The Short
Pros
- Crazy run 'n gun action with lots of powerups and abilities
- Drive vehicles (aka "Slugs") for more awesome carnage
- Some of the best pixel art in the business, bar none
- Six levels of not-nazi blasting carnage
- Strikes a good arcade balance between skill-based and unfair quarter-stealing
- Quite silly
- Two players
- "RAWKET LAWNCHAIR"
Cons
- Not as silly as later installments, though that might be ok
- Only two characters
- Early ports (Playstation and Saturn) were kind of garbage
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| Metal Slug: Actually a spiritual sequel to Prometheus? |
The Long
The "run n' gun" genre has been around for a while, but people will argue it really took off with Contra. Combining macho-men with tight control, the "one hit and you're dead" idea, and absurd powerups and tons of action, Contra was pretty kickass. Many games would attempt to emulate Contra's success, some doing great (Alien Hominid), some ok (Cybernater) and some doing not ok (Doom Troopers). But really, when you think of a game series that not only matched but completely outdid Contra, you're thinking about Metal Slug.
SNK and Neo Geo were the kings of the arcade back in the 90s. Even today, they've made games across tons of genres that are memorable, play fantastic, and are just straight awesome. But for me, my absolute favorite SNK arcade game franchise is Metal Slug. There's just something about these games that is so incredibly gratifying it's hard to not just want to sit down and play them for hours.
So...what makes the first one so good? And why should you consider it nearly twenty years later? Grab your Heavy Machine Gun and read on.
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| Burnin' bridges. |
There isn't much to the story, so we'll just leave it at "Nazi look-alikes." The army of green-clad, lazy soldier jerks is out to take over the world, lead by a Hilter wannabe, and it's your job to take 'em out. Take 'em all out. Be it tanks, helicopters, planes, dudes, boats, military bases, walls; whatever. Enough bullets, and it'll explode in glorious, hand-drawn shrapnel goodness. Thank you, SNK, for completely going over the top.
The gameplay of Metal Slug will be familiar to anyone who has (as stated previously) played Contra. Your character starts with a standard pistol and can shoot in four directions (unlike Contra's starting eight) and can fire as fast as you can mash the arcade button. Of course, power-ups are everywhere, most of them given to you by captured prisoners who all look exactly the same. Save them and then stand next to them for a brief second, and they'll pull out their pants and give you something good. Sometimes it's something awesome ("Shotgun!"), and sometimes it's just stupid (a bone that's worth 50 points? Gee, thanks).
What makes this game a riot is the previously mentioned carnage. Your dude is a non-stop destruction machine, and with power-ups it only get more ludicrous. The amount of stuff on the screen at once is just staggering (not to mention gorgeous), and as you get more and more insane upgrades, the carnage just increases. And don't let me forget to talk about the tanks (or "Slugs," as they call them) which you can man and can take about 4-5 hits before exploding. These tanks are awesome and can jump, duck, and shoot tons of bullets and shells all over the place. They help give you a sense of empowerment few games can emulate.
This is paired with incredibly tight controls for jumping, shooting, and tossing grenades. And since enemies are about as quick on the trigger as the cowboys in Sunset Riders, if you play careful you can usually get pretty far without having to put in another quarter.
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| Total destruction. Also, those pixelated explosions? Gorgeous. |
That, in truth, is one of the better parts of the Metal Slug games. While it's still an arcade suck (especially on the last final levels and bosses), it's designed in such a way that if you get really good at timing jumps and shots you can last a pretty long time before seeing a Continue screen. The game pushes for your continue quarter by offering a free Heavy Machine Gun power-up on death, and every death also restocks your grenades (a cheap tactic in Free Play to get through some bosses quickly). But even though one little hit will kill you (and cause you to lose whatever powerup you have), you come right back where you left off ready to go.
That isn't to say there aren't cheap deaths. The vertical stage (stage 4 I think?) in the snow is cheap, as bad platforming jumps can cause unnecessary deaths. The later bosses fire so many bullets everywhere it seems impossible to dodge. And if you ever see a mounted gun: ignore it. It's a trap. Standing still where the computer wants you to be is a sure-fire way to get murdered, unless you have a great co-op buddy to cover your butt.
Speaking of co-op, that's by far the funnest way to play these games. While single player is nice because you can hog all the power-ups, the game drops so many that you can tell it's been designed for a co-op experience. Playing with two people can also decrease frustration with bosses and other enemies that take a lot of hits, as having a second hand makes you feel all the more powerful. Absolutely a game to be played with friends.
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| This has some of the best pixel art and animations in the business. |
The game looks incredible, too. Everything is hand-drawn pixel art, from the backgrounds to the bits that explode off enemies to the blood and effects; everything. The animations are amazingly smooth, the art is jaw-dropping at times, and some of the bosses (while not as totally bananas as the later games) really look impressive. This is combined with a serviceable soundtrack that just exists to get you pumped to shoot a trillion not-nazies, though the little "end level" ditty that they recycle throughout the series will be stuck in my head forever.
So what is bad about Metal Slug? Well...only a few minor nitpicks. As mentioned before, despite the game being quite silly in the amount of damage you can do, it still is pretty straight-laced this early on. While later games introduce zombies, giant hermit-crab tanks, and aliens, this one is just you shooting guys for most of it. Hardly bad, and the six stages offer plenty of scenery variety, but just not quite as memorable as others.
The only other real issue I have is the general arcade thing of it being designed to eat quarters, especially with the later levels. While skill can take you a certain distance, after a while you're going to have to be tossing quarters in pretty frequently if you want to see the end of the game. This, of course, doesn't matter if you're playing one of the home ports with unlimited continues, though some might argue that takes away the nail-biting stress arcade games are designed to give you. I personally think the game is fun both ways, but I prefer to not have to pay every time I make a bad jump.
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| You're going down, not-Hitler. |
Overall, however, Metal Slug is a classic for a reason. The home ports to the PS1 and Saturn were both pretty bad (the Saturn was better, though you'll need the 1 MB Ram cart), though the PS1 was where I first played this game and I survived. If you want to play it today, the Wii's Virtual Console is a pretty safe bet, though the best way is through the Metal Slug Anthology on either the PSP or PS2. Or just find it in an Arcade; it's still around.
Metal Slug is just straight up fun. Tons of blasting, explosions, bad pronunciation of powerups, and general macho badassness makes it memorable and just a straight up joy to play. I usually get frustrated at most arcade games for being unfair, but I never did with Metal Slug. If you like destruction, then grab a buddy and start blowing up everything. You can't let the not-nazies take over, can you?
Four out of five stars.
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| "I eat prisoners for breakfast! Yes, literally!" |
