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Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard
Gaming gets a sense of humor.
March 30, 2009 | 9:12 PM PSTKombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.
What the Game's About
The Return of Matt Hazard: Eat Lead is a gamer's game. Inside jokes about game development and design clichés are abound with a self aware, fourth wall smashing approach. Using the comic genius of Will Arnet and Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Houser) to voice the main characters of the game, there is tongue and cheek humor at every corner. Matt Hazard is your typical 16-bit hero, only his past is totally made up. With a rich back story and an entire universe, you get a sense that Matt's glory days are the only thing keeping him going in a high-def world where he is yesterday's page eight news. With a game that is supposed to put him back on track, something goes horribly wrong in the game's servers and Matt and an enigmatic assistant QA try to restore some order.
What's Hot
Gaming, as a medium, has difficulty getting satire right. Hazard goes about it smartly, because it tackles a subject game developers know well: games. The in-jokes and design of the game all center around clichés usually found in 80 percent of the video games out there. No gaming era is safe, and Hazard likes to take pot shots from all of gaming most famous faces. Even the cover system that is heavily implemented gets its fair share of sarcasm when you enter the Fragmee Factory and see them all labeled "Low Cover #1" or "High Cover #3." If you are a gamer's gamer, there will be a perma-smirk on your face as you play through warehouse levels knowing they were an intentional joke.
It was enjoyable to find out what happens next to Matt Hazard and his misadventure. Every new development and other spoof game character you meet add another layer of wackiness and outlandishness. With all the game characters being completely self-aware they are video game characters, it provides plenty of situations where you see what a world would be like where gaming characters were treated much like movie actors. The plot twists are so obvious they might as well come with a giant orange sign but, if you are catching on, that is the point.
As for the gameplay, there are some really brilliant moments that can shine through. When great level design and insane moments of action collide, Hazard is at its best. Memorable parts are aplenty with giant squid battles on a pirate ship, navigating a brightly colored, low resolution recreation of Wolfenstein 3D complete with 2D enemies and using the cover system to escape a flying gun ship raining bullets with laser guided precision. This isn't a game you'll forget.
What's Not
Not all the problems are jokes. Evidence of that is in the framerate. Hazard will clip along just fine until the action starts picking up. You'll notice right away the game will slow down right when the action heats up. Because the game doesn't poke fun at it, you know the chug isn't part of the humor.
What is curious about the framerate problems is that the overall graphical prowess is fairly lackluster. Matt's face and character look good but the other characters and enemies aren't in the same league. Along with that, the lack of visual cohesion with sci-fi enemies being mixed with communist and old western baddies doesn't give the levels distinct feels. It works well the first time but each level getting the same mélange of genres gets a bit tiresome.
With the clichés abound, the story still feels held back. The talents of Will Arnet and Neil Patrick Harris are woefully underutilized. Being as important to the story as they are, letting these seasoned professionals improvise more would have added a special flavor to spice up the decent script. Focusing on fewer gaming clichés might have helped focus the script better.
Final Word
Hazard walks the line between poking fun at games and being a game fairly successfully. The problems come from the wide net that the game cast and a few things slipping through the cracks. All joking aside, ultra-mega-uber hardcore gamers will delight in Hazard despite its faults.
What the Game's About
The Return of Matt Hazard: Eat Lead is a gamer's game. Inside jokes about game development and design clichés are abound with a self aware, fourth wall smashing approach. Using the comic genius of Will Arnet and Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Houser) to voice the main characters of the game, there is tongue and cheek humor at every corner. Matt Hazard is your typical 16-bit hero, only his past is totally made up. With a rich back story and an entire universe, you get a sense that Matt's glory days are the only thing keeping him going in a high-def world where he is yesterday's page eight news. With a game that is supposed to put him back on track, something goes horribly wrong in the game's servers and Matt and an enigmatic assistant QA try to restore some order.
What's Hot
Gaming, as a medium, has difficulty getting satire right. Hazard goes about it smartly, because it tackles a subject game developers know well: games. The in-jokes and design of the game all center around clichés usually found in 80 percent of the video games out there. No gaming era is safe, and Hazard likes to take pot shots from all of gaming most famous faces. Even the cover system that is heavily implemented gets its fair share of sarcasm when you enter the Fragmee Factory and see them all labeled "Low Cover #1" or "High Cover #3." If you are a gamer's gamer, there will be a perma-smirk on your face as you play through warehouse levels knowing they were an intentional joke.
It was enjoyable to find out what happens next to Matt Hazard and his misadventure. Every new development and other spoof game character you meet add another layer of wackiness and outlandishness. With all the game characters being completely self-aware they are video game characters, it provides plenty of situations where you see what a world would be like where gaming characters were treated much like movie actors. The plot twists are so obvious they might as well come with a giant orange sign but, if you are catching on, that is the point.
As for the gameplay, there are some really brilliant moments that can shine through. When great level design and insane moments of action collide, Hazard is at its best. Memorable parts are aplenty with giant squid battles on a pirate ship, navigating a brightly colored, low resolution recreation of Wolfenstein 3D complete with 2D enemies and using the cover system to escape a flying gun ship raining bullets with laser guided precision. This isn't a game you'll forget.
What's Not
Not all the problems are jokes. Evidence of that is in the framerate. Hazard will clip along just fine until the action starts picking up. You'll notice right away the game will slow down right when the action heats up. Because the game doesn't poke fun at it, you know the chug isn't part of the humor.
What is curious about the framerate problems is that the overall graphical prowess is fairly lackluster. Matt's face and character look good but the other characters and enemies aren't in the same league. Along with that, the lack of visual cohesion with sci-fi enemies being mixed with communist and old western baddies doesn't give the levels distinct feels. It works well the first time but each level getting the same mélange of genres gets a bit tiresome.
With the clichés abound, the story still feels held back. The talents of Will Arnet and Neil Patrick Harris are woefully underutilized. Being as important to the story as they are, letting these seasoned professionals improvise more would have added a special flavor to spice up the decent script. Focusing on fewer gaming clichés might have helped focus the script better.
Final Word
Hazard walks the line between poking fun at games and being a game fairly successfully. The problems come from the wide net that the game cast and a few things slipping through the cracks. All joking aside, ultra-mega-uber hardcore gamers will delight in Hazard despite its faults.
November 20, 2009
