In Retro: "Raze's Hell" Review (Xbox)

Another old written review, one I wrote upon completing the game when it was still fairly new...

* * *

Even as a full-priced game, “Raze’s Hell” would offer something of worth to fans of third person action games. It’s got a clever premise, an original setting, a handful of unique weapons and character abilities, challenging combat, and bloody, over-the-top action in spades. When you factor in the game’s budget price tag, it’s difficult not to recommend it to fans of this genre despite its otherwise apparent faults.

In the game, you’re cast as Raze, a sort of monstrous reject from the “Starcraft” or “Warcraft” series (more like a mixture of both). His people have been ethnically cleansed by a race of unbearably cute and cuddlies that revel in their own righteous quest to purge the world of ugliness. The game’s designers take ample opportunity to criticize real world politics within the confines of this setup, and chuckles abound. Despite its “Mature” rating and some blood and carnage, however, “Raze’s Hell” knows better than to take itself too seriously. It essentially boils down to a quest for vengeance, Raze seizing every opportunity he has to off some of the most (intentionally) annoying bad guys ever seen in a video game.

Raze has at his disposal several unique means of defending himself. Early on, the most important of these is perhaps the sword blade attached to his arm, which he can use to slice and dice his adorable opponents into quivering globs of flesh. It’s not long, however, before “firearms” become essential to survival. Though only four types of ammunition can be carried at once, most of these weapons are remarkable in some way – some stand in as the game’s machine guns, flamethrowers, and shotguns, while others are completely unique and allow you to fill your foes full of helium and send them skyward. In truth these weapons are some alien form of plant life that only Raze can harness in battle. Ammunition is acquired by hacking said plants and then sucking up the glowing lights that pop out of them, and it fits in perfectly with the game’s wacky tone. Likewise, Raze can restore his health by gibbing his adversaries and then sucking up their bloody bits to restore himself.

Perhaps the coolest of Raze’s abilities, however, is his capacity to roll up into a ball “Metroid” style and race across the game’s environments. This not only alleviates traipsing to and fro in the typical third-person fashion, it also provides some of the most amusing means of killing your enemies. With good momentum going for you, you can literally roll right over them, which generally provides a hilarious image of said foe smashing against the camera like a bug splatting against a car windshield. Very nice.

Melee combat is a simple, monotonous matter of tapping the attack button and watching Raze slash his foes to bits. Ranged attacks are thankfully much more interesting to play around with, though the single player campaign hosts an unfortunate lack of diversity in terms of these weapons. Too often you’ll use very basic and very specific types of attacks because of their abundant ammunitions, even as gems like the flamethrower and others crop up far too rarely. This adds a sense of monotony to combat that is otherwise pretty frenetic and surprisingly challenging even on the easiest difficulty setting.

In fact, the game’s single greatest flaw is its repetitive nature. Each level, though complete with varying objectives, ultimately plays like the one before it, similar in layout and design. The lack of variety in terms of weapons, and enemies that you’ll soon grow accustomed to, really give this one a “fun in short spurts” kind of vibe. That said, when you keep in mind the asking price, these issues are much, much easier to forgive when you consider how fun this kind of razing hell can be in strategic doses.

“Raze’s Hell” is kind enough to pack in some pretty graphics – nothing amazing per se, but certainly colorful and adept at conveying the tone of the experience. Likewise, the music and sound effects get the job done, and some funny yet appropriately obnoxious quips from the bad guys make them pretty fun to kill on a fairly regular basis.

In the end, this is a unique and enjoyable action game that shouldn’t be overlooked despite its sometimes monotonous gameplay. Factor in the price, and that’s doubly true.

FINAL SCORE: 7.4 (Good)