Provides solid gameplay and some good laughs as well.
The story is about Matt Hazard. A former (fictional) gaming icon who rose to stardom in the 80's and met with success by branching off into all sorts of other genres. By Matt's request, the series began to target younger audiences with games like "Haz-Matt Karts" and "Soak'em!" and Matt's popularity began to wane. When his company Marathon Megasoft hires a new CEO, the new guy orders a new next-gen shooter starring Hazard. Things are going well for Matt up until the end of the first stage where he learns that he was supposed to be killed off and replaced with the new action hero Sting Sniperscope. With help from someone within the company Matt sets off to complete the game while the new CEO throws enemies every which way to get rid of him once and for all.
The game play is nothing new. If you've played Gears of War, Dark Sector, or Wanted: Weapons of Faith you'll know how it works right from the start. The game plays as an over-the-shoulder third-person shooter with an emphasis on taking cover. The X/A button allows you to take cover on the nearest object, and O/B lets you either leap over cover or shift to another cover point. One new feature is that Triangle/Y allows you to sprint from one cover point to any cover point you set your reticle on. It comes in handy quite often on the Medium and Hard difficulties.
The AI isn't particularly bright, but it's part of the game's self parody. Enemies will frequently announce their plans of attack, and their killing methods rarely deviate from taking cover and shooting or standing in the open and shooting. While the AI is lacking, the variety of enemies certainly makes up for it. Hazard faces everything from fembots, to zombies, to vicious squirt gun soldiers. The variety doesn't stop at standard enemies. Every boss is a unique and memorable experience. For example, at one point in the game Matt has to face off with a flamboyant, turn-based warrior who can only speak through text.
Graphically, Eat Lead is lacking. The character models and weapons are fairly good, but the environments are bland and lacking in detail. It's pretty obvious that this wasn't done as some sort of parody, and after seeing D3's phenominal looking Dark Sector, it really feels like they could have done better. Still, they did pull off some nifty effects. The game manages to maintain it's T rating by replacing blood with defragmented pixels. It's not realistic but it's just as satisfying. Another cool thing is how when an object in the environment is destroyed, it glitches and leaves a gaping hole in the game world.
While the game is somewhat lacking in graphics, it's audio is great. The cast includes some pretty big names like Will Arnett (as Matt) and Neil Patrick Harris (as Wallace Wellesley) and the voice acting overall is pretty good. The music is easily my favorite part of the game. The soundtrack is a combination of Gears of War, Perfect Dark Zero, and Duke Nukem. The soundtrack frequently switches between rock, techno, and orchestrated themes and it all sounds great.
While the gameplay and audio are both good, the game's main draw is the script. The game is funny from the very start with Hazard lamenting over having to deal with a gameplay tutorial (that is, if you choose to go through it) and it only gets better from there. Matt even comes face to face with an online gamer who can't control his character. I'll try not to give too much away, but the script is one of the main reasons this game is worth the 30$ is currently costs.
While there is a multiplayer component in the 360 version (from what I've heard), I highly doubt it's worth mentioning as Vicious Cycle saw fit to omit it from the PS3 version. Even so, the solid single player gameplay, and awesome soundtrack compliment one of the funniest scripts in a video game. I highly recommend checking it out.