For over 25 years, Matt Hazard has bombarded the games industry with his shameless parodies of popular gaming franchises. Bar a few poorly judged spin-offs such as Haz-Matt Carts (no, really) the games have always been ‘run & gun’ titles. To many veteran players Hazard is somewhat of a cult figure, but I shall not hesitate in suggesting that the majority of casual players will never have heard of him.
Bearing in mind how terrifying the wrath of a destruction-hungry ‘hardcore gamer’ can be, developers Vicious Cycle were wise to ensure this latest instalment sticks to its roots; just a dash of ‘next-gen’ sheen has been added to the aged formula. The result is a ‘2.5d’ shooter completely saturated with dodgy ‘rag-doll’ physics and incalculable numbers of exploding objects. “Blood Bath and Beyond” sums the experience up fairly well actually…perhaps a semi-colon and then the line “jokes are funny” should follow. Yes, that would provide an accurate description of what to expect from the game.
Whilst there are not many of us who can truly say they don’t enjoy a blood-spattered frolic through an impossibly electrifying world (decimating entire continents worth of henchman as they go of course), there isn’t exactly a drought in the market. Now there is no shame in lifting proven formulas, but whilst the big-name publishers continue to pass-round copies of Gears of War (as an example of the best way to gather mountains of cash these day’s), the standard of these sorts of titles is going to remain very high.
Well, either Vicious Cycle have not been paying attention to the past few years of gaming history, or they believe that the minute wit and dwindling charisma of Mr Hazard will carry their game. It certainly does not.
It would be unfair to state that there isn’t a good few hours of distraction to be squeezed out of Hazard’s latest escapade though. If you’re a fan of the Contra or Metal Slug series then you’ll feel right at home here. The game-play is essentially the same as in those games, with a minor twist in that you may turn the character ninety degrees with the press of a button, allowing you to shoot into the background at enemies. Still, do not expect to experience Contra’s level of refinement here.
Being as half of the appeal of this game is its supposed sense of humour, a distinct lack of witty material was a rather disappointing find. Each level is based around a popular computer game, the aim being to have a harmless snipe at each game’s eccentricities. Some competent texturing and modelling is on show, which makes spotting structures from other games quite enjoyable. Regrettably though, the remaining comic jests centre around Matt Hazard, pitilessly attacking the player with tasteless videogame ‘in-jokes’; blabbing on sarcastically about rag-doll does not have the intended effect when you hear the same audio snippet fourteen times per level, especially when much of the time there isn’t any damn rag-doll occurring anyway! Horribly poor comic timing and seemingly clueless voice acting will only result in embarrassment.
In one sense, it is difficult to condemn Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond for its architect’s lazy approach to design, as there are no particularly awful elements present. In fact, certain features are bordering on respectable. The graphics engine is solid, the frame-rate is stable, and the control system rarely falter’s. Nevertheless, the game fails to impress, simply due to the unbelievable lack of ambition from the creators. When a developer today makes it especially clear that they intend not to innovate, but instead to imitate, one would hope that the resulting copy offers comparable quality to that of the original product. Unfortunately, Matt Hazard seems content to serve us mild entertainment and startling reasonableness; a game of extreme mediocrity imbedded in a genre that demands perfection. Matt Hazard, I am afraid you are just not that relevant.
VideogameUK verdict: 5/10
