Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard

EAT LEAD: THE RETURN OF MATT HAZARD

EAT LEAD: The Return of Matt Hazard is a very interesting game and just to save you some time, yes it’s good but flawed; more on that later.

So one day I was doing my usual game hunting and noticed a copy of this game for a few quid, I’ve read the back of it and I was intrigued. When I first read it I actually believed that the game had a long history, and that there were previous games in the series but that turned out to be a “lie” and at the same time one of the awesome things about it. So I bought it and played it a year later (I know I’m very slow at getting through my back catalogue of games I own).

I started playing it and I thought it was kind of generic and clunky, straight from the start the game greeted me with a bug, whenever I tried to aim the crosshair would move left on it’s own, at first I though the game was very sensitive and my right analogue was broken or something… but after doing a little digging on google I’ve discovered that it’s a known bug that can be easily fixed by turning of your controller and connecting it again, and yes you’ll have to do it every time you turn the game back on.

STORY

The games story is something else it’s a self aware parody of video games and the industry, full of clever jokes, 4^th wall breaking and likeable characters which are voiced by some cool actors like Will Arnett as Matt Hazard and Neil Patrick Harris as Wally the games main villain.

The basic gist is that you’re Matt Hazard and are stuck in your own video game because you’ve signed a life long contract with Marathon software, but the game is being hacked and everyone in the game is trying to kill you. The main reason for it is that Wally who now owns the company has horrible memories with Matt Hazard games because he could never finish them and he wants revenge.

It’s a ridiculous premise but I found it extremely entertaining and funny.

The game seems to be strongly parodying Duke Nukem, but that is just the tip of the iceberg, the game makes fun of everything like tutorial levels, loading during an elevator, not being able to jump, or not being able to throw back grenades ect.

The humor in this game is something that I didn’t really get or liked at first but after few levels I didn’t want it to stop. It was clever and never too offensive, there is no unnecessary swearing or any swearing whatsoever or anything that would be just out of line, it fells more like tribute than a mockery of the games parodied in it.

The voice of Will Arnett is something that I felt was off at first, his voice just didn’t blend with other voices in the game, it was a little too monotone but once again after few levels I’ve started to come to love it. Sadly you will hear a lot of repeated dialogue during gameplay but that’s nothing new in video games, there are only so many lines you can record. And this is one of those games where it doesn’t get annoying, if anything you might thing it’s on purpose given the games premise.

GAMEPLAY

Eat Lead is 3^rd person action shooter, and the gameplay itself good? I mean it’s nothing to go home and brag about but at the same time it is not the worst thing in the world, it gets the job done. This is a cover-based shooter in the likes of Kill.Switch or that Kill.Switch inspired game Gears Of War. The mechanic works fine but again it lack polish, I found myself often aiming/leaning from behind the wall to find myself walking about and getting shot and being confused why, did I press something to let go of the cover or what?!

The actual shooting in the game is fine it can be quite satisfying but I often found myself shooting at enemies with no result especially when the frame-rate would slow down. I love it when headshots in game are very important, and they are very easy to pull of here, and the shooting is self has a punch to it which is nice.

The enemy AI was actually quite impressive in my opinion, every type enemy had their own pattern and weaknesses you had to learn, but there was a lot of moments where the AI would just run around like headless chickens.

There are plenty of weapons in the game, each from a different game genre you’ll find water guns, revolvers, laser guns, shotguns, machine guns and grenade launchers to name a few, but you can only hold 2 at the time, which I think it works well here it does add to the challenge and tactical aspect of the game unlike in Duke Nukem Forever.

Every enemy you’ll encounter in game will have different weakness, like for example zombies won’t go down unless you shoot them in the head or using a normal pistol against space marines will get you nowhere you’ll need a space gun to take them down. This feature will make you constantly think about which 2 weapons to hold and use, you’ll be constantly switching weapons.

The is no multiplayer in this game but that is what I like about it, the focus was on the game and it’s story, this game was released at the time where every game was trying to go the multiplayer route after the huge success of COD games, there was nothing worse than seeing your favourite game come back just to be lousy single player game with a bigger emphasis on multiplayer which was okay at best.

The one thing I really didn’t enjoy about the gameplay was the regenerating health; to me this game mechanic (in any game) is the equivalent of easy mode and laziness of the developers. I just prefer good old health bar and finding med-kits hidden though out the levels. I don’t really mind the regenerating health in games like COD but here I though it was a missed out opportunity to make the game more retro like. But this game is a product of it’s time and did what everyone else did and regenerating health was a cool thing at the time, all the cool devs were doing it.

The levels are long and varied and they never overstay their welcome, they are full of detail (imo) and there is clear sense of progression in the level design.

I really enjoyed most of the boss battles as they were very creative in their design, they weren’t just a simple shoot and drain the life bar, some ended on QTEs which were not that exciting but somewhat fun to look at.

GRAPHICS

Visually the game looks rather good, and I truly believe it has stood the test of time. It might not have AAA visuals but the textures are crisp and pleasant to look at, the environments are varied, the character models look good and facial animations are okay, but there is a lack of special effects, when shooting enemies you won’t see any blood but only bits of code flying of the enemies that is because the game is set in a game world not real life, and to be quite honest I think it’s a nice refreshing change and clever. I kind of wish there was something happening when doing headshots because it does not feel as gratifying to do them as it could with a nice head explosion but that is a nitpick.

The other complaint I have is the performance, the game tends to slow down quite often (on PS3) it only happens when there is too much going on and it isn’t game breaking but is worth mentioning as it is noticeable.

MUSIC & SOUND

Music and sound effects in the game are okay, music is nothing great or memorable but it gets the job done. It’s a guitar driven soundtrack and some of the riff are enjoyable and will get your heart pumping and humming. Sound effects are also okay, you know guns sound like guns and explosions sound like explosions what do you want me to say here.

REPLAY VALUE

The game features 3 difficulty levels, I have only played the game on medium and it was quite the challenge, this game will kick your butt, I died hundreds of times but I never felt like giving up. There was a bit in the game where you’re in this big mansion and in the second part of the level you have to go back to the start and robot ladies (I forgot the actual name) are introduced as new enemies, and this is where I got stuck for 2 hours and just couldn’t do it, I kept dying at the same spot until I memorized what every enemy would do and to be honest this was one of my favourite moments. I’m a sucker for games that require you to memorize enemy patterns and this game is pure gold when it comes to this stuff.

The game didn’t feature much in terms of collectibles besides trophies which after completing the game you’ll have over 60% of, you get trophies for things like pausing the game, and even 6 trophies just for finish the game, 1 for watching credits, 1 for the lack of multiplayer, 1 or 2 for difficulty level, 1 for just the story.

The lack of collectibles in this game is a bit of bummer, I wish there was something to keep me playing because the game isn’t really that long it, is was right length for me I managed to finish it in 3 days of casual playing, putting up to 3 hours a day. I didn’t really feel like replaying the game on hardest difficulty simply because medium has already given me a good of amount of challenge and I already felt quite accomplished after doing that. And trophy hunting is not my thing.

The games difficulty mostly lies in the controls and getting use to them, most of my deaths were questionable and I didn’t always feel like it was my fault, I did blame the game more often than not. There were moments in the game where you would enter an area and enemies would spawn and kill you within seconds with no real room to react and hide, and that was quite annoying but I got used to it after couple hundreds of deaths.

When I first picked the game up I originally though there was an unlockable original 2d game but after playing the game I realized that such thing didn’t exist and it was just part of the games elaborate and clever marketing/back story, I’m not going to lie I feel somewhat stupid for believing that the games back story was real, but you know I just thought that I missed it, I didn’t even know Duke Nukem had 2d dos game until a few years ago, so you got to understand my misunderstanding, this game came out at the time when a lot of games were getting new games after years of absence like “Bionic Commando” and “Splatterhouse”. But that is what I love about “Eat Lead” it has a back story that is a clever parody of gaming industry and for better or worse fooled me and probably someone else too (I can’t be the only one…).

OTHER

The game featured quite the number of bugs, one which I need to mention because I nearly said goodbye to the games ending. I was on the last level facing the last boss battle but I had to leave to work so I waited for the game to autosave and turned it off. I came back from work, turned the game on and the game kept freezing every time I tried loaded the save file, I was about lose my nerves I didn’t exactly feel like playing from the start so I immediately started panicking, but fortunately the game has an option to choose which chapter/level you want to play again and all I had to do was re-do the last level and get to the boss battle and it was all good, but still this wasn’t something I wanted to happen.

I already mentioned the aiming bug that happens every time you turn the game and the letting go off cover on certain occasions, but I was also killed a lot whilst hiding behind the wall, I also had the game crash/freeze on me once.

I mean some of these bugs are minor and can be overlooked but it’s just a shame they exist.

CONCLUSION

So to wrap things up, Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard is great game, it is flawed but the games story, voice acting and gameplay just work and make for a great time if you like a game that is a bit different than all the big AAA games on the market, there is nothing quite like it. I don’t believe the game was worth a full retail price that it launched with back in the day but now you can pick it up for dirt cheap and it’s worth it, don’t spend more than 15 quid on it. There is also a 2d sequel available on PSN & Xbox Live store for £9.99 I have yet to pick it up and play it, but from what I’ve read it is quite the decent game.

GOOD

-Story

-Voice Acting

-Humour

-Level design

-Action

-Creative boss battles

-Varied arsenal of weapons

-Satisfying shooting

-Clever game design

-Good challenge

-Tons of easy trophies

-QA

BAD

-Game breaking bugs

-Slowdown

-Generic music (not really that bad)

-Clunky gameplay

-Lack of replay value/collectibles