a small handful of maps. You play as either a survivor or as a demon and these take in monsters and characters from not only the three Evil Dead films (The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness) but also the Ash vs Evil Dead TV show. Having all these different bits of media together was a delight to see. On the survivor side you have four different versions of Ash, Kelly and Pablo from the show, as well as plenty of other characters from the films, even having two knights from Army of Darkness making an appearance. These survivors fall into one of four categories, Leaders who are immune to fear, Warriors who are good with melee weapons, Hunters whose strong point are ranged weapons, and Support who are able to heal other players.
On the demon side you have a choice of three, The Warlord (Henrietta from the first two films), The Puppeteer (Eligos from the TV show), and The Necromancer (Evil Ash from Army of Darkness). These different demons have different abilities which you can probably guess from their names, but they also have different deadites under their control. Henrietta can boost deadites strength when she is around them, these enemies are the traditional type. The Puppeteer can more easily possess characters, his deadites are ones that explode upon death. The Necromancer controls a skeleton army and can resurrect them when they have been defeated.
Playing as the survivors in third person, you must work together to first collect pieces of a map. Once this is done then the location of the Necronomicon and the Kandarian Dagger are revealed, and once these are collected the players must race to a gateway and banish the Dark Ones, thus winning the game. Players have a fear metre and this fills up both by being in the dark, being attacked by enemies, triggering traps, and being away from the group. Should your metre get too full then the demon player will be able to briefly possess you, able to both attack other players and move you out of the group. While the demon player is the main foe there are plenty of random deadites spawned around the level. Playing this felt like a mix between Left 4 Dead, World War Z and Dead by Daylight. There are nowhere near as many enemies as you would get in those first two, but being able to use weapons (both melee and guns) means that there is a lot of time spent battling deadites. The pitfalls of being a multiplayer experience means unless you are playing with friends you can never predict how things will turn out. Sometimes I played and had a wonderful time, the four of us working together and really helping each other out as a team. Then there are other times when the game starts and the other survivors all run off in random directions. Needless to say, that is not a good idea and each and every time that happened we were all dead within five minutes of starting.
