You like humor and beating up cute characters for 20 dollars? If so, this is your game.
Don't expect a lot of puzzle-solving or extracurricular item-collecting; the focus of the gameplay is to bring bloody death to an evil army of walking, talking merchandising opportunities. Each level is essentially a series of intense firefights, and they can be quite challenging, even on the normal difficulty setting. You have some basic melee attacks for when you're up close with an enemy, but mostly you'll be using a cache of gunlike weapons. Within the context of the game, your ammo consists of fruit that you pick from really, really weird trees. In practice they're more akin to modern hardware like shotguns, grenade launchers, and sniper rifles, though there are exceptions, such as the Dig-Dug-inspired inflator weapon. On the surface, the weapons seem extremely punishing, but most enemies can take an almost inordinate amount of punishment before going down, and when given the option, we found the massive blade that juts out of Raze's left hand to be far more effective.
Aside from serving as a satisfying finishing move, melee attacks are important for replenishing your health. The levels aren't stocked with health-restoring boxes or bubbles or whatever with a red cross on them; instead, your life bar is restored by cutting open enemies you've killed and sucking up the giblets--an agreeably morbid move, given the rest of the game's tone. Raze can also perform some rudimentary stealth moves, though sneaking rarely proves to be effective. If you're in a hurry, you can also curl up into a ball, Metroid-style, and simply roll right over your enemies, though you will usually take a bit of damage in the process.
There are some flaws: Raze's Hell is the type of game that forces players to earn every step of advancement in almost all of the levels. Running blindly into an unexplored gully will result in a guaranteed instant death. Even though kills reward the player with literal chunks of health, the enemies are expert shots and incredibly aggressive. Normally I shy away from adjusting the default difficulty settings, but even on easy with auto-aim, this game often feels like a never-ending cycle of death. Aiming also feels off because the reticule accelerates too quickly as it moves across the screen. Look sensitivity can be adjusted, but it's not enough to compensate for the frustration that occurs during sniping.
Graphically, Raze's Hell mixes the good with the bad. The different types of Kewletts look excellent. The characters seem to borrow from a number of sources, including children's television icons like Barney and the Teletubbies. Raze, however, isn't as inspired. He is supposed to be a gruesome monster, hell-bent on revenge but from behind he resembles a cross between Jar-Jar Binks and a turtle. The environments have a few interesting textures, but overall they feel barren. It would be nice to have more detailed structures and foliage, but the frame rate is already consistently choppy. It is a vast improvement over earlier builds, but the game play would have benefited from a solid 30 frames per second
The Kewlett's voices are the real standout in terms of sound. They have some flat-out hilarious comments while Raze blasts them into pieces. Other creatures have appropriately strange voice work but are nowhere close to the evil cuties. The background music is fittingly eerie but the sounds of warfare normally overpower the audio.
There are some replay value to be found here, though it's flawed. The 20 levels of Kewlette killing action can be played alone or co-op. A friend can jump into the game at any time by pressing start on the second controller, which is always a welcome feature. Players can also sacrifice some of their own health to raise a fallen comrade. One would think that co-op would make the game easier, and it does to a certain extent. However, friendly fire is always on, and in the heat of the battle, its easy to inadvertently take down your partner. There is also an online mode that allows players to compete with other monsters in a game of Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the flag, king of the hill, team king of the hill, and ultra violent soccer. Playing against other people is immediately more fun than taking on the unforgiving A.I. in the single player game but the weapon system isn't as nice a fit. There are some nice options like weapon sets, adjustable timers, radar, and team changes. Since the frame rate in the offline version of the game is average at best, it doesn't get any better over Live.
For 20 dollars, you can get a decent game here. It suffers from numerous flaws, half being technical, but with a funny story, loads of humor and decent gameplay, it's worth a shot.
Final Score: 7.5/10