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Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard
Publisher: D3 Publisher
Developer: Vicious Cycle
Genre: Third-Person Shooter
Release Date: February 27, 2009
Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360
ESRB: T - Teen
Reviewer: Eric
Eat Lead is a comedic action game that makes fun of Duke Nukem, Dead Space,
Mario and about a dozen others. The is the kind of game that will get ripped to
shreds by big shot critics, mainly since most of them can’t take a joke.
Thankfully I am not a big shot reviewer yet and I can take a joke, hence my love
with Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard.
The game features two big stars. Will Arnett and Neil Patrick Harris lend their
voices to Eat Lead. Arnett has a lot of fun with Hazard and you can tell that he
put enough time into this, rather than half-asses it like most celebrities do
with voice roles in video games. Harris also does another great job as the games
villain. Two perfect choices for this action game.
Combat in the game can be a little rough at times. Just like most modern games
you can only hold two weapons at a time. I had no problem switching between
weapons or picking up new ones, the controls are fine. My problem with the
combat though has to be when I was trying to hide from the enemies, either by
walls or boxes. There were some problems and it did leave to some unnecessary
deaths.
Some combat aspects you are use to from actions game are not in the game. The
main one is grenades or being able to throw enemy grenades back. At first this
was annoying but then I realized that the developers did this on purpose for the
humor. Anytime something isn’t in the game we’ll hear Hazard make a joke about
this. This is a comedy game so if humor like this bothers you then don’t play
this game. Eat Lead was attended to make fun of action games even by its
gameplay.
Enemies in this game will get gamers excited. Since Hazard has supposedly been
around for years he has seen his fair share of enemies. All of Hazards greatest
foes are in this game, even the 2-D ones. Each type of enemy has its own
abilities and weapons. Some of Hazards most embarrassing enemies are in this
game, water-gun and all.
Boss battles have you mashing buttons and pressing buttons in the right
sequence. I am not a fan of button sequences since most games are over-using
them but in this case there is something else that is bothering me over these
sequences. It seems like all sound and sound effects are almost missing from
these battles. Is this part of the joke or lazy programming? I’d have to say the
programming, this is no joke.
When you are not having those mashing and sequence boss battles you’ll have
“throwing your controller” boss battles. Eat Lead has some cheap bosses, so
cheap you may want to stop playing the game. I am up for the challenge but when
you are dying for no reason there is a problem. The squid boss battle will have
you dying numerous times and have the time you won’t know why. Not funny.
Graphic wise Eat Lead is not the best example of a next generation game. If
anything it looks like a first gen Playstation 3 game. There are no noticeable
clipping problems which is a huge plus. Cutscenes could have been better though.
Still for what they are asking for this game I can forgive them because I have
an extra $10 to spend on something else.
Replay value is sort of slim. You can go through the game again and pick up all
the trophies but that won’t take too much extra time to complete. There are no
online features or multiplayer options here. The developers do realize this and
they give you a trophy for it. Maybe some downloadable content would help out
(please release more gameplay).
Final Verdict
I think Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard is an awesome game. You have to
realize that this is a comedy game so you shouldn’t take everything so serious.
True there are some problems with the game and for the most part the game does
crack jokes about it. Still there are some problems they didn’t joke about,
shame on Vicious Cycle.
Rating Breakdown
Gameplay: 8 out of 10
+ Controls just like an A+ action game.
- Hiding is a pain for gamers and Hazard.
Graphics: 7 out of 10
+ The enemies steal the show, 8-bit glory!
- Did the developers know its 2009?
Audio: 7 out of 10
+ The voice acting is dead-on.
- Some of the music tends to loop way too much.
Replay Value: 7 out of 10
+ Great gameplay make this one a great game to play again.
- What’s more after you beat the hardest difficulty?
Overall
7.25 out of 10
More reviews:
MetaCritic: 5.2/10
TestFreaks: 6.8/10
IGN: 5.2/10
Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard Trailer
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