Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard

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.

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.

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.

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!

Eat lead has its humor going for it, and perhaps is the only reason the game should be played.

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.

It's too agonising to play through - and while that might be intentional, it's not in any way enjoyable. [May 2009, p.86]

This is a game that doesn't take itself or the videogame industry seriously. The main focus here is humour and taking cracks at stereotype content in different gaming genres. There are some laughs to be had here, but since the game is utterly mediocre in every category it tries to make fun of the overall feeling is that the parody aspect is just a way to mask a poorly executed game.

You'll be laughing at, not with, this parody - which perpetuates every cliche it sets out to mock.

Eat Lead wants to be recognised as this post-modern mockery of all those big budget and casual games that sell rather well. But it’s not, it’s just some guy who thinks he’s rather clever, telling obvious jokes that everyone gets that got old two years ago.

The villain's aim is to destroy Matt Hazzard. This game does it for him. [June 2009, p.78]

The only real laugh in this game comes in the opening introduction (which you can watch in its almost-entirety here). The rest of the game is a plodding, boring mess that that forces you to play through the worst shooter genre clichés, and then asks you to laugh simply because the game's creators self-referentially point out how annoying those tropes are.

If only the rest of the game had offered some fraction of this scene's inspiration, Eat Lead might have even been worth buying, rather than just taking up space in the budget bin.

Ultimately, it’s a shame to see a game with such an intriguing concept go to ruin.