Metal Slug 5 (Switch)

Back again!

Fist time playing and from the get go I felt more excited playing through it than 4. It starts off on a jungle river with new enemies all around. Apparently a disc have been stolen by an organisation called the Ptolemaic Army and its your job to hunt it down. After the first boss is destroyed you are even given a cutscene of a mask falling into the jungle and one of the natives pick it up, gets struck by lightning and takes over as the main threat. Apparently the Ptolemaic Army is specialised in archeological digs and espionage so apparently they brought it up. Marco and the gang fights them through old temples, water, air, industrial zones and in the final mission you drive a car on a destroyed highway, jumping over destroyed bridges until you reach a tower and climbing it to the top the enemies have summoned an ancient demon... and the freaking ending theme from the first games starts playing making it an epic showdown.

Really, it ups the stakes, Mordens army isn't shown anywhere and the new music is decent. The new metal slugs are fun and some old ones makes a comeback like the submarine and plane. It was a blast playing through it. Or it could just be that I played it for the first time.

Metal Slug 4

Time to blow things up!

So after the Mysterious Cities of Gold intermission, we go back to the regular scheduled video game reviews... or talk-about. And it's time for Metal Slug 4 finally arriving on the Switch... or it has been there for a couple of months. Apparently a cyber virus threatens to destroy all nations military computers so they send in the best they have, which is two from the other games and two new ones since the others are doing some other things in between, like helping you move from stage to stage. Apparently it's some Amadeus Syndicate that have teamed up with General Mordens rebel army. As you fight through the stages you confront Morden, that turns out to be manufactured robot. The final boss is some scientist that uses the Dr. Wily tactics of using machines in the end battle. Beat him and you gotta escape before the whole factory blows up.

I don't know, but it feels limited compared to the bombastic evolution of the other games. Apparently SNK was going through bankruptcy so maybe that explains the reason. Not only that, but it was licensed out to another company and maybe they reused more assets and that makes it feel a bit same same as the others. Not bad, but I would rather play the first 3 games.

Metal Slug X

The Improved sequel

So it finally came for the Switch, and yeah, it's pretty much the second game again, but with certain changes like one stage changed from day to night, improved frame rate and the aliens are introduced in an earlier stage than right at the end. And I've already mentioned I preferred the original sequel, but this time it felt the improved game was better. The ending stage felt better and didn't crawl to a halt at the bridge scene, although it still slugs at certain times (ha, slug). 

There's really nothing else to say compared to the original game. Wonder if 4 and onward will appear on the Switch.

Metal Slug 2

OH YEAH!!! THE BEST ONE

So they finally released it for the Switch and... it wasn't as fun as I remember. Maybe the slow-down really isn't that great. The moments are still there in the ending level, although it went much worse than it usually does. Could also be due to playing alone since it gets more intense with a friend to tag along. And since I already covered the third game the changes from the first game is that you have 4 character to choose from, you can get fat by picking up to much food, turn into a mummy at a certain stage, more vehicles like a fighter plane, camel and some kind of exoskeleton and a new weapon like the Laser. 

The story, as read from wikipedia (since again, there is no story summery within the game), is that 2 years after the first game the splintered rebel forces are regrouping under a General Morden back from the dead and the old heroes together with two agents from their intelligence agency S.P.A.R.R.O.W must track him down to stop another coup. And in the end it turns out Morden teamed up with aliens who betrays him... for some reason so together with the generals forces you battle the mother ship until it falls down. The ship goes down as one of Morden's pilots flies into the laser conductor or whatever. I think they are homaging the movie Independence Day.

A half-hour game at most. Rather fun, but now I hope they release Metal Slug X to see if it's improves the game or not. Hopefully I can still choose the red blood option.

Blazing Star

I couldn't find the box art

So I've been giving Neo Geo games a shot, and Metal Slug I know from earlier that they are worth it so I decided to try this shoot 'em up after craving some Life Force and you know, it looks good, but it's hard as hell. Thank Good you can push the left trigger to add continues since I wouldn't have finished it otherwise. Took me like 25-30 continues. 

First Boss of the game.

The story is... I couldn't find it in the game so Wikipedia it is. Apparently it's about 6 assimilated human pilots that regained their humanity from the enslaver of humans Brawnshella and set out to destroy this biomechanics weapon that enslaved the life of two planets that waged war against each other and created this weapon that enslaved them. I guess I understand why they didn't put it in, it's insane. Anyway. It was a fun game blasting through, but it is a real bullet hell. I'm more amazed those few times I passed a bullet without getting hit I think it was a fault in the game. You can choose between 6 different ships with different attack patterns, and I defaulted to the first one. Also, I think the programmers must have put in certain phrases the wrong way. For example you are supposed to collect the letters for Lucky, put just grabbing one of them gives you the message "Collected all Lucky-letters" and getting all fives gives you the message "Collect all Lucky-letter" or something to that affect.

I think you can play two players, but my sisters weren't that interested too I had to play it on my own. Overall I prefer Life Force or Empire of Steel, but it could be too nostalgia but I also think the more available stories make me connect more to those games compared to these. The final boss was interesting though, although shooting a giant baby shouldn't be this fun.

Why does it look so familiar?

Oh right, that's why

Metal Slug 3

By some the best Metal Slug-game, I'm not one of them.

Why they choose to release Metal Slug 3 as the first game in the series for Switch I don't know. The first one would have been logical, but for the whole scope of the game I might guess why. It's really the biggest of the games with different paths to take and an ending chapter goes on for very long. It's an awesome end game for sure, but it goes on forever, starting with a fly attack upon the base, which leads to a retake of the ending battle of the first game, but follows up with a space ride, an attack on an alien mothership and then escape. There's planes, submarines, a mammoth and much more to travel in compared to the first game. What's not to like? It's a cheap shot game. Damn bosses takes way to much life, certain routes like the underwater route of the first stage is hard as hell.

Story is that some years after defeating the alien threat of the second game you set out to cleanup the rebel bases of general Morden who is presumed dead. Meanwhile you discover that the aliens are still around. You round both up but discover that general Morden is still alive so you make one final attack, but it turns out it is a alien. That kidnaps your character as well. So you get one of the other characters and  joins up with the rebel forces and follows into space were you save both Morden and your first character and escapes the alien mothership by falling to the sky in a Metal Slug. But like in Wild ARMS you get attacked by a big monster that apparently is the leader of the aliens that you have to defeat. Awesome.

I don't really know why, but I prefer the first two games in series more and it might be that it always was more fun fighting the humans compared to aliens. The humans had more expressions and a bit of humour  added or just the over the top death animations. The aliens? Just gross looking for the most part. I mean, the first game had enemies flying toward the screen or looking surprised as you arrive and so on. Aliens just shoot and then dies. No, I hope that the second game comes around soon, and I mean 2 and not X. But I'm weird.

Metal Slug: or how to get multiplayer on the Switch

Action Hero: The Game

As mentioned in my Switch overview I pretty much got Metal Slug as quickly I could when it entered the e-shop. I already mentioned I played it before, baked together with the other 4 I played on my Wii Virtual Console. But maybe I should go through them one by one to what I see as the progressions in story and gameplay? Well, what better way than start from the beginning.

First stage and the blood just flows

So after reading up on the backstory which isn't in the game at as all as far as I can say (if it isn't is in some wait for the intro at the start) it basically is that a general Morden have staged coups of all the worlds governments and plans to get hold of the Metal Slug, the only ones standing in his way is the Peregrin Falcon Strike Force and it's to officers Cpt. Marco Rossi and Lt. Tarma Roving. Would have been fun with some flavour text on why I am where I am at the start of each level. I get the final level since it's basically storming the generals base, but the others. Why am I in some swamp like jungle at the first stage followed by a town, snowy mountain and so on? That would have been more fun to know, like in Steel Empire where each mission explained why it was important to destroy the boss or liberate the area or just pass through it in the players goal to stop Saurlon. Here I just continues until the end credits which is rather boring.

What isn't boring is running and gunning killing each and every enemy as you avoid the bulletstorms around you. Living through to the end on one life is pretty much impossible... lucky I can heighten my extra lives to 99 as well as continues. Now, playing the game a bunch I can actually manage pretty well. The Wii Virtual Console didn't have this amount of lives and I actually got through without starting over. Not so in the beginning where every life and continue was used to go though take after stage. At the moment I haven't figured out if that's even possible on the Switch version.

So being one of the few multiplayer games at the moment for the Switch (that I own) I tried to play co-op with my sister and I did what I thought I was supposed to do. I split the controller and then attached the wrist-strap extension and then tried to play. Didn't react. So we sit there for a couple of minutes until I look it up on the net since there is no instructions. And basically I constantly have to pair the controllers going between multi- and single-player by entering the controller option on the home screen (except on Shovel Knight which I bought for the 3ed time were at the start screen just push (-) to get the option). I get why, but for some reason I thought I just needed to separate them and that would be it. Cause if there is one problem I feel I gave with this whole console generation is that there is no manuals at all. Zelda have none (if you don't count the mini guide you could get with the Nintendo reward program), Metal Slug have none, at the moment no game have a manual. I miss looking through manuals with artwork and trying to piece together what might happen in the game and which people I might meet. I miss the old days in that regard.

Metal Slug Comeback

Oh, a month since the latest update? And a new year at that? Golly, that went fast. At the moment my home is a bit of a renovation site since we found a water leak that pumped water below the kitchen floor... for maybe two years. So a good start for the new year isn't? What happy things should we talk about then?

Before Christmas I went on a Virtual Console spree and got games I had heard of, but never seen or played. Let us begin discussing the METAL SLUG-series, especially the first four games and the remake of MS 2. HOLY F***ING GOD!!! What an awesome series! You take control of one out of two or four characters as you mow down rebels threatening the world peace, sometimes even jumping in tanks, planes, helicopters, submarines or other machines to stop the evil General (who I forgotten the name of). The graphics are amazing for sprites and the music makes the blood pump. These games are the 80's and 90's action movies distilled to 1-2 hour gameplay. At certain points you can get turned to a big blob, a zombie or a mummy that can be really annoying, especially as you loose your machine gun or rocket launcher while in that form and if you don't find medicine quick enough you will probably die before the effect wears of, almost forgot, ONE HIT KILLS.

One of the few games I felt that the more I played, the better I got, even going so far surviving the first stages without using a continue or the like... compared to the first time when I used up all credits to reach the first boss and then die. Personally MS 2 (the original) is my favorite and that is due to the slowdowns which everyone else hates and would prefer the remake MS X. Best scene is the final stage when you jump across ice cold water, jump over sandbags with enemy soldiers covering behind them while you fire machine gun and then the twirling bridge appears. The slow downs hit with all enemies, projectiles and rockets on screen, but it feel like a slow motion action scene. It's AWESOME! And the music rocks.

Explosions for everyone and a toast to everyone and a wish that 2014 will be a good year to look back to!