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Matt Hazard:
Blood Bath & Beyond
Side scrolling
shooters are a lost art from, and back in the eighties there were a few
key contenders battling it out for the dominate coin eater in the local
milk bar, one of those contenders was Matt Hazard.
The plot to this
title is pretty simple, you play Matt Hazard, a jive talkin bad ass who
stomps on anything that gets in his
was.........to.......do........anything...really. Though in this episode
Hazards evil nemisis, General Neutronov, has reanimated all of Matt’s
previously defeated enemies, to have a crack at destroying Hazard once
again through various stages of Hazards past. So our hero does what any
gun slinging camo clad muscle machine would do, he travels back through
the past to beat them all again. So begins the fun.
With the story line
firmly in place, you are now ‘allowed’ to recreate a classic title,
using modern technology so to speak. Side scrolling your way around the
now freshly rendered backdrops, you can take on all the classic enemies
such as the red guys, the shirtless guys, and of course the samurai guys
too, as well as the soon to be much loved killer penguins and mountie’s
on robot mooses. Collecting weapons and body counts along the way, Matt
will sass his way to the final stage and finally get a chance to save
his former 8-bit self.
It’s a tough job
trying to mess with something that so many people feel attached too, but
D3 have done this job very carefully, and forgive me, but this is better
than the original, yeah, I said it.
The levels are so
greatly detailed with plush 3D building, sloping shadows with rich
colours and textures and in your face enemies sprinting in from all
directions, when you take out a soldier, their body goes in a ragdoll
blast across the screen leaving a blood splatter on your plasmas pixels.
The action is two dimensional at heart and three dimensional in body, it
is truly great. As well as all that, you still have the attitude of
Hazard that made him so popular back in the day, throwing one liners and
wit to your speakers in between kills that actually propel you to take
on as many enemies as you can find to see if you can get a fresh one
liner for a giggle, and if MH’s smack talk doesn’t give you a laugh, the
carefully placed references to various other videogames hidden
throughout the game will always be good for one.
Again the game
provides a great co-op experience that can be used both locally or
online, though the online feature is nice, it doesn’t have the same
impact as being able to enjoy the humour of this game with a mate on the
couch.
Blood Bath & Beyond
is a truly great addition to the Live Arcade and can be easily justified
at only 1200 points. There is a great amount of replay ability in it and
while there are still a few minor glitches the game will encounter, they
take nothing away from the overall playing experience of this now
revived classic. |
