The original Matt Hazard had the potential to be a great game, good voice work with the likes of Neil Patrick Harris and Will Arnett. A brilliant backstory and marketing campaign which broke the fourth wall entirely, and the story while thin was entertaining and amusing. The sole problem came in the gameplay department which ultimately almost ruined the game, frustrating controls made the game annoying hard on a normal difficultly even with frighteningly dumb AI. Now comes another in the series titled Blood Bath & Beyond a 2.5D based shooter. Is it Hazard’s Time?
Matt Hazard: Blood Bath & Beyond
Developer: Vicious Cycle Software
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (reviewed)
Eat Lead saw the aging video game star struggling to make a comeback in the next-gen arena. This time around one of Hazard’s old enemies General Neutronov has kidnapped the old Matt Hazard and you the present Matt Hazard has to go through old levels of his fake past games in order to save him. On the journey you travel through 8 action packed and varied levels, you will find a level based on pirates, a boat, Canada, spaceships, the wild west and Japan. 
The layout within is pretty standard, the levels however change so you aren’t just traversing through the same backdrop every few hundred feet. Many of the levels spoof other popular games, one levels sees you going from the wild west to Super Mario Bros to Team Fortress 2 which adds some humour, variety and charm while you slaughter your foes. Each level also consists of a boss all of which vary from a robot spider, a submarine to a moving lighthouse. While they start out varied and original to begin with later on you find each work in pretty similar ways only with differing move sets. Levels last between 10 to 20 minutes depending on skills and difficulty, meaning the game lasts around 3 hours at most making this title rather short lived.
It plays much in the same style as Shadow Complex, X to shoot, A to Jump, LT to shoot in the distance/background, left and right to move and everything else on the directional stick to aim the gun, RT to throw grenades, LB and RB to stand still and aim and finally Y to activate Hazard Time which you can gain by killing enemies, this allows you to temporarily become invincible and increase your gun’s radius, great away to get out of sticky situations. Other than the standard gun, weapons come in the form of power ups which vary from rockets, laser, plasma rifles, shotguns, flamethrowers and machine guns. While it shares similarities in combat with Shadow Complex everything else is far more linear. 
None of the Metroid style exploration but rather kill everything and then move on, which makes this game more to the style of Contra and other classic arcade 2D shooters. This simplicity in design allows you to take in much more of the quirks and small details. You will find little to fault this time around when it comes to gameplay, the game really does capture the old school vibe it sets out to achieve. Except on the penultimate level which makes you take part in an frustrating spaceship mini-game much to the liking of Lunar Landing, which wouldn’t of been so bad if it weren’t for uncontrollable moving camera. It might of been just me but needless to say died a lot.
Just like Contra the game is difficult, even on the normal setting titled “Damn This is Hard” many gamers not used to this style of game much like myself will benefit more and will experience less rage from picking the easier “Wuss” option which has an infinite amount of continues and allows you to take more damage. Just like any old shooter on the normal setting you are given 4 lives along with 3 continues, once all of those have been used up you will have to start the level again, giving you plenty of chances to finish the level. If you still find that too easy you can go for the appropriately titled “Fuck That Shit” difficulty where everything is a one hit kill, no continues and failure will result in a Game Over, not a level reset. There is something here for both beginners and experts.
There is an co-op option to help make Blood Bath & Beyond easier, but this is only available offline via another controller, making co-op play over Xbox Live or the Playstation Network impossible, this ultimately detracts from the overall experience. By all means have the offline co-op but there is no excuse not to have an online option in this day and age.
The presentation is what you would expect for a downloadable arcade title, nothing visually spectacular yet nothing ugly either, each environment is nicely detailed with small little attention to detail you may or may not notice (I’m pretty damn sure I saw a Faith lookalike during the Mirrors Edge section). You will find a lack of a voice cast this time around which is a shame. All cut-scenes appear in text while the gameplay itself has voiced dialogue. Though not from the original Hazard Will Arnett, but rather an impersonator to fool you into thinking it’s Will. You can expect the same style of humour as the first game, though rather spoofing other games, it tends to make fun of itself and point out obvious plot holes within its own storyline. Even to go as far as to make fun of how poorly Eat Lead sold and reviewed and how low production values are this time around. It’s nice to see that it doesn’t take itself seriously.
Once completed you will find there is little to do other than collect all the game cartridges, which unlock artwork for ‘past’ Matt Hazard titles and of course the achievements which are actually rather challenging this time around. And finally the annoying lunar landing mini-game you unlock post-completion, so if your me you won’t be touching that within an inch of your life. Add that with the short story makes the $15 price rather overpriced for what get especially compared to the likes of Castle Crashers and Shadow Complex which are also in the same price range, a $10 at the most would of been better suited.
The Final Word
Matt Hazard: Blood Bath & Beyond while being a simpler game is a much more fun title than it’s predecessor that knows exactly what it is, an arcade old school style shooter with a few modern improvements and does little to stray from that. It’s only dampened by a short story and lack of online co-op which doesn’t warrant the $15 price tag. If you are fan of this genre then you might want to give this title a shot, especially if you love Contra and want a challenge then you can’t go wrong with a bit of Hazard.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
