When I first played "
Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard", I fell in love with the main character and all the witty jokes that came with him. This past Wednesday, I heard that "
Matt Hazard: Blood, Bath, and Beyond" had released on Xbox Live arcade, and was all but happy about buying it, but it's clear now, that I had wasted my money.
Graphics: The graphics of Matt Hazard: BBB are excellent. They seem very comparable to those of Shadow Complex. There's not much to say about it, except that everything looks as it's supposed to.
Storyline: Had you played
Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard, you will easily recognize the nemesis from that game is your enemy in this game. Basically the storyline goes like this. He is running all through game "servers" trying to go some place where he may delete the past you, which would cause the future you to not exist....a tad funny, but all in all cheesy.
Gameplay: I'm going to put this as bluntly as possible. The gameplay in Matt Hazard: BBB is TERRIBLE. They offer three difficulty settings that spam over 8 levels. That's not so bad for an arcade game, but the problem here, is that the easiest difficulty isn't even EASY....it's harder than anything. "Wussy" difficulty as it is called, can be compared with that of Call of Duty's Hardened difficulty....Yep, it's just that hard
The main problem of the gameplay, is that enemies take WAY too many shots to die. The weapon you start with is so underpowered that it takes 3-4 shots to kill even the weakest enemies. Even the melee attack is stronger than the gun itself, but getting in too close gets you hurt.
There is so much absolute chaos going on at one time, that it's hard to even focus on the "bullets" and things that are coming toward you.
Worst of all, they punish you for dying. It's nearly impossible NOT to die in this game, with all the crap they do to make you die. Like balancing you on a small platform over water that will kill you and make you fight 5 different enemies trying to shoot you.
Oh, I forgot to mention this, enemies are in the background of levels too, just like in Shadow Complex. But at least in Shadow Complex, there wasn't 12 enemies in what little area.
Controls: The controls are garbage. So basically you use the left stick to move, [A] to jump, [X] to shoot/melee, [Y] to turn on Hazard Time, [LB] and [RB] to "manually aim". [LT] to aim in the background, and finally [RT] to throw grenades. What the game is missing is some sort of AUTO aim instead of manual aim. The manual aim feature is so sensitive that it's nearly impossible to get the guy up on the platform as quickly as possible without getting shot elsewhere.
The worst part of the controls is the lunar lander thing you have to fly on the last level. I swear to god, the controls for that are right out of a Nintendo game. They are SO sensitive, it's almost impossible to even complete it. Basically, I hit [A] for the throttle, and tapped the D-pad right, and the *** damn thing went flying off screen. Oh, and guess what, the idiot developers punish YOU if you go off screen, because it's totally our fault that the controls for their xbox 360 game are so broken.
Multiplayer: There is only co-op, but you need a second controller to play it. There is
NO ONLINE CO-OP. Yep, that's right, so you better have a friend willing to come over and play this crap with you, otherwise you'll have a hard time trying to get it with just using a second controller and playing on your first controller.
Achievements: The achievements are garbage as well. "Complete this level without using a continue." Yeah, that actually IS an achievement, because it's almost impossible not to die. "Complete this boss without losing a life". Possible, but almost impossible, since the boss has way too many attacks. To see a list of the achievements, you can go here:
https://www.trueachievements.com/Matt-Hazard-BBB-xbox-3....htm.
Final Thought This game is only getting two stars for a slim reason. The fact that it makes fun of other games, but even that is starting to fade.
What made "Eat Lead" one great game to play, is all the jokes and mischief that poked fun at other video games, and the voice actors witty tone. In Matt Hazard: BBB, almost ALL of that is missing. Voice actors have been replaced by text, there are only a few things said throughout gameplay, and the only real humor, is that made up by you, when you realize what game is being poked fun at.
2.0