First Look: Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard
Do you remember Matt Hazard? Yeah, his prime is definitely past, but the action hero is coming back in Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard, a sequel to a series of games that never actually existed. D3Publisher showed off some pre-alpha of their new third person shooter, and it actually looks worthy of misplacing some nostalgia over.
Picture a space marine in retirement, ok, maybe not really a space marine, but he’s just as bald as one. You’ve pictured Matt Hazard, a has-been following the severe downturn of his illustrious career with that awful looking kart racer, Haz-Matt Karts (or so the lore goes). When Wallis Wesley III gains control over Matt’s old publisher, Marathon, and invites him to come back for a fancy next gen title (yep, it’ll be on Xbox 360 and PS3), well, such things generally turn out too good to be true. Now Matt has to beat the game or, you know, die.
Luckily he’s got contact with QA, his real world sidekick projected as a hologram in-game, to be helpful as the onslaught of enemies ensues. The level we saw was a hostage rescue—one of Matt’s old game pals–the venue: a nightclub fronted by a butcher shop. First you’re just shooting pretty generic thugs/agents, but things get a bit meta as the big bad guys engineering the game start hacking stuff in left and right. Zombies? Sure! Cowboys, and a whole Wild West showdown? You bet! It’s not totally random—Matt has a long history and his nemesis clearly knows how to reach—since all of these challenges are throwbacks to Matt’s old games. (Sadly, we’ve been told there will not be a kart racing level, but my next hypothesis is mythical beasts, from Matt’s hit, Conflict of the Deities.)
The game mechanics are pretty much what you would expect from a cover-based third person shooter, but perhaps more accessible. For example, the Point and Cover system makes it really easy to dodge between covered locations, since you can just aim your reticule at your next spot, and hit Y to move. No fumbling around to see if you’re stuck to the wall or not. The Vicious Engine provides physics, and of course, there are interactive environmental tidbits, like fire extinguishers you can shoot to explode.
One cool thing to watch for is how enemies “de-rez” in a cloud of blue pixels instead of die in a more traditional sense. Matt can actually absorb some of this data to get new powers. If he nicks the six shooter ability from a cowboy, for instance, he’ll be able to dual wield pistols that obviously aren’t as powerful as a magnum, but they make up for it by stunning.
Since the game is clearly personality driven, it seems fitting that D3 has gotten two rad personalities to lend voice talent to the main characters. Will Arnet (Arrested Development, 30 Rock) will be playing Matt Hazard, and Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog, and yes, Doogie Howser, M.D.) gets to be evil again in the role of Wallis Wesley III.
I’m definitely looking forward to more news about Matt Hazard. I love the totally meta plotline (not to mention the elaborate backstory they’ve created) and it’ll be interesting to see what sorts of parodies will appear. Q1 gets closer everyday, but in the meantime you can follow this goofy blog (seriously cracks me up sometimes) and “reminisce” over on Facebook.
