The first Matt Hazard game bombed. Big time. The story of the fictional former video game icon doing a return seemingly didn’t appeal to anyone. Or maybe it was the mediocre and very buggy gameplay. Who knows?</sarcasm>

On my side, I appreciated the humor, but the game didn’t really feel right. Following the first Matt Hazard comes a new game in the series, this one going for what the first game SHOULD have been: a Contra/Metal Slug-like action platformer.

So did Matt Hazard finally find his genre of choice, or should he just give up?
Read on and see!

Developer: Vicious Cycle
Publisher: D3Publisher
Date of Release: January 7th 2010

Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360 (on PSN and XBLA)

Genre: Side-scrolling action platformer
Players: 1-2
Rated M for Mature (though I have no idea why)

Looks and sounds
The character and enemy design is very basic. They didn’t get really creative on that end. The level designs are a bit better, especially the ones parodying other games, and the game brings you through a lot of different and varied areas. The graphical quality is pretty good. I’d say around the level of Shadow Complex, but a bit more cartoonish and colorful. It looks quite good.

The sound is okay. Not lots of memorable music, but nothing really bad. The voice acting is almost non-existent other than Matt’s few one-liners during gameplay. If you play in co-op, Matt has some guy with a really annoying voice as a partner… That part of the voice acting isn’t too good. The rest of the sounds are normal stuff you hear in any other game.

Story
Eat Lead got crappy reviews and low sales, therefore landed in the bargain bin(yeah, that’s actually in the game’s story). With Eat Lead, Matt couldn’t return to his former glory. To make matters worse, Matt’s sworn enemy Dr Neutronov went back in time and kidnapped Matt Hazard(8-bit version) in his first game, and plans on destroying him… which will at the same time eliminate Matt from present time and through all of video game history. So to stop this from happening, Matt goes through the Marathon Games servers in search of the evil doctor. So Matt has to go through various games stored in the servers to find him. Each game Matt goes through has corrupted code that brings in data from other games, including areas and enemies…

Yeah, that’s about it. The game uses just about the same type of humor as in the first game. Lots of references to various real games, some level designs or visual styles from other games, satire of games or even real life stereotypes. The game is fairly funny, but the humor can get old fast. Overall this isn’t a game you get for story (obviously), and the humor is really only effective on the first playthrough.

Gameplay
The gameplay is basically Metal Slug mixed with Metal Slug mixed with Contra mixed with Contra. It’s the basic Action platformer gameplay. Run to the right and shoot everything on your way. There’s nothing more satisfying that being a one-man army and killing everything in your way

There’s a few things you can do here: shoot, free-aim in any direction, jump, throw grenades, aim in the background and activate Hazard Time. The game has enemies both at the same level as you, or in the background hiding away from your normal aim, each of them shooting at you or trying to get close to you for the kill. If you’re touching a normal enemy, attacking will do a melee attack instantly killing them, unless it’s bigger monsters or boss, where you’ll just normally shoot. Aiming in the background will auto-aim towards anything that’s around the area you’re shooting in. My only problem is that you can aim upwards while playing normally, but to aim downwards you HAVE to free-aim, since pressing down normally makes you crouch (even if you’re walking)… it’s a bit annoying, especially in a particular segment of the final level.

Killing enemies and breaking boxes will make power-ups spawn. Said power-ups will either be weapons, grenades or health. Each level also has 3 NES cartridges which unlock collectibles. Grenades pickups give you 6 extra grenades, and health pickups fully heal your HP.
You start with a lame peashooter that barely does any damage, but has infinite ammo. Picking up a weapon will replace any weapon you might have equipped. Each weapon pickup gives a limited amount of ammo. Picking up another of the weapon will add to your ammo. There’s an okay variety of weapons: flamethrowers, machine guns, particle cannons, laser beams, rockets… there’s more than enough to satisfy your enemy-killing urges.

Killing enemies is obviously important. Most areas require you having to kill all enemies in the vicinity to get to the next part. Killing enemies fills up some meter. When it’s filled up, you can press a button to go in Hazard Time. It will make you invincible for a short period of time and turn your normal shot into a three-way shot, effectively turning you into a killing machine.

Difficulty
This game is REALLY hard. The first few stage or two are pretty easy to deal with, but afterwards it gets pretty crazy, especially the last one. Damn, the developers weren’t fucking around with that one. Enemies firing at you from every direction, strong enemies with powerful attacks everywhere, some able to kill you with one or two hits, and with lots of enemy respawns… This is really not an easy game to deal with. Playing co-op makes it a lot easier, but still really damn tough. It… sorta helps that, if you lose all your lives, you can steal one from your partner.

There are 3 difficulty levels. In “Wussy” difficulty, enemies don’t do much damage and you get infinite continues. The “Damn this is Hard” difficulty deserves its name. You get only a few continues (though you can get more by getting high scores), and enemies do considerably more damage (some attacks kill you in one hit). In “Fuck This Shit” difficulty, almost everything kills you in one hit, and you get no continues. On this note, the difficulty doesn’t affect how many hits enemies take, or their AI, or how many enemies and bullets there are, just the damage you take from them.

Continues restart you from where you died on your last life If you lose all your continues, you have to restart the level from the start. You have infinite “retries”, so while the game offers a huge challenge, it never becomes overwhelming. Unless you’re playing in “Fuck This Shit” mode, this really requires you to become a GOD at the game, and playing co-op with another person who is GODLY at the game if you even want a chance to get to the level bosses.

One complaint
I have one complaint with the game. In the seventh level, there’s a segment that plays like Lunar Lander (this thing)… May I ask why? It was never a really good game, and it was always needlessly hard because of crappy controls and physics… And this version doesn’t correct those problems… Before actually playing that segment, you get to practice as much as you want, which is a very good idea…. But why is it so damn hard? Before landing, you have to actually reach the landing pad in an horizontal auto-scrolling segment. The controls don’t really lend themselves well to that… Then, when you do complete the training, you think you’re ready to play the actual mission… But the game tricks you really. Now not only does the stage auto-scroll horizontally, but vertically too… AND there’s enemy turrets shooting bullets and semi-homing missiles at you. Wow… That segment really sucked. I’m sure landing an actual Lunar Lander is a lot easier AND more fun than this.

Overall
I have an honest question to the developers: why the fuck wasn’t this the first Matt Hazard game? You make a new character who, in his world, is an icon of video gaming, a badass in the Duke Nukem mold, and you put him in a Third-Person Shooter? Seriously? He SHOULD have been in an old-school style game from the start.

Anyways… The game is fun. Very much so. And it’s damn hard. The Contra/Metal Slug style of gameplay definitely fits the character a lot better than a badly done TPS. There’s some glitches at some points, and the occasional screwy hit detection or hit boxes. There’s very little slow-down though, unless there’s a ton of enemies shooting at you with some burning because you’re shooting your triple flamethrowers, but that’s not a frequent occurrence.

If you want a challenge, or if you’re a Contra/Metal Slug fan, check it out for sure.

Vicious Cycle: Continue making Matt Hazard games, but PLEASE treat him well. And maybe polish up your humor a bit.

Pros and Cons
Pros
- Challenging
- Fun to play
- Good humor the first time through

Cons
- The Lunar Lander level
- HAVING to free-aim to aim downwards

The Save Factor
It has a starting price of $15 on both XBLA and PSN. If you’re in for a really tough game, it’s well worth full price.

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