Written by: Ian

 

 

 

Humour has always been one of the hardest things to pull of in a game due to the difficulty in delivering lines and pulling off expressions. Does this humour-orientated 3rd person shooter, "Eat Lead: The Return Of Matt Hazard" have what it takes?

 

Featuring American comics Neil Patrick Harris and Will Arnet, can this game succeed where so many others have failed?

 

 

The story is both innovative and dull at the same time. You play as Matt Hazard, a once famous star of 80’s and 90’s games (basically rip-offs of Doom & Duke Nukem) who got washed up after ill-advised karting and water-pistol games. This is your big comeback title, but the president of the publishing company actually tries to kill you off by hacking the code.

 

This brings back enemies, weapons and levels from your previous games that you need to fight off to survive to the end. This allows lots of different level and character designs, and ensuing attempts at jokes, but many of them are either tired, fall flat, or are so deeply rooted in gaming lore that few people will actually get the references. It certainly doesn’t help that Arnet in particular sleeps through many of his lines.

 

 

When the game does deliver with the humour it can be quite funny, but it rarely raised more than a chuckle in my opinion.

 

 

The standard of the gameplay follows a similar pattern to the visual aspects of the game. I’m struggling to think of a game that’s ever been so middle of the road in terms of everything. Again, there’s nothing broken about the game- the cover works, the aiming is pretty solid, there are plenty of guns.

 

You can also power up your weapons, and the AI, whilst fairly stupid, do occasionally attempt to work together, take cover and move to flank you. Having said that, there are a host of issues that stop the game from being up there with the best.

 

Again, whilst it’s difficult to tell whether it’s intentional, given the style of the content, there are moments when the AI is utterly appalling, basically standing there just waiting to be shot. Either way, there are some terrible moments when stuff will spawn in right behind you with no warning and kill you- mostly it seems when you are going to fast for the game’s liking and the spawning points haven’t kept up with your own pace. Also, some enemies take to bullets like they are made of water, and the quick time events are fairly dull and repetitive, even by the standards of the genre.

 

 

Having said that, there’s nothing too bad about the game, and there are quite a few easy achievement points on offer for those that like to collect them! It’s also a short game with no multiplayer, which does affect the scores too, but honestly, whilst it’s nothing special, if you need a rental or are desperate for a new 3rd person actioner, Eat Lead will do you ok for a few hours.

 

 

In fact, despite the variety on offer, the game rarely rises above mediocrity. Matt Hazard himself looks like a really generic rip-off of Duke Nukem, but without any original traits that would bring the game up.

 

Also, the colour set used throughout is quite dull, and would benefit from some brighter colours- the game constantly looks pretty drab, and not in an industrial way like say GoW. Having said that, the frame rate is solid, and there’s no screen tearing- there’s nothing terrible here, but in a world populated by RE5 and GoW, there’s just nothing special here.

 

 

The sound follows a similar pattern, with some really generic music and sound effects. As mentioned before, a lot of the voice acting is also pretty poorly done, despite the celebrity voice talent. There are some good lines, but a lot of rubbish as well, which is a shame in a game that relies so much on its lines.

 

 

Nothing to see here! Eat Lead has to be probably the first, and perhaps only 3rd person action game to feature neither co-op nor multiplayer- it’s an odd decision and one that smacks of trying to keep the game’s budget down.

 

It certainly affects the value of the game, as a 4-5 hour single player coupled with no multiplayer means that the price per hour of gameplay is significantly higher than in many other titles.

 

 

"Eat Lead: The Return Of Matt Hazard" is a real mixed bag. The standard of the animation is often pretty poor, although sometimes it’s difficult to tell whether this is intentional or not. Howevere, what it does mean is that a lot of the humour falls pretty flat. It’s also very specialist stuff, so unless you’re a pretty hardcore gamer, and have been for many years, you may find that a lot of the jokes you just won’t get anyway.

 

And if you are a hardcore gamer, then you’ll probably find out pretty quickly that the gameplay involved is really pretty mediocre, run of the mill 3rd person stuff. There’s nothing really terrible about the game, but in a world where the genre is fast becoming saturated, whilst there are far worse titles, there are so many superior titles out there, Eat Lead can only really be recommended for those looking for a quick rental to boost their gamerscore.

 

 

 

+ Good mix of levels
+ Lots of weapons
+ Some specialist jokes do work

 

- Not very funny
- Dumb A
- No multiplayer