Virtual Vox Pop: What’s You Favorite Metal Slug Game?
Virtual Vox Pop is a weekly open mic in which we ask you, the reader, to sound off on a particular topic. This week, it’s your favorite Metal Slug game.
Metal Slug XX, the upgraded multi-player version of the underrated Metal Slug 7, is headed to the Japanese XBLA sometime next year as SNK Playmore’s 2010 offering to 2D lovin’ gamers. A conversation with a friend regarding where we would rank its quality in comparison to the other entries in this long running- series sparked this week’s topic.
Sam held aloft the banner of Metal Slug X, but I had to give props to Metal Slug 3. Yes, I know, its a pretty cliched response, but it contained a solid mix of hardcore military action and absolutely bonkers in-game features. When I first realized that an attacking zombie doesn’t kill you, but turn you into a zombie ( a zombie that spits a stream of what appears to be acid-laced blood), well, I just knew it was meant to be. It was one of the final games that the old SNK developed before its bankruptcy, purchase, and then rebirth as SNK Playmore, and you can see all of the loving care (the trademark of the old SNK), that was poured into the title.
So, as always, what say you?
Review: Metal Slug 7 (DS)
Reviewing Metal Slug 7 has proved to be one of the toughest endeavors I’ve undertook since launching this here webbersite. Allow me to explain.
I’ve been a fan of the Metal Slug series since its inception; the combination of cutesy, cartoon-like characters and mega-violence sang a song of love. Unfortunately, its debut was during the twilight of the arcades in the New York City area, so it became increasingly difficult to get my Slug-on because a) finding a Neo Geo to pop quarters into was rare, and b) home consoles has not yet had the technological capacity to handle MEGA SHOCK titles. Playing SNK ports on under-powered systems makes newborn kittens cry.
So, I didn’t have much opportunity to take Marco and company on bullet-filled romps, and even owning a Neo Geo AES system didn’t help matters as there was no way I was going to justify spending $300 for a videogame (not until the first million rolls in, at least; keep visiting, people).
Fast forward to 2009. After trading in a bunch of worthless game titles for credit at a local Gamestop, I decided to fulfill a dream by purchasing an original Metal Slug game. Sure, I could’ve bought a PlayStation or Xbox port of one of the earlier releases, but SNK Playmore’s Metal Slug 7 was a newbrand new title in the series–not a Neo Geo port.
Similar to when you were a kid and had a adamantium-like bond with the first handful of games that you owned (regardless of quality), I have much love for Metal Slug 7; perhaps more than it really deserves. Metal Slug 7 isn’t a bad game by any means; in fact, it’s quite good. But it lacks the some of the magic that made the series sparkle from Metal Slug to Metal Slug 3.
Heavy Metal Kings: The Six Most Bad-Ass Military Action Games
Image courtesy neogeoforlife
This Memorial Day, the 2D-X crew pays respect to the courageous men and women who’ve bravely entered the line of fire by looking back at some of the more awesome videogame examples of soldiers at work. We’re not talking realistic first-person shooters like Call of Duty; it’s all about hardcore, near-mindless twitch soldiering that dominated the 8-bit and 16-bit era just as the Cold War began to thaw. No need to carefully manage supplies or call for back up: Simply check your brain at the door, grab the AK, and prepare to leave a foreign body count higher than anything Stallone, Arnie, Dolph, or Norris ever tallied.
During my “research” (which consisted of me playing naked, at 3AM,with a box of Dominos at my side), it became obvious that these war games were more than simple recreations of humanity’s flawed (and recurring) activity; they were also snapshots of time. It’s no coincidence that these titles emerged in a period where the threat of global nuclear annihilation had combat on everyone’s brain, particularly SNK, a company that takes half of the slots if this countdown. Go, America!
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