Written by: Alex

 

 

 

Conceptually Matt Hazard is an interesting idea. Imagined as a classic video game hero, the designers went about chronicling a fictional back catalogue of Matt Hazard games. From the tiny pixilated sprites of the 8-bit days, his story depicted a franchise dyeing as he slid in to obscurity with the move to 3D. Which is where the series began, with Matt languishing in obscurity before being called back in to action to fight off his old nemesis who was wreaking havoc in the modern gaming world.

 

It was a fun premise filled with promise, but the original game, Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard, failed to garner positive attention from press. Determined not to let all of their hard work on the IP go to waste, developer Vicious Cycle have returned with the downloadable side scrolling shooter, "Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond".

 

 

Vicious Cycle at least has a sense of humour about the lack lustre performance Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. Cracking wise about the lack of voice acting other cuts in the production value from the start, including the switch to 2D. Dropping Matt back into a side-scrolling shooter makes perfect sense for the character, as it returns him to his fictitious roots.

 

 

Dropping Matt in to all manner of bizarre, miss-matched (yet generic) levels the story justifies its inconsistency by framing it as a chase through old games to track down the evil Neutronov.

 

Supposedly Neutronov has captured 8-bit Matt in the past, forcing Matt to save himself in an attempt to prevent his erasure from existence. Everyone in the game acknowledges the fact that the plot is filled with holes, clichéd and ludicrous, which at least saved me the trouble of trying to get my head around it.

 

 

Matt Hazard 2.5D style has become very popular of late, a three-dimensional world that locks the player on to a single plane to imitate a classic two-dimensional experience. Problematically this 3D style proves more difficult to control than its sprite based counterparts. Physics engines result in everything feeling inexplicably loose, and the smooth movement of the characters removes the more cut and dry frames of animation that would provide cues to experienced 2D players. 

 

The use of 3D models feels like a missed opportunity. With Matt’s supposed history spanning so many years of the golden years of gaming I had hoped for a game whose style progressed from 8-bit to modern HD. I suspect the cost and time associated with animating so many individually draw frames removed any such ideas from the table.

 

 

It is worth noting that Matt Hazard: BBB contains a considerable amount of gore. Blood splatters are frequent and copious, which ordinarily wouldn’t surprise me in a shooter, but here it did. It wasn’t that the gore would cover the floor, or spray on the screen, but because the first Matt Hazard game contained very little blood. It is an incongruous and unnecessary change when you consider the genre the game is playing homage to rarely contained blood, despite its violence.

At least the ‘cut-scenes’ retain the charm of the past.

 

With no animation, the simple character images and accompanying text manage to please courtesy of their self-awareness of being in a game. The villain consciously explains his plots to the heroes, who in turn know their role in the story. It often comes off as cheesy, but as long as you are prepared for its campiness, it can be genuinely funny at and should at least raise a smile from older gamers familiar with the genres clichés.

 

 

As previously mentioned running in a 3D engine brings with it issues. With a full 360 degrees of directional fire the game feels trickier to control than its conventional sprite based counterparts. It could be a product of having grown up in the ’80 and ’90, but I found myself longing to be limited to the 8 compass points of the d-pad. This combined with the looseness of the jumps left me with feeling I was playing with mittens on.