Review by: Danielle Riendeau

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard is officially my pick for “could‘ a, should’ a, would’ a” game of the year – at least, so far. The title has a fantastic premise – it’s an over-the-top satire of videogames (and to an extent, Hollywood) that takes shots at every genre, it breaks the fourth wall in making fun of itself, and it features the impressive talents of actors Neil Patrick Harris and Will Arnett. Unfortunately, the gameplay drags it all down.

As soon as you boot up, you’re treated to a hilarious cutscene that introduces Matt Hazard, a fictional star of action games with a prolific history in the industry. Spoofing everything from Wolfenstein 3D to BioShock to Mario Kart, this sequence promises great things.

It seems that our aging action star has been called out of beer-bellied retirement to star in a new, “next-gen” game, and he just couldn’t refuse. However, not long after the amusing tutorial, Matt senses that not all is well in his Hong Kong detective/action game. Someone is hacking into the computers at his parent corporation and whoever it is; they mean to kill all of the classic game stars. Soon enough, a cute Cortana-esque hacker comes to your aid, and she sends you packing on a wild adventure through the tropes of videogame history.

As you progress through the title, the harebrained plot gets progressively wackier, with more game references than you could hope to count. The title pokes fun at everything from first generation FPS’ to Japanese RPGs, and just about every famous character and archetype is trotted out for good measure. You’ll fight every enemy from the videogame clichés handbook: zombies, angry Soviets in snow gear, pixilated Nazis, JRPG monsters, Japanese Henchmen, space marines, cowboys, blaxploitation ninjas, commandoes – you name it.