Anyone who has set foot in an arcade over the last ten years likely knows about Metal Slug, one of the flagship franchises from the once-thought defunct SNK. Known for its simplistic gameplay and comical visual style, it’s one of the most beloved 2D games this side of Samurai Shodown. After seeing limited releases on different consoles over the past seven years, SNK Playmore finally brings it all together with Metal Slug Anthology to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the series. The Metal Slug games are 2D side-scrolling shooters in the same vein as Contra or Gunstar Heroes. What sets Metal Slug the Metal Slug series aside from those games is its comical hand-drawn super deformed characters and vehicles and frantic gameplay. The first game gained popularity in the arcades and remains sought after to this day ten years and six sequels later. Metal Slug Anthology is a compilation of seven almost arcade-perfect ports of these games including the first release of Metal Slug 6 in North America and Metal Slug X, a remixed version of Metal Slug 2. Conspicuous by its absence is Metal Slug 3D which was released in Japan in 2006, but depending on who you talk to, that could be a good thing. While this compilation caters to fans of the series, it also comes with the normal issues associated with releasing arcade ports to a home console, being that any of the games can be beaten in half an hour or so. What’s more is that these games are intended to be quarter munchers, which brings the problem of having unlimited continues which will allow you to simply breeze through any of the games. Your typical Metal Slug game begins with choosing a character and running and gunning through five levels while taking out enemy soldiers, tanks, vehicles, and bosses. In the case of the first six games, characters all play similar to one another and only offer a cosmetic difference. Note that I only mentioned the first six games, more on that later. While your character comes standard with a handgun and grenades, you’ll be able to pick up weapon upgrades by saving POWs and killing certain enemies through each of the game’s levels. The power-ups range from conventional, yet bad ass weapons like the heavy machine gun, rocket launcher, and flame thrower to more outlandish offerings like the drop shot which shoots bouncing balls of pure death, enemy chasing missiles, and the appropriately named iron lizard which hurls explosive lizards at everything in its path. While most of the enemies you’ll go up against are an opposing army lead by a familiar looking dictator, each game will contain a twist that will have your characters going up against zombies, aliens, ninjas, and other varieties of crazy creatures. As is the case with any classic arcade shooter, you’ll have a boss battle at the end of each level which will take more than a few shots and a few lives to dispatch. The staple of Metal Slug’s gameplay lies in the different vehicles that you’ll be able to commandeer to bring the pain to your enemies. The most common is the series namesake, the Metal Slug tank which is equipped with a Vulcan cannon and explosive shells. Each game in the series introduces newer and crazier slugs with each iteration which include, but aren’t limited to planes, helicopters, camels, donkeys, submarines, and assorted mecha. Finding and piloting these slugs is half of the fun the game provides. There are other portions where the normal gameplay mechanics are thrown out of the window, as is the case with the final level of Metal Slug 3 which becomes a top-down shooter in some areas. These gameplay changes, in addition to the hand drawn and wonderfully animated characters, bring out the charm and creativity that the series is known for. One thing everyone possibly has on their mind is how you would control games like this using the Wii remote. Metal Slug Anthology attempts to make use of the motion sensitive controls of the Wii remote and actually succeeds in some cases. The default configuration is set to use the Wii remote directional pad to control your character, the 1 button to shoot, and the 2 button to jump. Shaking the remote lets you throw grenades. There are more unconventional methods of control, with one being that you can move your character to the left and right by tilting the remote in the corresponding directions and using the A and B buttons to shoot and jump. The saving grace to all of this is that the game is compatible with the GameCube controller, which in reality is the best solution, though it’s a mystery why the Wii’s classic controller wasn’t included in that design decision. Given SNK’s prosperous history and turbulent last days before its rebirth, Metal Slug games have continued to be released. After SNK closed, third parties got a hold of the license to attempt to continue the series, which caused the quality of the games to slump. The first four games in the series, Metal Slug, Metal Slug 2/X, and Metal Slug 3 are the clear standouts in terms of creativity and humor. Metal Slug 4 was the first non-SNK release which, thanks to the inexperienced team working on the game, rehashed characters, bosses, and environments from the previous games into a game that seems piecemeal compared to the other installments. Another element that failed to carry over was the trademark humor, creativity, and destructive environments that served as series trademarks for so long. That’s not to say that Metal Slug 4 is a bad game, per se, it’s just a disappointing offering when compared with the other games in the series. Metal Slug 5 marked the first offering by the newly resurrected SNK-Playmore and made up for the mistakes of the previous game by having you fight all-new enemies, all new bosses, and all in brand new environments all while taking the series back to its roots. Metal Slug 6 is the newest game in the series and it introduces a host of new features. While some are for the best, others just seem to be for the sake of it. First off, this is the first Metal Slug game to not run on the old SNK MVS hardware and was designed for the Sammy Atomiswave. The first new feature fans will notice is that the game starts by giving the option to play the game on normal or easy mode. Normal mode follows the normal arcade traditions of the series, while the easy mode arms you with a heavy machine gun with unlimited ammo and stops just before the game’s last level. The second thing fans will notice is due to the change of hardware, the game’s hard-pixilated look is jettisoned in favor of smoother, higher resolution sprites. While it helps to make the game look more “current”, it also takes away from the series’ old school charm just a bit. The new hardware also allows some really neat scaling effects that will pan the screen in and out to get up close on the action or to fit the game’s screen filling bosses into frame. In addition to the overhauled visuals, the game also got a makeover in the sound category offering the same epic musical score, only sounding fully orchestrated and less synthetic this time around. The character sound bytes have also been redone and in some cases, sound better than the previous installments. Other new features include adding the ability for each character to carry two weapons at a time and the ability to switch them up on the fly. Another huge change with Metal Slug 6 comes with character selection. While in the past, choosing one of the game’s characters was only for appearance’s sake; this installment goes beyond by giving each character special traits and abilities. One character can use tougher slugs, which keeps them from blowing up as fast, while another has powerful bullets or grenades. This game also marks an appearance by Ralf and Clark of Ikari Warriors and King of Fighters fame as selectable characters. While Ralf acts strictly as a new Metal Slug character, Clark has a special move where he can perform a backbreaker on enemies which multiply in score when he performs the move on multiple enemies in succession. While the addition of these characters isn’t really necessary by any means, it’s still pretty cool to have them there. While these games are essentially arcade perfect, the experience is marred by frequent load times that only seem to get worse as you get to later games in the series. Most load times seem to be uncalled for and are oftentimes seen after beating a level just a couple of seconds before the screen fades to black. Fortunately, the design seems to prohibit load times from occurring in the middle of action which warrants a personal thank you from me to the developers. Still, the fact that a 2D game has to suffer from frequent load times in the first place is rather disappointing. Metal Slug Anthology serves as the perfect compilation for anyone who has been a fan of any or all of the games in the series, or action fans in general especially given the extra concept art, music, and interview to be unlocked by beating the games. The combination of the cartoony visuals, humorous situations, and out of control storylines with each game is enough to entertain anyone willing to give this game a try. It more or less comes down to the question as to whether gamers would want to purchase this game for the Wii or wait a couple of months for it to be released on another platform. If there’s anything crippling about Metal Slug Anthology on the Wii, it would unfortunately be the control schemes offered. The game finally brings the arcade experience of Metal Slug home only to be hampered by the non-arcade controls of the Wii. On the other hand, anyone willing to put a new spin on the old school gameplay will be pleased.
The biggest Metal Slug collection to date should please any Metal Slug fan. And if your new to the Metal slug series your in for a nice treat. For those of you that haven't played Metal Slug before think of it as a ... Read Full Review
If you feel up to a challenge then this collection of action packed, 2D side scrolling games are for you. I love these old school games and let's face it, games like these now-a-days are pretty much non-existent. Oh sure... Read Full Review
