Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard

 PlayStation 3
Metascore
51

Mixed or average reviews - based on 38 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 38
  2. Mixed: 26 out of 38
  3. Negative: 12 out of 38
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  1. Cheat Code Central
    48
    I love what Vicious Cycle and D3Publisher tried to accomplish with Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. Unfortunately, the satire and humor isn't enough to save the title from its contrived gameplay.
  2. GamingXP
    43
    On the whole, you’ll experience a game that takes neither itself nor the consumer seriously. The “humorous” vibe of the game isn’t funny and the gameplay sucks, too.
  3. GameShark
    42
    Matt Hazard’s designers clearly tried to do something interesting here, and the basic concept of a videogame action star as a washed-up Hollywood type is really quite cool. If only the game actually lived up to its premise.
  5. G4 TV
    40
    No amount of clever quips and Master Chief parody characters is worth slogging through a shooter that makes Dark Sector look like an inspired stroke of genius. By the end of the game, no amount of clever enemy character names or profanity-laced outbursts by Neil Patrick Harris can distract you from the fact that you’re simply not having much fun.
  6. Giant Bomb
    40
    Humor is entirely subjective, and maybe some of the stuff I found to be a little easy and dull will get you going. However, I'm a lot more certain about the quality of Matt Hazard's gameplay, which almost feels like it's going out of its way to be mediocre at best. Hey, maybe that's part of the joke!
  7. Gamer.nl
    40
    The idea behind Eat Lead sounds more than fine and the humor and self-mockery in the game should be an example for other developers. For the rest there is little to be proud of. Return to sender.
  8. Play UK
    38
    Matt Hazard was a good idea that could have been something like the gaming equivalent of Naked Gun. Unfortunately, Vicious Cycle messed it up, so as well as a bad game, we must now bear the disappointment of a wasted premise.
  9. Eurogamer
    30
    Eat Lead is far from a compelling parody, taking weak, ambiguous pot shots at other games. Even though these attacks are often hard to trace to their intended target, it's fair to say that Eat Lead isn't worthy to mock them, because whatever else it's trying to be this is a howling misfire of a cover shooter, neither funny or enjoyable, and guilty of worse crimes than the ones it's attempting to mock.
  10. Playstation Official Magazine UK
    30
    There's crippling slowdown and the excruciating script. [May 2009, p.102]
    All this publication's reviews
  11. PS3bloggen.se
    30
    Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard is somewhat funny, but not fun. A weak game engine, stupid AI and repetitive gameplay cannot save humour - no matter the quality and depth. Matt Hazard is a Duke Nukem copycat that fails to deliver. Just as the original Duke Nukem, as it turned out in the end.
  12. PSW Magazine UK
    30
    This is its own worse joke. Matt Hazard should have stayed retired. [May 2009, p.93]
    All this publication's reviews
  13. 1UP
    25
    Like the "real" Matt Hazard, Eat Lead is best left to fade into obscurity.

Awards & Rankings

61
#61 Most Discussed PS3 Game of 2009
59
#59 Most Shared PS3 Game of 2009

User Reviews

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User Score
6.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 35 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 35
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 35
  3. Negative: 10 out of 35
  1. 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.    … Full Review »
  2. samos2-3
    Feb 25, 2017
    3
    I really wanted to like this game. It has some great humor and jokes and well...that's about it. This is a cover based shooter but it isn'tI really wanted to like this game. It has some great humor and jokes and well...that's about it. This is a cover based shooter but it isn't done very well. Most often it was just easier not to get behind cover and simply shoot the enemy before they shot me. Rinse and repeat. The levels are uninspired, and drag on far too long, the graphics are bland and the game is pretty short. Most will be able to beat it in one or two game sessions. But thank God for that! Just an overall blah type of game in general.… Full Review »
  3. 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 low    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 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.    … Full Review »
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