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Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard: Difference between revisions
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{{quote| "It's '''Hazard Time!'''"}}
The year is 1983, and the world is first introduced to Matt Hazard, eight-bit video game hero with more firepower than pixels, through debut title ''The Adventures of Matt in Hazard Land'', published by then-fledgling company Marathon Software. In the following years, Matt starred in dozens of games; some were immensely popular (such as western ''A Fistful of Hazard'', 3D shooter ''Matt Hazard 3D'', and 1995 spy shooter ''You Only Live 1,317 Times''), while taking the series in new directions (such as the ill-conceived [[Go-Karting
However, the new CEO of Marathon (now called Marathon Megasoft), Wallace "Wally" Wellesley wants to bring Matt Hazard back, and he's set to star in their first Next-Gen title. The only catch is that they intend to kill him off at the end of Level 1 to introduce a new hero.
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** Same thing happens for the "multiplayer" achievement.
* [[Credits Gag]]: {{spoiler|At the end of the penultimate level, which is the "final" level of the new game, QA says "There's one thing I would like you to do for me... roll the end credits!" Cue laughter, freeze frame, credits... which are then halted by Wellesley who then sucks you into a game representation of the Marathon-Megasoft offices}}.
** Not to mention {{spoiler|said credits being obvious fake ones on top of that. [[Neil Patrick Harris]]' character is credited to "[[Doogie Howser, M.D.|Doogie]]", and a chunk of the staff listing is simply "Code Monkeys"... followed by a listing of [[Everything's Better
* [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]: Wellesley is the CEO of the company and wants revenge because he always sucked at the Matt Hazard games.
* [[Crate Expectations]]: A wide variety, as cover items are often hacked in with their villains. Everything from futuristic rounded metal crates, to Russian military crates, to a western outhouse. You even visit a warehouse which turns out to be where they ''make'' the crates.
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* [[Government Agency of Fiction]]: You don't actually see them, but there is an organization called "SVGA" that seems to act as a police force. A character is arrested by them at the end.
* [[Grandfather Paradox]]: In a weird way, because actual [[Time Travel]] isn't used. The plot of ''Blood Bath & Beyond'' involves General Nutronov breaking into the archive computer and kidnapping Matt's 8-bit self in order to kill him and therefore preventing the current Matt Hazard from ever existing. The 8-bit Matt is technically from the present, but is still Matt's past self. Confused yet?
* [[Hey, It's That Voice!]]: Matt Hazard is [[Arrested Development (TV series)|GOB]].
** At least, in ''Eat Lead''. ''Blood, Bath & Beyond'' lampshades the loss of the "big-name voice actors" when Matt realizes they're talking in text boxes and his voice actor is just a [[The Other Darrin|soundalike]].
* [[Hollywood Healing]]: If Matt goes long enough without being hit, he's back to full health. He obviously learns to love cover.
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* [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]]: Fuck That Shit difficulty in ''Blood Bath and Beyond'' turns Matt into one.
* [[Painting the Fourth Wall]]: So very much. The stereotypical RPG prettyboy boss speaks in ''text boxes'' and is turn based, and the player can {{spoiler|disrupt his Cure animation by ''shooting the health out of the air''}}.
* [[Parody Names]] / [[Captain Ersatz]] / [[Bland-Name Product]]: [[Halo|"Master Chef" from "Crown of Light"]], [[James Bond|"You Only Live 1317 Times"]], [[Super Mario Bros.|"Captain Carpenter"]], [[Final Fantasy|"Penultimate Illusion"]], [[Gears of War|"Maul of Mourning"]], [[
* [[Power-Up]]: '''"MAXIMUM HAZARD!"'''
* [[Punny Name]]: "Altos Tratus" sounds like a type of [[Final Fantasy VII|cloud]]. And "Altostratus" ''is'' a type of [[wikipedia:Altostratus cloud|cloud]]. And "Alto" is a good approximation of the range of a castrati. ...So they're implying that "[[Final Fantasy VII|Altos Stratus]]" is a castrati?
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* [[Reality Warper]]: As the program into which QA and the villains are hacking is the ''game you're currently playing'', reality is warped quite often. At one point, sandbags and other military regalia are "hacked" into the middle of a casino as cover for a group of Russian soldiers; at another, an entire room is replaced with the main street out of a western.
* [[Self-Deprecation]]: In ''Blood Bath and Beyond'', Matt complains that he doesn't have a voice anymore, QA explains it's because the last game didn't sell very well. There's also a joke about said game being "now available in bargain bins everywhere!"
* [[Shout-Out]]: The name of the [[Government Agency of Fiction]], SVGA, stands for "Super Video Graphics Array" (a common graphics technology of the late 1980s and early 1990s). The downloadable side-scrolling sequel has extended (most of level) homages to {{spoiler|''[[
* [[A Space Marine Is You]]: Several of his enemies are Space Marines. Matt Hazard himself is a pastiche of the character type, right down to being bald.
* [[Standard FPS Guns]]: Played with; you encounter the usual SMGs and assault rifles, and Matt's signature weapon is his highly marketable "Hazard Pistol". You also get plasma weapons and, oh yes, water guns. Each enemy group carries different [[Standard FPS Guns]], so you're forced to keep switching guns; as if you find yourself surrounded by Cowboys they aren't going to drop AK-47 ammo.
* [[Sniping Mission]]: There's a level where you have to protect a de-powered CRPG hero, using the front half of arcade sniper game cabinets.
* [[Spot the Imposter]]: as mentioned above in [[Evil Twin]], subverted immediately: The evil QA tries to trick Matt in a standard "I'm the real one!" situation, but Matt ''already guessed'' she was an impostor anyway.
* [[Take That]]: Anyone familiar with ''[[Duke Nukem]]'' and his development history (particularly its [[Duke Nukem Forever
** When Matt finds an advertisement for "Duke Winter", done in the style of the cover art of ''[[
* [[Take Cover]]: Pretty standard cover mechanic, although it has a neat cover-to-cover mechanic which Matt explicitly comments on.
* [[The Stinger]]: The end credits for ''Eat Lead'' are followed by a short scene of {{spoiler|Wellesley reduced to working for his father, surrounded by advertising for the latest Matt Hazard game}}. ''Blood, Bath & Beyond'' has {{spoiler|Matt lamenting that they probably wouldn't get to make a sequel anyway, and [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|proceeding to shoot the Earth with Neutronov's planet destroying laser]]}}.
* [[Those Wacky Nazis]]: The Secret Soldiers of the Wafferthin, sprite-based enemies from an [[Wolfenstein 3D
* [[Title Drop]]: {{spoiler|Wally is shown holding an in-universe copy of Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard during [[The Stinger]].}}
* [[Troperiffic]]: The game gleefully throws many different cliche enemy groups (cowboys, Russian terrorists, space marines...) and Matt Hazard himself, despite being a [[Genre Savvy]] [[Medium Awareness|Medium Aware]] [[Fourth Wall]] breaking character, is still very much a "[[Shoot Everything That Moves]]" hero, and takes personal pleasure in well-aimed headshots and big guns.
* [[Videogame Objectives]]: Parodied early on when Matt complains in response to a [[Long List]] of mission objectives, so QA changes it to "Kill everything that moves". Later mission objectives include "Follow Sting Sniperscope into the obvious trap" and "Hey, weren't you the star of the [[Jak and Daxter|Matt and Dexter]] games? Your place sucks compared to this!"
* [[Voice
* [[White-Haired Pretty Boy]]: Altos Tratus, one of the bosses, is a stereotypical [[JRPG]] [[Bishonen|prettyboy]] who starts his boss battle frozen in crystal... and the design of his sword makes it look suspiciously like a wing when held behind his back...
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