Parody Alert!!! Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond Comes to PSN This Week

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Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond chronicles the latest adventures of Matt Hazard, internationally renowned video game action hero and star of the 2009 blockbuster next-gen hit, Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard*.

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In Blood Bath and Beyond, Matt returns to his side-scrolling roots to track down his arch-enemy, General Neutronov, who has travelled back in time and kidnapped the 8-bit version of Matt. The Russian general plans to destroy Matt’s earlier self so that Neutronov will never suffer the humiliating defeats that the hero has dealt him over the years.

This tongue-in-cheek journey through Matt’s history takes the player on a tour of the “classic” titles released by Marathon Software, the company that put Matt Hazard on the map. Matt takes on a wide range of enemies—from pirates to penguins; lighthouses to laser-wielding astronauts; Mounties to mechanical rhinos—as he peruses the parody-laden landscapes of games that never were.

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Blood Bath and Beyond is available for download on the PlayStation Network for $14.99 starting on January 7, 2010.

* Not actually a blockbuster hit. But it was released in 2009.

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36 Comments

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  • Unlike a lot of peoples, a really like the first one, it was so funny! Made fun of so much stuff haha was a nice surprise! Can’t wait to play this one also!

  • Eric will we be seeing Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond premium avatars at some point?

    • What is this \’avatar\’ you speak of?

      jk of course ;)

      It would be neat to see Matt’s model up there for players to use as their gamer persona. It could be in the cards…we shall see!

  • I was on the fence about this one but your kind, humble and hilarious responses won me over. I’ll get this game, I bought and enjoyed Eat Lead even with some of its flaws.

  • I’d buy it if it were on a disc.

    No disc, no sale.

    • Let go of your material possessions man (or woman)! Embrace the future…it is now!

      Seriously though I understand where you are coming from. I still can\’t commit to buying music that way. I need a CD in my hands.

      But in recent years I have embraced the downloadable game and am glad they are available.

  • Enough with the BTTF references please. Everyone and their mother are doing them. Do a Suburban Commando reference instead or something.

    I would sell my soul for a “I was Frozen TODAY!” Trophy in a game.

    • Don\’t worry we have many different references in the game. Some pop culture, some game related. It isn\’t all about BTTF. See which ones you find and post them here!

  • sad to hear the game has lossy audio assets. (BTW, most lossless assets are still “compressed” — just in a lossless way.)

    Some follow-up questions:
    1. will the audio output as LPCM for those of us using HDMI? (Some games force Dolby Digital output, so it decodes from MP3/AAC and then re-encodes to DD, and that sounds crap-tastic.)

    2. Will the original retail game be patched to support 2x MSAA @ 60fps? My husband and I love playing local co-op games together, and if the retail game is well-supported, I’ll go pick it up today!

    3. Does this new title detect savegames from the original and do anything special? Bionic Commando had some cute unlocks when it detected you had played Bionic Commando: Rearmed.

    4. What performance issues did you run into that prevented a 1080p target at 60fps? Was it memory bandwidth, or..?

    5. Are there any gay/trans characters in this game or the original?

    6. Who wrote/recorded the music? Who wrote the script?

    Thanks for responding!

    • I will investigate some of these questions tomorrow and get back to you.

      Re: #3, no, we didn’t add anything like that into the final game but we had discussed it as a possibility while we were in development.

      Re: #6, Rednote Audio created our music and Dave Ellis (one of our designers) wrote the script (that is, if you were referring to the voice over script).

    • Re: #1 Our Senior Sound Designer informed me this morning that our audio assets were created from 48kHz 24-bit source material and are converted to use the PS3’s high quality MP3 format to reduce their 1GB footprint. The PS3 Output is specified by the user’s PS3 configuration and can be Dolby Digital, DTS, or multi channel PCM over HDMI.

    • Re: #2 Eat Lead is a totally different game compared to Blood Bath and Beyond. Eat Lead is a 3rd person shooter single player experience, whereas BBB is both a single player and coop sidescrolling 3D action game. Eat Lead is a retail game and BBB is a downloadable game.

      So, Eat Lead will not be patched to support 60FPS or AA.

      Re: #5 As our marketing trailer for Eat Lead stated, there are sexually ambiguous sorcerers in that game And in BBB the female pirates in the Booty Call level were changed to male enemies after the Congressional hearings on the inappropriateness of the content.

  • Thanks for responding to the reasonable folks. I’ll look into picking this up, I like self-aware games. :)

  • Thanks for making a demo for this. I must admit, I was very iffy about it, but if it does, indeed, play like old-school Contra or Metal Slug, I’m going to be very happy and pick this up.

  • I wish it was noted whether this was a PS3 game or a PSP game, it’s nice it was noted that it will be on the PSN at least.

  • I am very excited for it, i hope you guys to a sequel for eat lead, the game was funny, just needed a little more work. Will be picking this up on thursday.

  • Eric, thanks a bunch for answering our questions and being here with us today. I’m really looking forward to the game’s demo and I am certainly interested in the game proper, it seems like good fun. Thanks again!

  • First I would like to say that I am loving the level of communication between “you” and “us”. Honestly, rarely do developers take so much time to answer questions.

    Secondly, I’ll be honest with you. I had not considered this game as an option before. But your candidness and attitude has actually made me re-evaluate that. Not to mention, the humour looks like it is going to top notch in this game.

    Finally, I will be trying the demo for this game and hopefully I will buy it if I like it.

    PS: Keep up the good work!

    • Thanks! This is the part of my job I really enjoy. It\’s nice to be accessible to the gaming community and whenever I have had a chance like this to blog or post on forums in the past, I have really thought it was a positive experience.

  • Eat Lead was the best game of 09! I can’t wait to play this!

  • Awesome news! I really enjoyed Eat Lead!

  • wow… I take it someone is a gwar fan? Same subtitle as their dvd.

  • No offense, but what is going to make me want to purchase this over the dozens of other side-scrolling shooter on the PS Store? Games like Crash Commando, Turtles in Time, etc.

    If you want to market a game in a genre that has many other competitors, you have to make it seem better. From the screenshots, this looks run of the mill, jump, shoot, cover and what not.

    I’m willing to purchase this game IF you can reply to this mentioning some unique features that this game has besides the art style.

    Being a game developer myself and owning a pretty popular review site, I’d be pretty dissapointed if you cannot reply honestly to me.

    • What we offer is humor and parody along with that old-school shooter vibe. The visuals and the story are very tongue and cheek; it\’s all in good fun.

      Play the game single player or in co-op.

      Levels have unique experiences that feature comical enemies and challenging boss fights.

      Runs at a solid 60FPS and is very fast paced.

      Features a great soundtrack.

      And yes, you run, jump and shoot. You can shoot 360 degrees and into the background environment with many weapon varieties.

      BBB is all about the bragging rights and high scores on the leaderboards. Every difficulty level is tracked separately.

      In short, our main goal was to make a great well-rounded game that people would enjoy. Try the demo and if you don’t like it, then that’s ok by us ;)

  • I bought Eat Lead when it released for PS3 and loved it! Glad he’s coming back in another game, keep em coming!

  • I was actually looking forward to the 7th when I heard about this game. Now with the comfirmed coop mode, I’m even more stoked. Poor Matt probably didn’t do so hot in full 3D, but this might be the right combo he needs. Matt Hazzard Kart Racing 2 is next!!

    • You don\’t know how much I want to make Haz-Mat Carts ;) And I would like to make it a downloadable game as well!

  • @66

    I can’t think of many side scrolling shooters on the PS Store. Bionic Commando is all that comes to mind. Crash Commando is an entirely multiplyer game while Matt Hazard isn’t. And Ninja Turtles is a hack and slash game. It doesn’t even have guns.

    And I’m kind of surprised that someone who is a game developer needs to have a list of unique features to justify a purchase. Personally, I don’t care how many bullet points a developer can put on the back of a box. It’s going to be how much fun I have in the demo that matters. Often times, the things that make or break a game aren’t things that you can just list as “features.” They are small design decisions. For example, I love Uncharted’s multiplayer but not Gears of War’s because Uncharted feels like it’s faster paced. That’s nothing a developer can easily describe to you. It’s something you have to experience for yourself.

  • Hey wat i wanna know is why cant i get Parasite Eve 1 or 2 in the PSstore yet. You know were gonna buy it as soon as it hits the store. Preferably P.E.2 PLEASE!!!!! ;)

  • Next crazy price for minigame like Fat Princess or Trine.

  • This will help me get over my Shadow complex game remorse because I no longer have a 360. Thanks! Looks great BTW!

  • does the game support custom soundtracks?

    i must say ive never played the other game but i did have some interest in it. but im very impressed with what i see on this message board. Eric Peterson has practically responded to everyone. its nice to see that theres people out there who still value communication.

    ill wait till i play the demo before i worry about the price. $15 does seem steep compared to other psn games but i have no problem paying extra for quality. i just hope psn games arent going to all be $15.

    • I\’m doing my best to answer everyone with unique questions ;)

      I don\’t believe we support custom soundtracks with this title but I am asking someone to be certain and we respond again once I get a concrete answer.

    • I have had our team check into this for me and as I suspected the PS3 version of BBB does not support custom soundtracks.

  • What’s up with the mounties? Are you anti-Canada?

    Dont lie to me Eric. Your anti-Canada agenda has been clear for quite some time :p

    • In my best Canadian accent: What\’s up with the accusations aye? Watcha talkin aboot?

      Seriously though, we have some Canadians here at the office and we do our best to make them feel at home. And what is more Canadian than Mounties riding mechanized Moose. And don’t fall in the syrup traps either when playing the Oh Canada level in our game ;)

  • aye?

    You clearly don’t know how Canadians talk Eh.

    Those Canadian coworkers need to get you some Tim Hortons Coffee, Ketchup chips, Coffee Crisp Chocolate Bars and Labatts Blue Stat.

    • Yeah yeah yeah. Our Canadian already corrected me on the Eh not Aye ;)

      Now if he would stop wearing that Mountie hat around the office.

  • “Our canadian” So he’s a pet is he?

    How much is he gonna rub it in your face if the Canadian Jr Hockey Team beat the US team tonight?

    • We don\’t talk hockey. And even if we did it would only be about professional level (NHL). Junior stuff, college…it isn\’t for me really.

      It doesn\’t come as a surprise though that Canada won that game ;)

  • “Let go of your material possessions man (or woman)! Embrace the future…it is now!

    Seriously though I understand where you are coming from. I still can’t commit to buying music that way. I need a CD in my hands.

    But in recent years I have embraced the downloadable game and am glad they are available.”

    Then give us the *choice* of either DLC or game on a disc.

    That is not too much to ask.

    • I would if I could ;) But that isn\’t my call. Publishers in the industry decide to make a game downloadable or retail usually when a game starts production. If it was cost effective to do both all the time, it would probably get done. It really depends on the type of game and how large an audience the game might have if it ends up being the final decision (i.e. going to a retail outlet on consoles or PC, or being made available through a server based download site).

      One benefit of a downloadable game is that the cost is significantly reduced for the consumer since a lot of overhead doesn’t get wrapped up in the pricing of the game. No box, no manual, no disc, etc.

      Sometimes with downloadable games, they can even reward a developer more because the developer can choose to independently publish their own game via the manufacturer (i.e. Sony).

      Lately some games have a stint in retail and then after they have been price reduced or sold through via the channel, they end up being converted to a downloadable or streamed product. This gives some games that are no longer desired at retail a second chance.

      Anyway, hope I didn’t bore you with the business side of things, but in the case of our game the decision was to be a downloadable game and that was it. This was our first ever downloadable only title in a decade. Usually our titles are retail for console and PC games along with an occasional sku being downloadable for PC.

  • “One benefit of a downloadable game is that the cost is significantly reduced for the consumer since a lot of overhead doesn’t get wrapped up in the pricing of the game. No box, no manual, no disc, etc”

    $40 downloadable PSP games say hi Eric.

    I find if baffling that devs/pubs are still making horrible pricing decisions when it comes to downloadable stuff. These systems are 3-4 years old.

    I mean it took till a few months ago to start getting regular sales on PSN. For the first 2.5+ years we got 5 games on sale for a week twice a year and that’s it.

  • I love the parody/references to other games in it. TF2, Mirror’s Edge & Bioshock are all recent games. I hope there are more recent game parodies in this.

  • NO ONLINE CO-OP? THIS GAME IS GONNA BE A MASTER FAIL

  • Eric two things:

    Because many asks if there where going to be trophies where probaly because they searched “matt hazard bloodbath and beyond trophies” on google , and the first site that pooped up was this and the text was “Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond chronicles the latest adventures of …. For a PSN title without trophies? As good as it looks, I just don’t have the…”

    2: When will this come out in EU psn?

    Thanks for taking time :)

    • I believe it is by the end of this week. I have asked some people about it to be certain and will reply again if that is not correct.

  • Just played this demo. Not horrible but not worth 15 bucks. I was hoping that maybe your game would be awesome and make me want to come back here and apologize for my rude comments. Well it doesn’t. But I do apologize anyway. If this game ever drops to half price I might buy it just because it kind of reminds me of Contra.

  • great game… i love it :)

  • I really wish the game had full voice overs.

    You’re making me do way too much reading just for one joke.

  • I played about 5 minutes of the demo and I had to turn it off when my daughter walked in the room.
    Way to go guys. You took what should have been a great game and considerably shrank the demographics to a game that 15 year old boys play when their parents aren’t looking.
    Thanks.

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