Musing

Last weekend I picked up two titles on a whim, Tony Hawk's Underground and Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard.

THUG (hur hur hur) needs no introduction really since it's such an old game, but I'll get to it in a moment. Instead I want this post to focus on Matt Hazard.

Matt Hazard symbolizes why nerd humor isn't funny. It's akin to lolcats. Sure, a joke is funny when it's mentioned. It's not funny when you say the joke, the go into exacting detail about why that joke isn't funny.

Matt Hazard is guilty of the latter throughout most of the game. On paper, the concept of parody every action game within the last 25 years is wonderful. It's not like there's a shortage of material to work with there. What's inexcusable though, is taking those cliches and making use of them anyways.

Case in point: In the second level of the game you have to protect a buddy by sniping at enemies which come from all angles to attack him. To do so, you command a Slient Scope arcade machine. Funny, but it doesn't change the fact you're still forced to play an insufferable escort segment.

I think above all, as whiny as it sounds, you just die too fast. This is a comedy game, I don't want to have to actually try. I'd perfer a Monkey Island style route where there's no real failure.

In short don't be a sap like me and pay a full 50 bones for it. Around 20 bucks or a rental I'd say snap it up.

As for Tony Hawk, I had to rebuy it since it was the only sport game I ever owned on the PS2. I never really enjoyed any of the other Hawk titles, but for some reason this title clicked with me. Replaying it is a rude awakening in how much I suck, but eh.

Tomorrow Resident Evil 5 comes out. I look forward to killing minorities in a jungle/desert setting once again. It is something I haven't done since Crysis, Far Cry 2, Call of Duty 4, and probably a dozen other games that were all released in the past 6 months.

If you're wondering why the above reviews were short, there's not really much to say about the games. RE5 will provide some decent fodder soon enough. Till then, tootles.