If you grew up playing FPS and enjoy games that aren't afraid to make fun of themselves, then Its Hazard Time!

User Rating: 7.5 | Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard X360
Are you between the ages of 25 and 35? Did you grow up playing video games? Do you have a sense of humor? If you answered "YES!" to all of these questions, you will probably love Eat Lead. If you didn't, then read on and I shall attempt to enlighten you about this game and why you may or may not like it.

Firstly, let me get this out of the way. Eat Lead is a parody. Do not take this game seriously or you will wonder what the hell is going on. Just try to lighten up when playing this game and it will be much better. Now that we have this out of the way, I feel it is necessary to admit that I laughed my ass off while playing this game. The humor is nearly nonstop and ranges from mostly taking jabs at various game mechanics that gamers have come to accept to even making a joke at Final Fantasy's expense. Granted, this humor is not for everyone. If you have ever wondered why every first-person shooter has to have a warehouse level, then you will probably get the jokes. If you take gaming seriously and call people "n00bs" who don't, then you will probably not understand this game.

Since we have already established that this is a genuinely funny game, you probably are wondering how exactly it plays. Well, to answer that question, I will simply ask if you have played Gears of War before. If you have, you will immediately be familiar with this game. If you haven't, I shall briefly describe what you do during the game: Run into new area, take cover behind something, occasionally take shots at enemies that are exposed, rush enemies that are reloading or otherwise distracted, shoot or beat the snot out of them, repeat. And yes, this can get a bit tiresome because this is quite literally the only thing you do during the course of this game, but at least it is fun for a while and some of the enemies can be quite difficult to kill.

Although there is a wide variety of weapons available in the game, all of them fulfil a similar handful of roles. You have a number of handguns to choose from, a few spray-and-pray weapons, a shotgun, and a grenade-launcher. Besides shooting enemies, you can also close the distance and beat them to death, although this can leave you exposed to enemy gunfire just long enough to get you killed. Speaking of being killed, you will probably die more often than you would like thanks to a combination of overwhelming odds, weapons that run out of ammo far too fast, destructible cover, and the occasional enemy that spawns directly behind you with a shotgun. Thankfully, the game never truly becomes frustrating and it is rare that you will have to repeat even a difficult area more than a couple of times before getting through it.

To sum up this review, I personally enjoyed this game, despite its shortcomings. If it had a multiplayer mode or even just a bit more single-player content, it could have been a real winner, but as is, this is a game that is enjoyable, funny, but ultimately quite short, with practically no incentive to replay the game. So if you grew up playing FPS and enjoy games that aren't afraid to make fun of themselves, then "Its Hazard Time!".