Metal Slug: Super Vehicle-001

Well it's been awhile and I just wanna write something. What better way to do that than with Metal Slug for the Neo-Geo. Originally released for the MVS arcade board, it was later ported to the AES console (not that anyone can afford one) and the Neo-Geo CD (with some glaring load times) I'll be playing the game on the metal slug anthology for Wii which has no load times once the game has booted up. They seem to be arcade perfect from what I can tell but unless you have a gamecube controller you may not get along with the controls or the wiimote. Sadly the PS2 version has no 60hz option in PAL regions so the Wii is the only way to go about it unless you dont mind playing on a PSP screen.

There is very little to say about the story. In the 21^st century there are two armies. “The Regular Army” which is basically an anti-terrorist group funded by the government and “The Rebellion” which is a group which aims to turn the government into a military ruled one. The Regular army is pushed to the brink and only you, Marco and run in their and kick their butt. On a side note. The enemy of the Rebellion looks like a mix of Hitler, Saddam Hussein and General Gaddafi so he's gotta be one evil bastard hm? Or maybe I'm just projecting.

Well being a Neo-Geo game. It does not ever pull any punches. With some practice you'd be able to beat the game without a konami code amount of lives but it's still a game that can test you. Marco starts out with a Pistol which can be upgraded to a Machine Gun, Flamer, Shogun, Laser(Correct me if I'm wrong) or Rocket Launcher. All of which are good but the shotgun is probably the best but also the rarest. You also have a number of Grenades or “Bombs” as they call them, which can aid you greatly when taking out tanks or people hiding behind cover. Marco can jump, crouch, shoot vertically or horizontally and jump into the Metal Slug. An all powerful tank which can aim in all directions with the main Machine Gun, fire a limited supply of Tank Shells or throw Grenades by holding down and the Grenade button. The Metal Slug also has a health bar so you wont die in one hit unlike when you're outside.

The game is visually stunning and still is one of the better looking sprite based game series around. Every detail is well animated and it looks great even when running the Wii on a HDTV (Though I am running it through component cables). The only real drawback is that you can't use the Classic Controller to play the game but the Gamecube does the job pretty well as long as you use the analogue stick over the pathetic D-Pad. Metal Slug as a series is fantastic if you love run and gun shooters and no collection is complete without it. I'll probably do a small review on all the games that I have (1 – 6) and I'm looking to buy 7 sometime. I'm not going to do a score as I think they're all good and if you like one of them, then you basically will like all in the main series.