Eat Lead!

There's a game coming out March 9th that you may or may not have heard of; it's called Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. Every single person reading this should buy this game, and I'll tell you why: It's the first game I've seen in literally about a decade that is a parody of the games industry itself, barring independent games like Barkley Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden (which is another must play. Google it, seriously. It's free and one of the best free games ever made).

Here's the deal: Matt Hazard (played by Will Arnett) is a washed up 80's video-game star, think the dude from Contra crossed with Duke Nukem. He had a big career, but faded from popularity and retired. Now, a game CEO (played by Neil Patrick Harris) wants him to star in a new game... except it's a trap designed to kill him. The plot is pretty much an excuse to go nuts and have fun at the expense of the game industry. There's a fight against a JRPG character, a level that's basically Wolfenstien complete with pixely blue walls and sprite based soldiers, plus other wackiness galore. It looks like an absolute blast, and already has the best jokes in a retail videogame that I've ever seen.

If anyone ever asks about my severe lack of motivation, I'll point them to this game. Why? Well, It's pretty much the game I would make had I the money, talent, and time. What's the point of following your dreams when everyone's doing what you would do but better all the time? I'm not bitter though, far from it. It's uplifting to see that a publisher greenlit and funded this, gives my ideas validation. I'll be happy to just play it. Here's hoping it doesn't suck ass to actually play.

Going back to the "story in games" theme, this game is probably the most important game of 2009 in that respect. If you look at gaming's short history from the perspective of a kid growing up, you can clearly see the industry's current maturity level. This is why I'm fascinated with videogames as a medium: It's the only medium whose birth I was present for. Gaming so far has literally grown up with me, although entire mediums tend to grow up slower than a single human. In the beginning, and for close to fifteen years afterwards, story in games rarely went beyond "save the princess". That's fine. The industry was in its infancy, and thus created stories a child might when playing in the backyard. There were rare flashes of early maturity ("Custer's Revenge" comes to mind) but unfortunately videogames had their progress stunted for a few years by the great Atari crash.

In the early 90's, you had the PC gamer boom, and with it a clear leap into early adolescence. Stories shifted from "save the princess" to "please kill everything you see isn't blood so awesome by the way" very quickly, and that in turn quickly gave way to sophmoric, crude humor. That's important, because it showed growth and advancement, but more importantly the first sparks of parody were showing, which is a literary and developmetary milestone. I'm of course talking about Duke Nukem and his bretheren Blood and Shadow Warrior, three of the best, most original FPS's ever made. (There also was of course the point and click boom of the late 80's/early 90's. This era was important but less so, as that genre is largely forgotten and dead. Still, it is to this day a repository of game's best writing and humor).

Seriously guys, I hate to sound like a retrofaggot, but those FPS's have yet to be surpassed by anything released today, graphics be damned, mostly because they combine great graphics, awesome action, and (this is the important part) loads of humor. They're truly funny games, albeit crude. Then Quake 1 hit, and it was forever more uncool to be funny in videogames. This was a great step backwards in terms of games coming into their own as an art form, because you can't grow if you can't make fun of yourself. Some of literature's greatest writers have been masters of satire. Without parody, all your serious stories are really just navel gazing.

So all through the mid to late 90's and up until today, games have largely been stuck in their late teen years: so wanting to be taken seriously that they eschew humor and instead try (and fail) to be deep. Occasional bright spots show through, but games are stuck firmly in action and drama obsessed early adolescence.

A few years ago I took a chance on a wacky looking, cheap FPS called Serious Sam. The first chapter (of two) was twenty bucks new, from an up and coming dev team from Croatia. It was the best twenty bucks I ever spent, because it was basically Duke Nukem reborn. Tons of secrets, tons of humor, truly unique gameplay. At the time, I thought a savior had arrived: Funny games were back. (Not only that, it was the best argument i'd ever seen against bloated game budgets. These upstarts from a poor European nation made a radical, powerful game engine from scratch, made a truly unique game experience filled with tons of creativity, sold it for twenty dollars new and made a profit. You need a million dollar budget and hundreds of people to make a game and that's why it costs sixty dollars even though it lasts 6 hours? Fuck you).

Unfortunately, CroTeam (Sam's devs) really didn't have much staying power. When the time came to make a true sequel, Serious Sam 2, they just didn't have any steam left. It wasn't funny, it looked like crap, and it wasn't fun. They (along with Sam) have yet to resurface, which is a shame, but here's round two in the wings, and here's hoping the industry sits up and takes notice. Regardless of how it plays, it's already the most clever game of 2009.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Matt Hazard is going to sell like crap because it's only getting the most meager of coverage, but at least it's getting released. One step at a time games, and one day you'll be able to sit at the big boy's table.