You know what, call me crazy, it's probably true, but I I really enjoyed this game. I can't say it's a great game. Heck, I'm pretty sure it's mediocre. But it certainly has its charms.
At this point you probably have wondered, who the fuck is Matt Hazard? He's basically an alternate universe Duke Nukem, but with everything problematic toned way down. In the game's world, he's a legendary video game character that have fallen through the cracks after a string of bad spinoff games, but he's got one more chance to be in a good game. Obviously things doesn't go as planned, and now he has to fight his way through a ton of bad enemy AI to prevent his deletion from the game company's server, which will effectively turn him into lost media. While the main idea of the story is nothing too unique, and the writing is just meh, I grew to enjoy the game's messed up virtual game world gimmick a lot. It leads to a handful of neat moments and details, like seeing Matt's wholesome interactions with his fellow famous video game character compatriots (expect some lazy parodies of real game characters). I can't say that the humor lands, but it never feels like the game is trying too hard to be funny, and honestly that is enough to make the story feel enjoyable. Having Will Arnett and Neil Patrick Harris as voice actors also helps, they did an okay job here.
The gimmick is also used as an excuse to throw a bunch of different enemy art styles together. Matt has lived a long life, and he's been in all sorts of games. Now, old enemies from his past gets uploaded to the game occasionally. You can expect to see regular modern setting enemies, old timey cowboys with revolvers, space marines, zombies, and even water gun soldiers. It does lead to a messy visual identity, and on the mechanics side, they didn't do quite enough to differentiate them, but I think it adds to the charm of the game. There's something fun about seeing how honest the game is at presenting its virtual world setting. It's not a game that is trying to fool you to thinking that its set in the real world, in fact it's the opposite of that. Sometimes I get reminded of much cooler games like No More Heroes, there's clearly a vision that the devs are aiming for, even if a lot of it gets lost in execution.
As a cover shooter aficionado, I think that the gunplay is pretty decent. The impact of the gun effects are not that satisfying, and it doesn't really feel like you're shooting powerful weapons. But there's a decent amount of challenge here, although it can wildly spike at times, leading to some pretty frustrating moments. Thankfully the checkpoint system is excellent, it saves often and respawning after dying happens in like a second. The weapon variety is pretty good, although the lack of grenades or any throwable weapons is quite confusing. The cover system is functional enough, I rarely had problems such as hunkering down in a spot that I didn't intend to.
Lastly, I can't say the "boss fights" in this game are any good, except one. It happens to be a spoof of a stereotypical turn based JRPG boss fight, but you're still fighting it in real time with guns, while the boss attacks by waiting for his MP to fill up before selecting his attacks (which you can see as a floating menu with classic blue Final Fantasy style textbox). It's actually really neat, haven't played any other game that does it like this.
Eat Lead is a respectable attempt at a "game about games" game, even if it can feel like it barely got in the finish line just in time. It's one of the games that you wished would get a sequel, there's just so much to flesh out and improve on, the jump in quality could be night and day.
At this point you probably have wondered, who the fuck is Matt Hazard? He's basically an alternate universe Duke Nukem, but with everything problematic toned way down. In the game's world, he's a legendary video game character that have fallen through the cracks after a string of bad spinoff games, but he's got one more chance to be in a good game. Obviously things doesn't go as planned, and now he has to fight his way through a ton of bad enemy AI to prevent his deletion from the game company's server, which will effectively turn him into lost media. While the main idea of the story is nothing too unique, and the writing is just meh, I grew to enjoy the game's messed up virtual game world gimmick a lot. It leads to a handful of neat moments and details, like seeing Matt's wholesome interactions with his fellow famous video game character compatriots (expect some lazy parodies of real game characters). I can't say that the humor lands, but it never feels like the game is trying too hard to be funny, and honestly that is enough to make the story feel enjoyable. Having Will Arnett and Neil Patrick Harris as voice actors also helps, they did an okay job here.
The gimmick is also used as an excuse to throw a bunch of different enemy art styles together. Matt has lived a long life, and he's been in all sorts of games. Now, old enemies from his past gets uploaded to the game occasionally. You can expect to see regular modern setting enemies, old timey cowboys with revolvers, space marines, zombies, and even water gun soldiers. It does lead to a messy visual identity, and on the mechanics side, they didn't do quite enough to differentiate them, but I think it adds to the charm of the game. There's something fun about seeing how honest the game is at presenting its virtual world setting. It's not a game that is trying to fool you to thinking that its set in the real world, in fact it's the opposite of that. Sometimes I get reminded of much cooler games like No More Heroes, there's clearly a vision that the devs are aiming for, even if a lot of it gets lost in execution.
As a cover shooter aficionado, I think that the gunplay is pretty decent. The impact of the gun effects are not that satisfying, and it doesn't really feel like you're shooting powerful weapons. But there's a decent amount of challenge here, although it can wildly spike at times, leading to some pretty frustrating moments. Thankfully the checkpoint system is excellent, it saves often and respawning after dying happens in like a second. The weapon variety is pretty good, although the lack of grenades or any throwable weapons is quite confusing. The cover system is functional enough, I rarely had problems such as hunkering down in a spot that I didn't intend to.
Lastly, I can't say the "boss fights" in this game are any good, except one. It happens to be a spoof of a stereotypical turn based JRPG boss fight, but you're still fighting it in real time with guns, while the boss attacks by waiting for his MP to fill up before selecting his attacks (which you can see as a floating menu with classic blue Final Fantasy style textbox). It's actually really neat, haven't played any other game that does it like this.
Eat Lead is a respectable attempt at a "game about games" game, even if it can feel like it barely got in the finish line just in time. It's one of the games that you wished would get a sequel, there's just so much to flesh out and improve on, the jump in quality could be night and day.