This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360 and tested on the PlayStation 3.


In an age when few foolish things go un-mocked, it's amazing how little satire is directed at videogames. Games are just so ripe for the ripping. Decades of clichés, well-worn conventions and utter nonsense have crusted upon the videogaming world with such a thickness that much of gaming culture is a never-ending in-joke. The princess is in another castle. Shoot the red barrel. The president has been kidnapped by ninjas. Penny Arcade built an Internet empire on such absurdities. Games themselves, however, rarely look in the mirror and laugh.

One of the few things Hazard gets right is its inane mash-up of stereotypical game enemies. You can be attacked by zombies and space marines at the same time. Finally.

So it was with great anticipation and good will that I launched into Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. Cast in the game's promising cinematic intro as a kind of "Behind the Music" episode about a washed -up '80s action-game hero returning to form after years of whorish kart games and kiddy crap, Matt Hazard proceeds to fall flat. Like, 2-D flat.


At its heart, Matt Hazard is a middling, occasionally infuriating game, a third-person shooter in the vein of Gears of War with a cheap (but competent) feel and very little respect for your time. Every moment of this (long-feeling) eight-hour game is spent in one of two scenarios: 1) You're fighting an incredibly unforgiving boss battle in which old-school, Japanese-style pattern memorization struggles against less-than-ideal movement controls; 2) You're clearing out a room full of bad guys so that the door to the next room full of bad guys will open up.


I will grant that the game's assortment of stereotypical bad guys -- space marines, zombies, Soviet soldiers, terrorists, etc. -- injects a certain flavor of fun into the proceedings. A couple of the enemies have their own behaviors and weaknesses (2-D Nazis, for example, can turn their thin edge toward you, effectively becoming bullet-invisible), but most of them seem to possess the same mentally-challenged artificial intelligence. They duck behind boxes, or next to propane tanks and exploding barrels, and peek their heads out as a tantalizing headshot target. They run around in circles. They, in general, act like the characters in a '90s light gun game.

The cowboy is overacting. Gunplay in Hazard feels chintzy, underpowered and about as satisfying as the game's jokes.

That said, if the game succeeded in its satire, suffering through bargain-bin play would have been worthwhile. Unfortunately, the writing just isn't up to snuff. Even with marquee (at least for gaming) voice talent like Will Arnett and Neil Patrick Harris, Matt Hazard can't shake the generic feeling it's trying so hard to make fun of. An ongoing joke in the game: Hazard has a catchphrase, "It's Hazard Time," but no one thinks it's cool. End of joke. The funniest moment in the game is a conversation between Hazard (who, as a modern space marine action-type, has a voice actor) and a long-haired, mega-sword-wielding Japanese role-playing game character who speaks through a scrolling text box. Hazard has to click through a mountain of dialogue to get to the point. Funny? For a certain crowd, maybe.


And that's the rub. Only a hardcore gamer could appreciate (or, potentially, laugh) at the secret handshakes and game review-derived jabs that pass for satire in Matt Hazard. But a hardcore gamer would never want to play such an unrefined, lazy, repetitive game. Wherever Matt Hazard is returning from, he should book a flight back.


This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.