Metal Slug 2: Super Vehicle - 001/II

The Good
So here we are, the second game of this series and it's a technical letdown. Let's begin with the story. Evil General Morden is back and now with the help of, not only his army, but with the help of aiens, more or less. Yes, you are fighting aliens in this game. So you have to stop General Morden and those aliens to take over the world. This time you can choose between four different characters. Of course, Marco and Tarma are back and they brought to other companions with them. There is Sgt. Eri Kasamoto and 1st Class Fiolina Germi. Choose which suits you best and head into war. You have not only two new characters but you have new weapons as well. For example there is a laser gun, which let's you kill enemies faster than before, a shot gun which can kill enemies in one shot and a flame shot which let's you burn enemies especially in those levels where you have to fight mummies. New vehicles where added as well. You can now ride a camel which has a gun attach to it and it's awesome. There is the Slug Flyer, a jet fighter which shoots air-to-air missiles and normal ammo and the Slugnoid, a vehicle which climbs up towers and has twin cannons attach to it which doubles your firepower but you have to be careful because evry time you get hit one of those cannons is destroyed. I really like those new weapons and vehicles and makes for some great variaty in this game. You also face new enemies. Mordens army are not the only one you fight, you have to fight aliens and mummies as well. The graphics are just as good as the first one and you even get day and night sections for the first time. The soundtrack is far better than the first one because there a few tracks to listen to and it's sounds great.

The Bad
The biggest problem i have with this game are the slow-downs. This game is from a technical standpoint the weakest one. The first level is not so bad with these slow-downs, but after that level it becomes really annoying if you have to walk and shoot in slowmotion and it really takes the flow out of the game. If you have played Gradius III and Super R-Type on the snes, you know what i am talking about. I also did not like the death animation if you are a mummy. Yes, you can turn into a mummy. But you can only hold your normal gun and if you die the animation takes too long to finish and as someone who dies alot it's really annoying. If you think this does not sound like fun at all, there is a solution. SNK notices those technical weaknesses and released an enhanced version of this game called Metal Slug X. This version is based on the Metal Slug 3 engine, which means there are very few slow-downs in this game plus you get new weapons and additional power-ups.

The Bottom Line
This game is still a good game but because of these slow-downs it's i don't like really like this game but if you are still curious you can still get this game on the Wii Virtual Console. If you wanna skip this one, you can play Metal Slug X so you don't have to worry about these slow-downs. Choose which one suits you best and head into war once again.