Evil Dead: Hail to the King

by THQ, Inc.

Product Features

• Gather the pages of the Necronomicon; Equipped with a shotgun and a chainsaw; over 20 types of enemies; control each hand independently; voice acting by Bruce Campbell

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004U62A
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 5 inches
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: December 5, 2000
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,781 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PlayStation

Amazon.com Product Description

Square-jawed, smack-talking, shotgun-toting Ash must once again battle evil forces, but this time you take control of the fate of the world! Evil Dead: Hail to the King picks up eight years after the cult-classic trilogy ends. Bruce Campbell, the star of the movie series, lends his vocal talents to the game. It continues the ongoing saga of Ash and the Necronomicon, or the Book of the Dead. Open the Necronomicon, and battle all the Kandarian demons, ruthless deadites, and unspeakable monsters that it can spew out. The game takes place in environments familiar to fans of the films, such as the cabin, the cellar, and the bridge. It contains all of the humor, suspense, action, and gore that made the movies such classics, then adds puzzle-solving aspects to the successful formula. Ash has the remarkable ability to use weapons in both hands simultaneously, so feel free to head down into that cellar and carve yourself a witch. Hail to the King, baby!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Bruce Campbell vs. Horrible Gameplay, October 4, 2002

By 

Josh (Boston, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Evil Dead: Hail to the King (Video Game)

Okay, let's start with the good points of the game: It's essentially Evil Dead 4!; Bruce Campbell as Ash!!!; a button just for one-liners (even though they're somewhat few in number); locations and a few surprise characters from the movies; good game graphics that have a certain amount of graininess to them that helps to recreate the atmosphere of the original Evil Dead (with a few great touches like the moving shadows of trees outside the windows in the cabin); Nice music and sound effects for the most part; Chainsaws and boomsticks; decent cutscenes; a few good puzzles..

Despite all of those good points..and regardless of the fact that I'm a huge fan of the Evil Dead trilogy as well as something of a survival horror veteran...I have to give this game a mere 3 stars.. Why? That's easy..the gameplay. You have some of the stiffest and least responsive survival horror controls I've ever experienced. Then you have fixed camera angles where, at times, you're down at the end of the screen and so small you can't even tell which direction you're facing. Couple that with the lack of an auto-aiming feature and it adds up to dozens of deaths just because you can't tell if you're facing whatever it is you're trying to hit.

Next I have to mention the constantly respawning enemies. You kill an enemy and another one pops right out of the ground to take its place... Battles are often unavoidable as the various enemies usually either chase you down or block your way. Each enemy you encounter has the ability to kill you, usually very quickly. You'll find yourself using healing items after every battle, or every 2 if you're lucky. During boss battles, you'll find yourself going into the inventory screen to heal yourself every couple seconds, which really kills the atmosphere of the game and makes things fairly tedious. If he really used that many healing kits, Ash would have looked like a mummy within the first 10 minutes of the game. The respawning enemies are also annoying as they sort of take away your ability to explore the game. There were areas from the movies in the game that I would have liked to have walked around and checked out, but it was really impossible to do with enemies popping out of the ground 2 at a time and chasing you down. You really don't get a chance to take in the atmosphere of it all, and that really is a shame.

Basically, with the deadly respawning enemies and poor control, the game becomes annoyingly difficult, and playing through it is basically just a matter of playing a section over and over until you can survive to the next save point (note: save points are fairly sparse, especially on the first disc).. It's really not fun at all, and it boiled down to more or less just a matter of suffering through the frustrating gameplay to follow the storyline and see a few cool locations from the movies.

Also note that the game is very short.. I only clocked about 3 hours game time (about 5 hours less than I normally do my first time through an average survival horror game).. Apparently the high level of difficulty and frustration is just to cover up for the fact that there isn't much game there to play through.

In the end, if you're an Evil Dead fan, you have to get it just because it's more or less Evil Dead 4 and stars Bruce Campbell. If you're not an Evil Dead fan, but are just a survival horror gamer looking for something new, stay away. This has to be the least enjoyable survival horror game I've played, and it's definitely not worth the high price. I'm a HUGE Evil Dead and survival horror fan, and even I thought about playing frisbee with the disc and a wall once or twice..

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT! Gamers need to get a clue!, January 5, 2001

By 

joe "a great father" (SD, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Evil Dead: Hail to the King (Video Game)

I almost didn't get this game because of some of the reviews here. I'm glad I didn't listen because this is a LOT of fun!

If you are a gamer, you might not like this game for it's "game quality" However I never saw it as a typical game, I saw it as Evil Dead 4, and I was required to pick up a controller rather than a remote control to enjoy it.

As Evil Dead 4, It's great! Bruce Campbell is.. as always, terrific! As a first attempt by the creators of evil dead to move into game format, what it lacks in game quality, it makes up for in storyline and voiceovers. I'm sure the next installment will have revised gaming quality and hopefully keep Bruce's great talent.

Unlike most other games, which go on to become bad movies (like tomb raider.. although sexy Angelina Jolie might be able to save that flop) this game is coming from one of the most loved trilogies in movie history. It carries that quality and fun with it.. Evil Dead fans will not be dissapointed

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I wish I hadn't fallen for this one, December 29, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Evil Dead: Hail to the King (Video Game)

Fair warning - This game is very short, having only half a dozen maps and if it was for the stupidly difficult game-play, you would work your way through this game in an hour. So why is it on two Cd's? To make us think there is actually a game here? Baffling.
Also there isn't any good adventure game play or FPS-type game-play. You are picking up pieces of a book but that just means you go around picking up pages when you see them.
The worst part is the fighting. It seems to make up for the ludicrously short game they made it so you can't take one step without fighting deadites. I thought my game had a bug or something. You just stand there losing health trying to chop away at deadites who (sometimes) drop health but you won't have time to pick it up. It's just boring. Add to that the very annoying controls and you have a very sub-standard game that is way too expensive in my book.

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