Review: Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard (360, PS3)

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard takes a tongue-in-cheek look at video games, lampooning everything from Super Mario to Castle Wolfenstein to elevator rides that mask level loading.

The “legend” behind Matt Hazard is that he’s a venerable video game character that has seen the peaks and valleys of the biz. After starting life as a 8-bit two-dimensional character who then indulged in the excesses of his success by appearing in kart racing and water pistol knockoffs, Matt finally gets a chance to revive his career by going three dimensional.

Unfortunately, his company (Marathon Megasoft) actually wants to kill him off and introduce new characters.

The plan is revealed by a video game programmer who hacks in to the game help him survive.

Using characters from other Matt Hazard games (who are really jabs at other games), Matt must eventually defeat the evil designer.

Some of the parodies:

- Captain Carpenter is a poorly-disguised Mario the Plumber, replete with goofy hat and transportation by pipe

- Master Chef is a cooking hero who fights Haloesque bad guys.

- Bad guys who use Super Soaker-type water guns from a game called SoakEm (a nod toward the shooter SOCOM).

- A wizard-like guy who talks like William Shatner and who echos many characters from Everquest-type games.

- A boss who has the angst, stoicism and great hair from any of the Final Fantasy games who, as an added bonus, doesn’t speak. You have to read his words and dodge his fireballs.

- A multi-tentacled beast that harkens back to any number of games, including God of War.

- A female AI reminiscent of Cortana from the Halo series, going by the name of QA (Quality Assurance).

Besides targeting specific genre cliches, the game punctures broader aspects of games, like the practice of using an elevator ride to hide the loading of a new level and offering tips for playing the game during loading screens. In Eat Lead, the loading screens often feature definitions of the word “tip,” for instance

All of this jocularity makes Eat Lead stand out a bit from other generic shooters that hit the stores with regularity.

Unfortunately, the bulk of the actual gameplay in Eat Lead leans toward the routine. Wave after wave of enemies must be dispatched in much the same way in level after level, with clever asides spilling forth from Matt in the process.

Of course, maybe the developers of the game are cleverly mocking other games that feature, well, wave after wave of routine enemies dispatched with clever asides.

Nah … probably not.

Over all, the game was clever, with some mundane aspects. If you enjoy a little jab at the business along with your shooter action, take a look at Eat Lead.

Platform: Xbox 360, PS3 Rating: Teen Manufacturer: D3 Publishers Score: 7 chuckling chilies