Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard

Overview

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard (known in Japan as Eat Lead: Matt Hazard no Gyakushuu) is a comedic third-person shooter developed by Vicious Cycle and published by D3 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on February 26, 2009.

Billed as a parody of video game clichés, players play as the titular Matt Hazard, a legendary video game hero of the 80's and 90's who ruined his 25-year reputation by falling out of favor with gamers and putting himself in terrible family-friendly games. While starring in a "comeback" game by his former publisher, Marathon Megasoft, he is ambushed by Sting Sniperscope, another video game hero that is trying to take his place as the game's protagonist. After being saved from mysterious hacker "QA", Matt must traverse through the game (which is constantly manipulated, by the Marathon Megasoft CEO Wallace "Wally" Wellesley, with enemies, weapons, and locales from his other various games) to stop the CEO's plan of getting him fired from his contract (via in-game death).

The game's story is written by Dave Ellis, while key voice actors in the game include Will Arnett (the voice of Matt Hazard known for his roles in television shows Arrested Development and 30 Rock) and Neil Patrick Harris (the voice of Wallace Wellesley known for television show How I Met Your Mother and musical web series Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog).

The game later received a downloadable sequel, Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond on January 6, 2010, in which Matt must traverse through some of his old games in a 2.5D sidescrolling platformer format to prevent evil corporation Marathon MegaCorp from destroying him.