Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard

1. LT_Gruber

   Feb 15, 2023

   10

   This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Hilarious game and a perfect match for me.
   
   I loved Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. It is the ultimate definition of parody and still managed to be a fun game with excellent music and acceptable game play.
   
   In the game, you take on the fictional hero Matt Hazard, a video game character that was, like Duke Nukem for example, a true classic back in the day. Now, twenty five years later, he returns to the scene with a new video game. He screwed up his reputation back in the day by trying other genres, giving him the accidental reputation of a “kid friendly character”. Now, he attempts his ultimate combat by starring in some sort of mafia crime game, where he is a detective.
   
   He is supposed to be the star of the game, but instead, is hindered and placed in unfair situations by some unknown force, that changes the environment constantly right before his eyes. It is later revealed by QA, your AI companion and your guide through the game, that Wallace Wellesly is behind all of this. He is the lead programmer for the fictional company that created the game and because he hates Matt Hazard for ruining his childhood game experience with his earlier games, he wants to mock him by letting him die on the first level.
   
   Wallace created “Sting Sniperscope”, a generic dude with a sniper rifle and a German accent, who is supposed to whoop the floor with Matt and become the replacement hero of the game. Matt defeats Sting however and because the game will break if there is no main protagonist, Matt takes his place and tries to reach the headquarters of the company to take revenge on Wallace. He is constantly attacked by all sort of random enemies and situations, that are hacked in into the game in real time by Wallace and his team members to stop him. Matt defeats Wallace and takes his place in gaming history once again as a true, classic video game hero.
   
   Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard plays in third person with an over the shoulder angle. The game follows a linear path in which you progress through levels. You can hold two weapons. It also features a cover system which worked quite well in my opinion. There is a bar that you can fill by defeating enemies, which let you use special skills like freezing bullets. These skills come available when you progress through the game.
   
   The graphics are not bad actually. It is PlayStation 3 era, and for this time, the game looks good. The glitch and programming effects are nicely done and the animations of Matt and enemies are good enough.
   
   Where the game shines is its music. The fight tracks are epic and pump you up for the fighting ahead. It is wonderful what good, metal soundtracks can do to enhance your experience. The sound effects are fair, although a little blend and “pea shooter” like. I say fair, because some parody weapons in the game are designed to sound like crap.
   
   The controls are a little stiff, but still playable. The cover system and the controls to switch cover work great. The only problem is that you cannot maneuver quickly or do anything really to evade enemy fire while not in cover. This is also my only complaint with the game, especially on higher difficulty levels, which makes the game almost unplayable then.
   
   The game is linear, a little repetitive and comes with “kill walls” in which you need to defeat every enemy on screen in order to progress. This can be a little tedious, especially because of the automatic checkpoint system that saves your progress after two or three of these kill walls. If you die, you know that you need those two or three rooms all over again, without any other approach to do it.
   
   However, Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard makes up for this by being funny as hell. Sometimes, games try to hard to be funny or make really lame jokes that do not even make you breeze through your nose, but with this game, I actually laughed. The humor is spot on. Many franchises are completely destroyed with parody like the failed Socom series, which is now called Soak’em. Enemies fight with water guns, that do a surprisingly amount of damage. Reject Wolfenstein 3D soldiers are introduced and even zombies. The best part of the humor in my opinion, is the self confidence of Matt, where he believes that he is the most badass dude in the game, while constantly being mocked, insulted or downright laughed at.
   
   In the end, I really enjoyed Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard and I truly recommend this underrated classic, despite its flaws.… Expand

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2. JS

   May 5, 2009

   10

   I LOVED this game! It pokes so hard at the video game world from Halo to Final Fantasy and even loading screens. The game gets a bit I LOVED this game! It pokes so hard at the video game world from Halo to Final Fantasy and even loading screens. The game gets a bit repetitive towards the end,but the game ends before it overstays it's welcome. With voicing from Will Arnett and Neil Patrick Harris,it makes the game even more enjoyable. This game is hilarious and i'm hoping for a sequel.… Expand

   • 0 of 1 users found this helpful
4. CaitO'C

   Mar 10, 2009

   9

   I'd love to give this game a perfect score, but I do realize that gameplay and graphics are pretty basic retreads of stuff from the I'd love to give this game a perfect score, but I do realize that gameplay and graphics are pretty basic retreads of stuff from the past. However, I have not seen a game with such a brilliant sense of humor and writing in a long time. It's a decent cover shooter whose cutscenes and one line asides will keep you playing. Ignore the critics who couldn't be payed off by the small publishers advertising budget (if they had one).… Expand

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5. CharlesL.

   Mar 3, 2009

   8

   No it's not the best game ever, no it's not innovative, and it's not trying to be. It's trying to be the Airplane or No it's not the best game ever, no it's not innovative, and it's not trying to be. It's trying to be the Airplane or Scary Movie of the video game world, and that's what it succeeds in achieving. It's got the laughs and the fun... and that's all it needs. I personally enjoyed the game a lot and look forward to a sequel.… Expand

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6. thepatient613

   Feb 16, 2016

   6

   The game that was too low budget to make fun of itself.
   
   Ok so Matt Hazard was very self-aware and just knew how to make fun of its lowThe game that was too low budget to make fun of itself.
   
   Ok so Matt Hazard was very self-aware and just knew how to make fun of its low budget. I did laugh a few times but not enough to forget just how bad the controls and the gameplay truly where. I appreciate what they tried to do, it's not the worst game ever either, might even have a cult following, it's just not a game you can take very seriously at all.… Expand

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7. rcoberle54

   May 13, 2020

   5

   I really liked this game until I suddenly didn't anymore. After a few hours once the difficulty ramps up it's flaws become really apparent andI really liked this game until I suddenly didn't anymore. After a few hours once the difficulty ramps up it's flaws become really apparent and it falls victim to a lot of the same things that Duke Nukem Forever did. It's rusty and unpolished which makes it impossible to be precise. When you're playing on the hardest difficulty and can be one shotted at any given moment, precision is absolutely vital. The inability to be precise, both with aiming and picking up weapons, becomes so incredibly frustrating. You get stuck on edges, you get stuck swapping or switching between weapons. It feels like they spent too much money on the voice cast rather than polishing up the gameplay and mechanics.
   
   What I really liked and found interesting was the concept. This is a game that blends together all the video game genres and it's biggest characters into one shared universe that traverses both the real world and the video game one. It reminded me of Wreck It Ralph and Matt Hazard predates Ralph by a number of years. Matt Hazard is your typical video game cliche action man hero ala Duke Nukem or Doom guy etc and he plays a little like Deadpool. He's aware that he is a video game character and he pokes fun at the genre. Like the Deadpool movie, Eat Lead feels simultaneously like a parody and celebration of it's respective genre. Will Arnett voices the titular character. The concept and the story were much more interesting than all the other games I've recently played like Fracture, Haze, Timeshift so I initally was going to rate it much better than those games. It blends together cowboys, space marines, zombies, femme fatales etc as it referenced Halo, Mario, Duke Nukem, Splinter Cell among other popular video game franchises. In what other game can you set fire to your enemies using a water gun? However, the gameplay was so bad and boring by the end that I couldn't justify going higher than 6 but knowing it deserved better than 5. EDIT: The more I think about this game the more I hate it. I remember thinking the gameplay was so boring and the experience so frustrating that it's unforgivable. I changed my rating down to a 5. I def had more fun playing Duke Nukem Forever than this.
   
   It will definitely be more memorable in the end. This also has trophies giving it a bit more replayability which I thought would push it a notch above the other games I've recently played, but I just couldn't pull the trigger on that. Plus I really love Will Arnett's voice acting which again I thought would give it an edge yet I couldn't help but feel like they didn't get the most out of him. This was before Lego Batman and Bojack Horseman so perhaps his voice over work wasn't on point yet. I also couldn't help but think how much better a concept this would have been had the main character been Duke Nukem and you could get appearances by Master Chief and Mario instead of the knock off joke versions of them. It had a lot of things going for it, but just didn't quite hit the homerun it was looking for.
   
   Also if you take a look at the boxart it has Matt Hazard dual wielding a minigun and what appears to be an assault rifle maybe with an attached grenade launcher. Neither of these weapons appear in the game. You only dual wield a pair of six shooters, and sub machine guns. Based on the box art I thought this would be more of a Doom 2016 type game where you run and gun and blast your way through enemies with a seemingly limitless supply of ammo. Instead Eat Lead gave us a third person cover shooter where you tediously wait for enemies to expose their heads and you meticulously aim just to miss because the precision sucks, then wait another 30 seconds to repeat the process. Yawn. I felt lied to. If your came is soley going to be a third person cover shooter, it should be really good at that. So many games have better cover shooter mechanics and more satisfying controls. I thought of how much better Uncharted plays and feels. Furthermore the Uncharted games aren't solely third person cover shooters. They have climbing, puzzles, cinematics, driving, etc. I hate to bring up Naughty Dog games with every review but they honestly deserve it since they continue to turn out some of the best, top notch stuff. It never felt like "Eat Lead!" and felt more like "Will you let me shoot you please?"
   
   Overall this is an okay game. I found it more interesting than fun.… Expand

   • 1 of 1 users found this helpful
8. Mindkiller7522

   Jan 2, 2022

   0

   This was a truly terrible game. The only reason I picked it up in the first place was because it was supposed to be funny, but it reallyThis was a truly terrible game. The only reason I picked it up in the first place was because it was supposed to be funny, but it really failed. They had some great voice actors but the writing is not even remotely funny. And it's the type of game where you hear the same lines hundreds of times.
   
   The actual gameplay is even worse than the story. It's boring at it's best and incredibly frustrating at it's worst. A cover shooter where cover literally disappears as a mechanic and boss battles with instant death hits are just a few of the highlights.
   
   Believe the reviews and avoid this game!… Expand

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