Here’s a snippet of a writer’s life at E3: you make appointments to cover a publisher’s game(s) for the duration of the show’s operating hours, and then you retire to your hotel room (or whatever) and spend the rest of the evening writing about every game you were supposed to see and play that day. We barely get any time to freely pursue the show floor and see all the weird and often smaller games that may have flown in under the radar.
With about an hour in between appointments today, I stumbled across Sega’s booth and found a 2D side scrolling game called Hell Yeah! tucked away in the back right corner. Actually no, that’s not entirely accurate, I didn’t discover Hell Yeah!, I observed a maniacal rabbit thing next to a health meter that said “F**K!” at the top. Shenanigans like that are acceptable in the indi scene, but under the wing of Sega was the last place I expected to find anything of that sort. Naturally, I had to play it.
The story, as I gathered, revolves around a rabbit whose pictures leaked on the internet and, in order to exact revenge, he needs to trek through hell and obliterate cartoon demons. He also has an articulate butler to relay important bits of gameplay advice (as you do). In any case Hell Yeah! employs beautifully colored sprites for enemies and objects and blasts them through multiple layers of hell, all of which on display as some of the goofiest artwork on the show floor.
Hell Yeah! also comes up big in the gameplay department. You’re given a jetpack right off the bat, which isn’t used to fly so much as it’s used to turn you into a rolling circle of death machine capable of grinding up foes at a moment’s notice. Later I managed to pick up a machine gun and a rocket launcher as well. You’re expected to use all of these tools to kill larger enemies around the map. Knocking off these guys raises a gate, which allows the player to proceed to the next part of a level. Outside of combat Hell Yeah!’s gameplay generally consists of platforming, light puzzle solving, and a bunch of brief minigames. The latter was especially interesting because they were always employed as a means to finish off a miniboss. Either by timing a button press to crush their skulls, or summoning ships from Space Invaders to fire pixels at a laser-eyed robot bear, there was always something exciting in store.
Hell Yeah! also boasted another unique intangible; laughter. The booth was maybe 10×10, but it was packed with people playing and watching, and never more than a minute went by without throngs of laughter erupting. I mean, in less than ten minutes it’s completely possible to answer multiple choice questions from a game show, punch a beehive, encounter a shop that encourages the player to waste your money, nonchalantly criticize Sonic the Hedgehog, and observe a life meter that casually reads “F**K”. The humor may be blunt, but it’s off the charts in terms of consistency, setting it aside from all of the tepid attempts engaged by its peers.
I don’t know what’s gotten into the folks at Arkedo, but I’m thrilled Sega picked up their game and I can’t wait to play it sometime in the (hopefully) near future.
