Raze's Hell

Raze’s Hell from Majesco is a quirky action game that follows the exploits of a monster who must stop an evil queen before she eradicates your entire race from the face of the planet. The game has a look and feel similar to the Oddworld series, and has some great story elements and a nice aesthetic. Unfortunately, the game has a host of problems as well, ranging from stiff controls and unforgiving AI that make the game unnecessarily frustrating. If you are looking for a game with a cool look and an intriguing story, then Raze’s Hell is worth a look. Just don’t expect to have too much fun with the testing gameplay.

You play the game as Raze, an ugly creature whose entire village has just been slaughtered by the ruling Kewletts, a cute and cuddly yet very ruthless race of beings whose queen has ordered a massive scale war against your race. Raze then goes on a quest of revenge and vows to take down the evil Kewlett queen and end her reign of terror.

Similar to Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath, Raze uses creatures and things in the environment to defeat his foes. Whereas in Stranger’s Wrath you could collect spiders and squirrels to use against your enemies, Raze collects different types of color-coded ammunition from pods in the environments. You have a ton of different ammo at your disposal, ranging from machine gun and sniper rounds to firebombs. Aside from your ranged weaponry, you have melee attacks that you can beat your opponents with.

In a nod to Metroid, Raze can roll up into a ball and zoom across the stages. While the roll attack is good for taking out many of the weaker enemies, you’ll need to exercise caution while using it or else you may run into something that will cause you some damage.

While these elements sound great, Raze’s Hell runs into some problems. The controls are very stiff and unresponsive. Moving your character around uses standard third-person action game look/strafe controls, but the looking portion feels very rough. The targeting reticule is a pain, as is doesn’t line up on enemies very well.

The AI is also ridiculously tough. The Kewletts have dead aim, and extremely difficult to kill, especially in later levels when they wear bits of armor. They take a lot of hits before going down, which does seem a little ridiculous considering that they are only cute little buggers.

The graphics sport an interesting aesthetic. The Kewletts look great, having distinct personalities and looking as though they were taken off of the set of any number of children’s shows. The environments are also very cool looking with an Oddworld feel to them. All in all, the graphical presentation looks great and adds a lot to the feel of the game.

The sound effects are also quite good. The voice acting is well done, with the Kewletts delivering some real zinger lines and humorous moments. The music is also quite good and works with the atmosphere of the game. The rest of the sound is pretty overbearing battle sounds and general combat noise.

Raze’s Hell is a good action game that could’ve been great with a bit more polish and some gameplay tweaks. As it is though, it’s at least worth a rental if you enjoyed the Oddworld games.

Gameplay: 7.0
Raze’s Hell is an action game that has you shooting and beating your way through hordes of cute, little enemies. While this concept sounds fun, most of the game ends up overly frustrating due to unbalanced AI and stiff controls.

Graphics: 8.0
The graphics are very good, with some great looking character models and nice looking environments. The framerates do take a hit when the action gets intense, however.

Sound: 8.5
Raze’s Hell has some great script elements and voice acting. The music is also very good, but can get lost in the shuffle during loud battle scenes.

Difficulty:  Hard
 

Concept: 8.0 
Raze’s Hell has a great storyline that any fan of the Oddworld games should get a kick out of.

Multiplayer: 7.0
Raze’s Hell has a lot of multiplayer elements, like Xbox Live Deathmatch, CTF and more, as well as co-op features for two players on the same Xbox. However, any fun that you’d have in the online modes will be limited by the rough controls.

Overall: 7.5
Raze’s Hell is a decent action game that could’ve been much better given more polish and some focus on the controls and balancing the AI.