Metal Slug - Neo Geo

This will be my first post has a married man. I wonder if it will be different?!.........I"m guessing no. Been super busy the past 2 months, haven't had a chance to play anything for while, but I did get to play Metal Slug for the Neo Geo.

This is a game that I have only ever played in the Arcade. So my memories of what the game was and what the game is , are very different. What I remember in the arcades about this game is, it ate my quarters. I died ever 20-25 secs and the further I got into the game the more frequent I died. Well, the same is said for the home version has well. My only comment after beating this game was "Holy Fuck Nutter!!"

The game is for the Neo Geo, which I never played has a kid. But I got a PS2 game that has a big list of Neo Geo games on them. I like those sorta games! So I was pretty excited to play Metal Slug when I saw it listed there. So off I went down memory lane. For those you who don't know what this game is about, well there's two things.
1) You probable don't belong here and got lost looking for a cure for hemorrhoids on the web.
2) For people who''ve heard about it, but never seen it, its a side scroller shooter.


First thing I noticed and I was wondering if it was my controller at first or a option in the menu. But you can't shoot Diagonally, only up and left and right and straight down. And OH MY FUCKING GODNUTS!!!, does this ever make the game 10 times harder then it needs to be. There were tons of times I was in situations where I could have easily killed an enemy and went on my merry way , if I could only shoot diagonal. I'm pretty sure Contra was out when this was out, why couldn't they take a page from that and put it in. Its crazy frustrating.

I guess if you want to get technical, the character does SOMETIMES shoot diagonal when he has the machine gun or in the tank, but it really doesn't help. When you have the machine gun, you can't aim diagonal, you can only go front shooting straight to pointing up and has he goes from right to up, he fires off a couple of shots diagonally. So if you wanted to shoot diagonally, you have to press up then right, then up, then right and hope your bullets hit the target. Then you run outta bullets and your screwed.

Then you can jump in a tank, which is slow has hell, but offers some good firepower. But I found it frustrating that if I wanted to shoot the main gun of the tank at enemies behind me and keep moving forward, it was impossible. If I wanted to move forward, I pressed right, but pressing right also meant my gun was facing right. So if enemies back left I have to press left and I start moving left and shooting left. It was really hard and I guess would take some getting used to. But I blew up a few seconds after getting in the tank for it to make any difference to my game play anyway.


So needless to say, it really makes the game harder than it should be by not being able to shoot diagonal. But guess what?...in the later level, it really wouldn't matter if you could shoot diagonally or even if you could shoot in a complete circle all at once. Because it turns into one of those insane games where there is so many bullets and bombs flying around, that it doesn't matter where you stand, move, shoot. You are dead!. You CANNOT avoid the mayhem that is on the screen. The last 2 levels, I died every 5-7 secs. I understand why they did this, because it was for the arcade and they wanted people to put quarters in them. It took me, with 3 lives per turn and 17 continues to finish the game. So it took me total of 51 lives and if I payed in quarters, $4.25 . But that was way back then, but that time it was probable 50 cents a play.


So needless to say, I rolled my eyes alot while playing this. Just at the insane amount of enemies and bullets on the screen that I was suppose to avoid. It just felt futile. I know what would make a great game. I'll drop a nuke on you and you have to outrun the blast.........I think I will just sit and wait. I can really see this game being fun, but I think its one of those that I have to play again and again and become a zen master at avoiding bullets and finding sweet spots. But I did finish it, but not with any sense of satisfaction..



So Overall, I say, I give the game 6.5 for a fun want level and a 3 for just plain frustration.

WOW, after watchin videos of people play this game online, I must suck donkey balls on this game.Then so be it...bring on the donkey!