The legend that is Matt Hazard is back, 25 years after his very first game and 6 years after his last game hit the shelves, well that’s what the story that Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard would have you believe anyway. The truth is though that Matt Hazard has never been on a console before, therefore anyone think who knows gaming inside out and was thinking “the return of who?”, don’t panic because you aren’t losing your memory. 

 

Matt Hazard is in fact a fictional character who is depicted as a famous gaming hero who is basically making a comeback in a new video game (Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard).

 

 

Given the rather confusing title of the game, it will probably not come as a surprise that the story itself is not your usual type. Basically Matt is no longer the big name he used to be, he was the big action hero of his time, however it wasn’t long before he got greedy and lent his name to Kart racers and such, therefore taking away from what made him great in he first place. All isn’t lost though as Matt has a contract with his company, which means he isn’t out of work at least, and when a new boss takes over Matt finally gets the chance to return to former glory, well at least that’s what he thinks.

 

When you get into the game it soon becomes apparent that the new boss is out to get Matt by trying to kill him, he does this by uploading all sorts of enemies for Matt to beat, as well as a new character which is actually there to replace him. It all does get a bit bizarre in places.

 

The action plays out in a third person view, Matt can take cover behind most objects and actually the cover system is probably one of the best parts of the game, this is because it allows you to looks around the sides of your cover, aim and fire at enemies and best of all, with the press of a button you can scramble and take cover behind the next available hiding spot, which is actually a really good idea. Matt can only carry two weapons at a time and he is also restricted in ammo, therefore you need to make sure that you pick some up after killing the enemy. There are also power-up’s available such as invulnerability, which obviously helps you through the pile of enemies in your path.

 

The enemies you face all vary thanks to this being a parody of all thing action gaming, therefore expect to face up to Zombies, Cowboys, Space Marines, the Russian Mafia and more, but just don’t expect to have too much fun doing it, even though Eat Lead will throw in a few jokes at other games expense. One of the strange things about the combat is that sometimes you are able to shoot enemies even if they are hiding behind cover, however there are far worse problems than this, such as miraculously spawning bad guys, who seem to appear from nowhere half the time and the erratic camera which the less said about the better.

 

Graphically the game is certainly no oil painting, in fact I am sure that this game would easily play on the Playstation 2 without too much trouble. The levels and their environments just don’t seem to have a lot to them, not that they are lacking in detail it’s just that they are average and no more.

 

 

The voice acting is at least a step up in class, the actors do a good job of reading their lines and this helps make things a little more bearable, it’s just a pity that the rest of the game isn’t up to the same standard.

 

This is certainly a game achievement junkies will love, pausing the game and watching the credits alone gives you two achievements while others seem to pop up constantly. The easy achievements probably help add up to the games main problem which is that it doesn’t seem like a lot of thought has gone into it.

 

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard is one of those games that makes you think “why bother?” I’m sure the developer’s time could have been spent better than this, though it’s not that it is a terrible game, it’s just that there are so many better one’s out there and therefore this one deserves to be overlooked.