The last Evil Dead game, Hail To The King, took a savage critical beating, and deservedly so - it stank.

So it's with a huge sigh of relief that we can impart to you that this time around, things are looking like they're going to be different.

Evil Dead: A Fistful Of Boomstick continues the "official" Evil dead storyline, with involvement from Sam Raimi himself as well as square-jawed, horror/slapstick poster boy Bruce Campbell. The game kicks off with the contents of the Necronomicon ex Mortis (The Book Of The Dead - the book that awoke the evil and created the zombies in the movies) being broadcast across the town of Dearborn, Michigan ... landing one-armed wisecracker Ash in a townful of zombies with only a handful of catchphrases and a huge pile of weapons to keep him comfort.

Ash is extremely versatile, and has access to a frightening array of weaponry, some of which is carried in the standard way while the rest can be attached to his right...um, stump. He can use two weapons independently, locking onto separate foes at the same time - so he can be unloading his boomstick into one zombie's brain while decapitating another with his trusty chainsaw.

Spells are also implemented this time - powered by Ash's Mana bar which grows with every Deadite killed. He has half a dozen or so spells at his command ranging from the mundane (superhuman strength) to the highly entertaining (a spell which allows you to possess Deadites).

It's not all about fighting though, and VIS has ensured there's just enough in the way of exploration, NPC-interaction and puzzle-solving to break the action up for a quick breather here and there before flinging yourself back into the rotten throng.

Graphically it's looking quite impressive so far. State Of Emergency may have been a complete crock, but its engine did handle huge amounts of people running around quite successfully, and the same engine holds together Fistful Of Boomstick's action, meaning you'll quite often be fighting literally dozens of Deadite denizens at the same time. Ash is particularly well-represented, although there's something frightening going on with his buttocks - we reckon Bruce Campbell demanded the world's tightest buns on his character model, and the result is worryingly hypnotic. Maybe now us men will know what women feel like when blokes ogle Lara's onscreen persona.

There's some great lines in there from Bruce Campbell, which are every bit as campy and schlocky as you'd expect, and the plot seems quite tight so far - and with apparent involvement of Buffy and Millennium screenwriters on the project we wouldn't expect anything else. Oh, and time travel plays a major role in the story, with Ash visiting Dearborn at certain times throughout history - the Colonial period and the Civil War included.

All in all, it looks like Fistful Of Boomstick is shaping up to be one cracker of a game. OK, so we're not expecting anything world-changing, but, like the movies it guarantees to provide unmatched levels of big, dumb, gory fun. At the time of writing we're expecting not only a great price (£29.99 is the number that seems to have been settled on) but also the addition of a free Evil Dead 2 DVD to the pack, which must make this one of the biggest bargains you'll see all year.