A game that knows its role, but do you?

by Daniel White

Fun factor: Average

Worth to: Rent

A tongue-in-cheek parody of gaming lore that will get some laughs, if one knows how to enjoy the mayhem and crazy story, as well the occasional bug

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard is a game that knows its place and plays its role very well. Snuggled somewhere between tongue-in-cheek and outright parody at all times, Eat Lead laughs at almost every game ever made -- itself included. The story is extremely entertaining, particularly for those with a long history of gaming, as it pokes fun at everything in gaming, from overriding game stereotypes to particular titles. The gameplay, while flawed, is solid enough to give a good all-around experience, making Eat Lead a fantastic choice for the gamer looking to laugh.

Story

Eat Lead puts you in the shoes of Matt Hazard, a washed-up action game star who’s trying to make a comeback. Needless to say, there’s a twist -- at the end of the first level, you learn that somebody has deleted all your saves and is trying to kill you… for good. To aid in this endeavor, this unknown enemy has hacked into the game and continually changes the programming by inserting foes Matt had bested in earlier (fictional) games.



Fortunately, you have help from outside the game. A woman going simply by ‘QA’ does all she can to help by creating exits and powerups or providing advice. So, together with QA, you hope to discover your faceless adversary and bring him or her to justice.

As you can probably tell, the plot is ridiculous, but that’s what makes it awesome. The writing is perfect -- there are a number of examples of horrible lines, but it’s all clearly intentional. You’ll run across a number of clichéd action game villains, a couple RPG sorcerers, parodies of some of gaming’s great heroes, and endless streams of anonymous minions. Eat Lead contains a number of nods to various aspects of the history of gaming, all of which are incorporated seamlessly into its absurd storyline.

Probably the funniest parts are the quips characters make during combat. They’re usually terrible one-liners, but they’re the kind of things you’d expect to hear in the middle of a firefight. They’re great comments on the sorts of stupid things that happen in games all the time, so experienced gamers will enjoy the writing tremendously (assuming they have a sense of humor, of course).

Granted, it’s not without its flaws. There are, naturally, a limited number of random phrases that Matt and enemies can scream during combat, so it’s virtually certain that you’ll hear some of the same lines over and over. Throughout most of the game, the diversity of enemies and situations puts enough space between these repeated phrases that it doesn’t seem that bad, but near the end, there’s a section where it feels like you are hearing the same taunts only minutes apart.

Gameplay

Gameplay in Eat Lead provides little more than your standard third-person shooter. You’ll run around, viewing the action from a third-person perspective, shooting enemies and advancing the story. For the most part, the controls are decently responsive. Aiming and maneuvering about the levels work fairly well, allowing for smooth yet speedy reactions most of the time.



The biggest problem in terms of control is the cover system. You can hide behind damn near everything, vault over low cover and run quickly to another form of cover with the press of a button. At first glance, the system seems solid, but after playing for an extended period, flaws begin to emerge. Most frustrating is the fact that taking cover can shift your perspective. As a third-person game, you’re always looking over one of Matt’s shoulders, but depending on how you move when behind cover, your perspective may shift. This can create problems during a firefight as it may obscure your view in unexpected ways. It would have been nice to have a button that would quickly switch between the perspectives, rather than needing to awkwardly fumble with cover to fix it.

The Guns

Aside from the quirky writing, the thing that really sets Eat Lead apart is the weapons. Because you’re fighting enemies from Matt’s previous games, you’ll be using an interesting variety of weapons.

Unfortunately, most of them are similar to what you’d expect from an action game: six-shooters, shotguns, plasma rifles, and SMGs make up most of the weapons. But seeing combat with water pistols is almost worth the price of admission.

To add to some of the strategy, you can only carry two guns at once and some enemies have immunities. For example, the commandos from ‘Soak ‘Em’ will die with a single headshot from a water pistol, but will take several shots from any other gun. It’s kind of a cool concept, but it’s a shame that there are not more of these unique weapons.

The Frustrations

In addition to the problems already mentioned, Eat Lead suffers from another major flaw: some battles can be extremely frustrating. Because foes are ‘hacked’ into the game, they regularly appear behind you, preventing you from cleaning the enemies out of a room before advancing. As such, you’ll be ambushed from behind on a number of occasions, which can get terribly annoying.



And the bosses, although they’re really cool, they can also be extremely frustrating. In most of the boss battles, there is a continuous stream of normal enemies spawning to keep pressuring you. It may be a more realistic or challenging system, but it just felt absurdly unfair at times. To be honest, I was more frustrated playing this game than any I can remember in recent times. On occasion it made for a less than enjoyable experience.

The game is also fairly short. You can complete the storyline within 10 hours and, unless you want to tackle it on a harder difficulty setting, there’s nothing else to do. There are no unlockables, no hidden secrets, and no multiplayer options, so there’s very little replay value. Sure, it’s hilarious, even on the second time through, but the gameplay options are fairly limited.

Graphics and Sound

Graphics and sound sit somewhere between the high-quality writing and mundane gameplay. Visually, Eat Lead isn’t fabulous, but it gets the job done. During normal gameplay, and most of the cutscenes, the game looks pretty good. Models are generally very smooth and animations look realistic (with the exception of Matt running, but I think that was intentional because he looks really awkward). The textures and environments are fairly diverse and full of color, so it usually looks great.

The biggest graphical problem is lip-syncing. When a character talks, his or her mouth motions look very uncomfortable. To make matters worse, the emotion in facial expressions is not only lacking, it looks horribly artificial, making for an all-around disappointing display of character interactions. Thankfully, these flaws really only pop up a few times throughout the game, so they aren’t really that big of a deal.

The audio, on the other hand, is amazing. With high-quality voice talent like Will Arnett and Neil Patrick Harris, the dialogue always sounds fantastic. Even the taunts of the many faceless enemies are awesomely done. Couple that with fabulous sound effects (the squirt guns are hilarious) and you have some great auditory experiences.



Unfortunately, the music isn’t all that great. Sure, the individual tracks heighten the sense of tense action quite well, but there just aren’t that many of them. If there had been a few more tracks that reached the high standards set by the other songs in the game, it would have been an unbeatable soundtrack. But as it stands, it seems like there are only three themes throughout the entire game…

Summary

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard is a game that doesn’t take itself very seriously. If you’re looking for an entertaining romp through the history of gaming, seeing parodies of some of gaming’s greatest, Eat Lead is a great choice. If you’re hoping for revolutionary or calming gameplay, you’d better stay away.

Overall, the reasonably short length and lack of replay incentive mean this game would make a great rental for most gamers, but if you’re a fan of satirical humor, it may be worth buying.