As any fan of Ashley J. Williams, or Ash as he is better known, and the series of Evil Dead movies from director Sam Raimi will tell you, the games released featuring the one handed antagonist have been far from anything remotely spectacular. It took a couple games and a few years but finally Ash and his chainsaw have come together in an outing that is both spot on to the series as well as a blast to play. Although this time around the game is basically a "what if?" story that takes place after the events of the movie Evil Dead 2 where Ash has been committed to an insane asylum and no one believes his story about the cabin, the Necronomicon ex mortis (the book of the dead) and his hand turning evil. Locked away in the asylum, it turns out that a doctor there, the stereotypical evil German doctor, is using the Necronomicon for his own purposes. Using an inmate named Sam as his guinea pig; the experiment goes awry and this half pint turns into a half deadite and half human with the mouth of a rather large smart ass.

As the game starts, the Necronomicon spreads its evil through the asylum and it’s up to you and your little pal Sam to stop the evil doctor from releasing the evils of the book upon the world. As you make your way out of the asylum, you learn that the evil has spread farther out and you need to find the portals scattered about and close them before the evil can continue to come through. As you make your way out of the asylum, you will traverse through other areas such as a mine, a small town, a harbor and of course, a cemetery. Through it all you will have your trusty "boomstick" as well as your handy chainsaw. As you make your way through the game however, Ash will find replacements for his chainsaw in the form of a harpoon, a lance bomb that fires explosive rounds and a flamethrower. Unfortunately once you get your hand on the harpoon, it really is the only weapon that you need since it can render just about every enemy useless and defenseless. Along with his weapons, Ash also has the ability to turn into Evil Ash where he has increased attacks and can take out any enemy in a heartbeat.

Along with the weapons that Ash can find throughout the game, he also has a side kick to do his dirty work. Sam, the half deadite, follows Ash through out the game is most useful when you punt his little body towards targets that you can highlight. That’s right, you kick him. Some targets can be enemies that you kick him towards to attack and some are interactive environment objects like fans and chutes. Along with Sam’s airborne prowess, his wit and conversation are enough to make you crack up at times. Voiced by Sam Raimi’s brother, Ted Raimi whom you may know as Joxer from Xena: Warrior Princess, the conversations between Ash and Sam more often than not are just down right hilarious. Aside from the cursing and lewd language the little tike spews out, when he starts talking to himself, it is a feast for the ears. That’s not to say he steals the show away from Bruce Campbell. The voice acting from Bruce is nothing short of what any fan would expect from him. Although the lines do repeat from time to time, the dry humor and delivery of the lines always keeps it funny.

Along with being able to hoof and humiliate your faithful sidekick, there are times that you can possess his body, just like in the underrated game GhostHunter, when you find a pedestal that allows you to. When you do possess Sam, you are weaker and smaller than Ash and will not be looking to take on enemies face to face, but rather looking for ways to allow Ash to get to where you are. When you die as Sam, you will return control to Ash which keeps the gameplay flowing since you will die many times when you are in control of Sam. Not to mention the music that plays when you take possession of Sam is just as funny as Sam's one liners.

As fun as Evil Dead is to play, it does have it downfalls. The game is fairly repetitive, especially the three out of the ten levels that require you to do the exact same thing and then there are the enemies that really don’t vary all that much throughout the game. Then you can add in the bugs that were found during the game play such as loading a game at a boss fight and the boss was no where to be found or loading up the game at the final boss and finding out that you cannot be hurt for some odd reason or other. Evil Dead Regenerations is all in all a fun and funny game to play, definitely the best Evil Dead game to date, and even with the very apparent bugs and rather short game play time, there is only one word to describe this game. Groovy.