Had an interesting time playing with the A.I in Evil Dead: The Game during the Malaysian National Day holiday, which also happens to coincide with the peak of the Hungry Ghost Month :). For those who don’t know the game, its a co-op PvP/PvE multiplayer game based on the Evil Dead franchise, and while horror isn’t typically a genre that I favour in film, television or video games form (I prefer horror in literature), this game has been in my “to review” list since last year.
Now I only played with A.I squad members since I had a hard time looking for players for a match, but the premise of the game sounds simple on paper. Pick a character (and who you pick can affect your squad of players differently in terms of different buffs that they bring to the table), and once you have dropped into a map with the rest of the squad, you need to find the lost pages of the Necronomicon and then the Kandarian Dagger (fans of the film franchise will recognize these two items).
You can then proceed to eliminate the Kandarian Demon in that map, but not before dealing with Deadites that spawn throughout the map. I had to make sure that I picked up enough cola (for health points), Pink F (for upgrading attributes), a melee weapon, a projectile weapon (like a handgun or a crossbow) and matchsticks (more on that in a bit), while walking around the map.
The maps are HUGE. Often you’ve to traverse to different locations to search for pieces of the Necronomicon, and since it’s 30 minutes a match, it’s best to get moving. Occasionally you can commandeer a vehicle to make movement a bit easier. It’s also best to stay close to your team mates as getting separated will increase your “fear” of the dark. Matchsticks can be used to light certain lamps or bonfires so that your team can gather around to reduce that amount of fear.
Different weapons have different levels of rarity, damage and attack speed. What’s impressive about the game are the finishing moves that you can execute during melee combat, and these are variety of these and differ from weapon to weapon. There are also chests that can be unlocked to yield aid items, weapons or even Pink F, but these chests can be booby-trapped as well. I lost count how many times a disembodied hand appeared from an unlocked chest to attack my character.
But how was the experience playing with the A.I? I found them to be wanting, my squad members kept getting left behind and they are not helpful in a search. It’s still a pretty fun experience traipsing through the map looking for the pages and the dagger and killing deadites. Now if only I can get some humans to join in the game.
