In D3Publisher’s wildest dreams, Matt Hazard is an established videogame character, with best-selling titles dating back to the 80s.
In reality, Matt Hazard’s first videogame appearance was on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 earlier this year, with Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. Again, Hazard wasn’t really returning from anything, but it sure is a hell of a lot more fun to buy into the game’s backstory.
The self-referential shooter parodied videogame cliches with varied success, with tongue-in-cheek nods to everything from the role playing game genre to inane (and sometimes obvious) in-game tutorials. The upcoming Xbox LIVE Arcade and PlayStation Network title, Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond, comes at gaming history from the same angle, this time with an updated take on the side-scrolling 8-bit shooters of old.
I recently had a chance to spend some time with two of the game’s levels — “Oh. Canada.” and “Dismember the Alamo — which gave me a taste of what D3 has in store when the game hits consoles early next year. Hit the jump to find out more about the only game I know of that features a “F*ck This Sh*t” difficulty mode.
The Matt Hazard mythos lends itself quite nicely to retro gaming experiences, but a digital download Hazard title wasn’t always in the cards for D3. The idea, however, was on the minds of the folks at Vicious Cycle (the developer of both Eat Lead and Blood Bath and Beyond) since before the Matt Hazard character even had its name.
“When we were envisioning the character that became Matt,” D3Publisher of America, Inc. Senior Producer Brian Etheridge tells me, “we knew that he was going to be a classic videogame character. Almost instantly people started spouting ideas about what games he had been in, and of course that trickled into suggestions for follow-up titles, clever marketing campaigns, and Flash games.”
When the offer to do the Xbox LIVE and PlayStation Network game came out, the team was ready to run with ideas that had already been percolating behind-the-scenes. The result is a fairly straight forward side-scrolling shooter (in the vein of classic titles like Konami’s Contra) with Hazard blasting his way through eight levels of flying bullets, mindless foot soldiers, and mechanical menaces.
The games controls are fairly standard for a shooter of this sort. The analog stick moves you left or right on a 2D plane, and you can jump or duck behind boxes to avoid streams of bullets. Get close enough to an enemy, the shoot button turns into a melee attack. Feeling saucy? Toss a grenade to clear out a group of baddies. If things are getting too hectic, you can activate “Hazard Time” (provided you’ve filled your special bar by killing enough enemies), making you invincible and firing three bullets at a time instead of one. Yes, this makes you total videogaming bad ass… just like Matt Hazard.
A slight monkey wrench is thrown into the gameplay, as Blood Bath and Beyond will have enemies attacking you from the background as well. While you’ll be moving strictly on a 2D plane, holding the Left Trigger (L2 on PlayStation 3) will allow you to fire into the background.
Still, it’s simple stuff… at least on paper. But Vicious Cycle wasn’t messing around with the game’s difficulty, doing its best to throw some tough, old-school challenges at players. Etheridge mentions capturing “the essence of the classic arcade quarter munchers, like Metal Slug and Contra.” The two levels I played sit somewhere in the middle of the game’s eight areas, and I’m told the difficult ramps up… you’re not going to get thrown to the wolves from the start.
But if you’re into punishing difficulty, you might consider starting on the game’s hardest setting, “Fuck This Shit.” I ask Etheridge about it, only because I’m a child and want to hear him say it. At first, he doesn’t take the bait.
“If you want to hear someone say it, just stand within 100 feet of someone playing in that mode,” he says. “You’re bound to hear them say it as they chuck their controller across the room and storm away from the TV.”
Yeah, it’s difficult — you die with one hit, the enemies shoot twice as fast, and you can’t save. Etheridge calls it “arcade gaming in its purest form.” Those who can power through the challenge will have their scores added to a separate leaderboard, ultimate bragging rights for the hard core gamer. Looking for something a little easier? Try out the game’s least difficult mode — “Wussy.”
Regardless of what mode you play on — don’t worry, I wouldn’t dare judge — you’ll get to experience Blood Bath and Beyond‘s unique level designs, each inspired by games you may already be familiar with. For example, the “Dismember the Alamo” level features obvious nods to Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros., complete with bricks, coin blocks, and pipes. But as Etheridge explains, games and gaming cliches aren’t the only targets of Blood Bath and Beyond‘s humor.
“We’re going for the jugular on this one!” he says. “Healthcare reform, the war in Afghanistan, Wing’s rendition of “Beat It”… we’ve got it all!”
Players familiar with Eat Lead will recognize that Hazard is once again voiced by actor Will Arnett. Alex Polinsky also makes a return as Matt’s sidekick, Dexter Dare, who a second player can control while playing the game cooperatively.
“Both of these guys are a source of one-liners and continued spewing of comic relief,” Etheridge tells me. “While Matt confidently shouts ‘It’s Hazard Time!’ when activating his special attack, Dexter runs through a series of near-incoherent, bumbling rants, trying to come up with his own catchphrase. Getting these guys together in co-op completes the experience.”
Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond hits next week, available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace on January 6 for 1200 MS Points, and PlayStation Network on January 7 for $14.99.
