Eat Lead is a game that isn't really misunderstood or a game I even remotely consider to be a hidden gem. It's very much an average game through and through. It's basically an average game with celebrity voice talent which the game was known for.
I'll start with the good, the voice acting and writing is pretty decent and the voice actors do a decent enough job at selling the material all though the game is not as funny as it wants to be but I will admit the overall premise of the game is a rather fascinating one in that it's a parody of video games and Matt Hazard is basically a game character who had the career of a movie star. And the game acknowleding the fact that the player character can't jump is rather amusing, and it constantly pokes fun at video games and gaming culture. The story isn't super well written but I do think the ideas and premise of the game was enough to carry it for me. Seeing stuff like Mario, Halo, Final Fantasy, and 90s fps like Duke Nukem and Wolfenstein was rather fun to see.
Now, the bad which is a lot. I played on easy since cover shooters tend to be the most enjoyable on that difficulty since you can take way more damage and it can allow for more aggressive playstyle with more agency to combat rather than hide behind wall, wait until head to pop up, shoot, take damage, and hide rinse repeat. There is still that in this game but easy mode does noticeably tone down the tedium and I wanted to play the game for the story and premise, but even on easy, the combat is still not good. Weapons for both gun sounds and damage animations don't hit the satisfactory mark at all. At best it's just functional but there is no geniune feedback that makes the game's combat feel stimulating. Gears of War got this down and I am not even a big fan of the first game of that series. Then there is the fact that combat gives you less options in games like Gears and Uncharted and that pains me to say since I am not big either of those games especially Uncharted. A big reason is that you can't throw grenades or do any dodge rolling and I argue the fun part of those game was dodging rolling like a mad man and darting around doing that. Matt Hazard doesn't have this and as a result there is no reliable way to evade enemies and there is no way to quickly move around on the battefield outside of a painfully slow sprint button. Grenade throwing could've given the player more options in combat too since you can kill groups of enemies faster with a well timed grenade throw. The bosses are terrible and the tentacle boss goes into the difficulty spike hall of shame for how bad it is. If you quit on this part of the game, I don't blame you, having insta kill tentacles covering your every flank while learning their patterns as you get attacked by weaker enemies and constantly dying and reloading was a very frustrating experience. The rest of the bosses aren't much better. Enemies who use the one hit kill energy rifle weapons can also be really grating since you don't have a dodge roll or any actual form of evasion.
Now the next part is while the combat isn't good, there actually are some interesting ideas here that I wish the game did more with. The enemy variety for a cover shooter is actually rather impressive. You got zombies that need to be killed with head shots, space marines that only take major damage with energy weapons, 2d Nazi sprites, cowboys, regular goons, and robot women who can't be killed unless you stun them and do a melee takedown. If you added rolling, grenades and if the game mixed up these enemies types more, the game could've actually been a stand out cover shooter but instead so much of the game is hiding behind cover and waiting for your health to regen. Imagine if the game actively had zombies, robot women, space marines and the game kept mixing up enemy types, the combat encounters would be much better. Another missed oppourtunity is the melee and power ups. Melee is weird in this game since I played on easy and melee attacks give you invinciblity frames, you could potentially play this game as a lower budget Doom 2016 or a way worse Dead to Rights Retribution, since the I frames from melee attacks lets you recover your health. As a result, you can melee enemies you a good amount of this game. The attack animations lack variety meaning not even this is that exciting and the dumb AI just makes it more easy to exploit. I don't mind dumb AI in games but partnered this with the terrible game feel and polish and even this gets old. The power ups were also a missed opportunity since you rarely get them and can't hold them either meaning there is no strategic element on when to use the power ups.
Overall, I feel this game could've been much much much better with the premise it has. At best, watch the cutscenes on Youtube because the actual game aspect of the game isn't very well made, and honestly isn't worth a playthrough, it's an average game carried by an interesting premise.
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