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Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit Preview for PlayStation 3 (PS3)

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit Preview for PlayStation 3 (PS3)

Yeah! Hell Yeah!

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit is a 2D platformer about an anthropomorphic bunny ruler of Hell who’s out to gain back his reputation after embarrassing pictures of him playing with a rubber ducky have leaked out to the Internet. The sheer absurdity of that sentence should give you a little bitty taste of the bizarre gameplay experience packed into this powerful indie package.

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit Screenshot

Hell Yeah! Revolves around hunting down and murdering (or re-murdering them considering you are already in hell) 100 monsters who saw your embarrassing photo. Though our skeletal bunny protagonist starts completely defenseless, he very quickly finds an arsenal of horrendous torture tools meant to maim in hilarious ways. For example, one of the weapons is a sort of giant saw blade hamster wheel that you ride inside of, totally obliterating all the lesser demons around you.

The game is somewhere between a traditional 2D platformer and a Metroidvania-style adventure platformer. Many of the routes in the game are initially blocked off by doors that only open as you kill more and more of the 100 Internet-trolling demons. I wouldn’t call the game linear, but it certainly nudges you along the path that it thinks is best. Besides, many paths require you to already have particular implements of destruction to get through them.

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit Screenshot

The real charm of the game comes through in the encounters with the 100 demons themselves. Of course, you first have to fight them in boss battles, as you would in any traditional 2D platformer. However, once you have whittled down a boss’s life far enough, you will be asked to play one of thirty different minigames in order to kill it. Certain minigames are nothing but small quick time events, but as you continue to play the game, they slowly get more complicated. You might be asked to play a small rhythm game, a Simon-like memory game, or a short first-person or 2D shooting sequence. Heck, you might even be asked to play an old school first-person Dragon Quest-style RPG! All of these games are very quick and easy to play, and they manage to constantly change the gameplay experience, ensuring that Hell Yeah! Never gets old.

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit Screenshot

Not only that, but each of the 100 demons is a totally unique enemy, and you get put into totally unique death sequences every time you play the game. So, in essence, every single Hell Yeah! Playthrough will be a little bit different than the last. It’s almost as if you are playing WarioWare, except instead of picking noses and jumping into coin blocks, you are sawing people’s heads off and choking them to death. And really, that’s the best kind of WarioWare I can think of.

In fact, as I continued to play Hell Yeah! I noticed something: It feels an awful lot like Earthworm Jim. It has the same sort of ludicrous plot, the same types of bizarre levels, similarly crazy characters and weapons, and it even has its fair share of cows! It’s the purest form of classic 2D gameplay wrapped in a humor shell, and it feels amazing. From squashing your foes with Monty Python -style cutout appendages to randomly watching demons get devoured by spontaneous T-Rexes, this game is all about the absurdity. Every single second of it will have you laughing at the brutal cartoon violence, just like Bart and Lisa watching Itchy and Scratchy .

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit Screenshot

If there was one flaw I saw with the preview build of Hell Yeah! It was with the game’s physics. Specifically, the jumping controls are really off. They are extremely loose and very often cause you to miss the platform you were aiming for. Perhaps this too was inherited form Earthworm Jim. I can see the game getting a bit frustrating if the mechanics stay the way they are, but it shouldn’t be too hard to change jump arcs or speed in the final build of the game, so I’m crossing my fingers.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with Hell Yeah! It’s definitely one of the hot new downloadable titles you should be keeping your eyes on. Coming sometime later this year for Xbox LIVE, PSN, and PC, Hell Yeah! will make you remember the best part of your childhood: the cartoon violence! I mean, I’d play it just for the chance to run over my enemies with a MacK truck that appears off screen for no apparent reason other than the dark comedy of the whole thing.

Game Features:

  • Open-ended gameplay.
  • Hilarious gory humor.
  • Fun death minigames.
  • Incredibly violent weapons.

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