Hell Yeah!
Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit is a rather odd game. You take control of Ash, the king of hell who has been publicly embarrassed by leaked pictures of him with his rubber ducks on the hell-internet. Only 100 other monsters had seen the images leaked onto the net, and Ash decides to take revenge by killing everyone who's seen the pictures. The game is an unique mix of a 2d platformer, dual stick shooter, and a mini game collection.
At the start of the game, your octopus butler (who has part of his brain exposed) gives you one of your father's old “pimpin' jetpacks” that consists of a giant saw blade. You are in this saw for the majority of the game, drilling your way through walls and enemies alike. The goal of the game is too kill the 100 monsters who have seen your pictures, but one of the best/most infuriating parts of the game comes when you kill one of these monsters. Damaging a monster to the point of no health triggers one of many different Warioware style mini games, ranging from mashing the “A” button to driving a semi-truck around explosive creatures. Completing the mini game allows kills the monster, showing a set animation for that mini game. Most of which are very comical, even after seeing it multiple times.
Some monsters are harder to kill than others, some can be just drilled by your jetpack-saw, others that need to be shot in specific areas by something out of your huge arsenal, or have blocks dropped on them, this creates most of the puzzles in the game. Most are generally pretty easy, which is good, because there are 100 you need to kill to complete the game. Along the way there are several boss fights, which revolve around one particular monster that is generally much harder than the normal monsters fought throughout the rest of the game. These boss fights generally have 3 or 4 stages that vary in difficulty and cheapness.
The game itself is not very hard, but it can be infuriating at times. Most of those are in the segments that don't use the drill. There are several on foot sequences that while very creative and mostly well executed, fall flat due to some of the mechanics used in these sequences. The one I found personally the most frustrating was the wall-jump. In most platformers with a wall jump, ie Super Meat boy, holding down the A button allows you to stick onto the wall, while in Hell Yeah Ash jumps off the wall, often times in the opposite direction of were you wanted to go. While these segments can be pretty frustrating, they are relatively few and far between.
As story goes, Hell Yeah is pretty lacking. This is made up for though by the fantastic writing in the game. I found my self chuckling out loud several time during the game, and some of the animations after the mini games are down right ridiculous (in the good way). The writing is not even the best part in my oppinion, that goes to the art. Not only is the world of Hell well realized and beautiful, there are so many different levels, from a nauseatingly cute world, to a casino. Not only is the art fantastic, there is a TON of it in the game. The music is also really good, including the epic Saints Row 3 style shop music that I found my self humming along to every time I bought an upgrade.
Hell Yeah may not be a perfect game by any stretch, but its wacky, crazy, pretty to look at, and at only fifteen bucks, I'd consider it a steal.
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