Metal Slug X

The Good
The interactive levels, Excellent animations and the straight forward gameplay are bar non awesome! The sound and music is all really well done and playing is fun and addictive.

The Bad
The plot could have been worked on, and sometimes it can be really hard. Every other weapon besides the pistol looks like the same gun as the heavy machinegun! and maybe having the chance to go back and forth instead of forever being pushed forward would have been good.

The Bottom Line
METAL SLUG SV-001 Reviewed By Aaron W

Overview

Metal Slug SV-001 is a Side scrolling Action Arcade Game that debuted on the Neo-Geo Arcade and AES machines. It is no doubt a cult classic for any arcade Aficionado that knows the Neo-Geo and many people will almost instantly recognize it even thought they might have played it only once.

One of the first things I really enjoyed had to be the well-animated graphics that are good even compared to some machines like the PS2. The excellently drawn characters in metal slug actually are characters that you will remember and hate or love in a game, and are not some stupid moving obstacles like other games have. Enemy Soldiers are alive and will do their own things, making them seem alive and smart, which is quite something for a platform game. The Enemy soldiers are really funny to watch, as they mock or talk to each other, or just sit idle around a fire trying to heat some coffee. All of the characters in the game look like they are right out of a well-drawn comic book. The main character that you play is really well animated and has a very good range of animated movement and small-animated idle movements. Throughout the game there are Prisoners of War who are either tied up or wandering around that you need to save along the way, They usually provide something they had stashed in there pants that you can use, after they do a wild salute and frantically try and run away.

A lot of the Environments are simply awe-inspiring as to the details that are drawn. Each environment isn’t tiled like certain platform arcade games have, but has a feeling that you are playing across some artistic murals of war torn areas. Not only that but you can interact with it by blowing it up or shooting at it and watching things fall apart. The Interactivity of the environments no doubt inspired a lot of famous game developers that are famous for it in their games.

The whole game is about a mad General who is trying to start a world war, and well you are an elite commando who is out to put an end to his terror. You start out parachuting into a Jungle and trying to take out every enemy soldier and vehicle that you come across. It is fairly intense throughout all six huge levels that you play, as you only get one hit before you die, I think the one hit kill adds to the game play and since most of the enemies are not that hard it works out good. Perhaps for the new gamer or arcade player, this game could prove a challenge but once you get a feel for it, everything seems pretty button mashing obvious. Over the course of the game you come across a nice arsenal of weapons and tanks at your disposal to obliterate the opposition with, the name of the game is after one of the vehicles you get to use, which is the Metal Slug Tank. The SV-001 Tank is awesome as it adds 2 additional hit points to you and gives you a machine gun with unlimited ammo plus a tank cannon, and not only that but you can run over the enemy soldiers with the tank! The types of Guns your commando (Marco) gets are well, quite devastating like the tank as you get a choice of a Heavy machine gun, Shotgun, rocket launcher, grenades or flame thrower. Even though the animation of the gun appears the same, they have there own characteristics, such as the flame thrower making the enemy soldiers do the fiery cha-cha before they die all blackened.

Considering all the violence, is it a children’s game since it looks like a cartoon? Well not really, it is a very violent arcade game! But if the kid is mature enough let them play it as the content couldn’t possibly leave them scarred for life, as it is just like a violent cartoon on T.V no more and no less.

Is the game play fun? Yes it is! And addictive as you work on a score for doing things in the game, like rescuing POW’s and Tanks or collecting small items along the way like frogs or toy dolls. It is a pretty straightforward action game, so there is no character-to-character interaction and no cut scenes, which might have helped the person playing, get a better picture of what’s going on. But if you enjoy button mashing intense visceral Action then you’re going to love metal slug!