If you’ve not had much experience with consoles or arcade machines, you could be forgiven for not having heard of Metal Slug at all. However, a great deal of PC gamers may have come into contact through the series outside of an arcade.

In fact there was a point in time where the PC was the best place to play the Metal Slug series without buying expensive hardware or locating the arcade cabinet, thanks to emulators like MAME that allowed many of the titles in the series to run on PC hardware.

However, emulation can be tricky and often involves breaking the law, so the Metal Slug Collection finds its way onto our shelves. Carrying the first 7 Metal Slug titles (1-6 and X) this is by no means a complete collection, but it does include the main ‘meat’ of the series and what many players consider the better titles.

Metal Slug is an arcade game, and is therefore very easy to pick and play and very, very difficult to master. At least, I’ve always found it very difficult. I’m sure many hardcore arcade gamers will tell you that Metal Slug is ‘easy mode’, but unless you play these types of game a lot, the later levels of each Metal Slug title can get pretty rough. It was a game designed to take your money for continues, after all.

Every game in the series is a run and gun title where you guide a single soldier or two soldiers in co-op through a series of 2D platform style levels. There’s very little in the way of platforming though; it’s all about shooting and dodging bullets, collecting powerups and, of course, getting high scores.

Across the seven titles on offer in this collection, the game varies very little. Even the difference between the oldest and newest game in the collection is minimal; Metal Slug 6 allows you select two different weapons and choose from a wider range of characters, but other than slightly grander set pieces, it’s the same as the very first Metal Slug title.

Controls are a simple matter of moving and shooting in the right direction. As with most arcade conversions, without a proper arcade stick Metal Slug is going to feel pretty weak. Keyboard control isn’t exactly terrible, but it’s not how the game was designed to be played, and it shows. I would recommend configuring a gamepad at the very least, and an arcade stick if at all possible.

Metal Slugs’ humour and style make up for its lack of invention and weak controls, though. Each of the titles has its own enemies and bosses, but they share an incredibly high quality of graphics and very fluid animations. There are few 2D games better looking than the Metal Slug series, and as the series progresses, the sets and graphics become even more polished.

Despite the lack of variation between the different titles, each game has plenty to keep players entertained. There are multiple ways to earn points, a large number of different weapons and some very inventive bosses. You’ll find that many Metal Slug fans having their own favourite title but in reality, all of the games have their own standout sections - and frustratingly hard areas.

The lack of differences between titles is a double edged sword. If you like one of the Metal Slug titles you’ll likely enjoy all seven on offer here, but if you’ve played Metal Slug before, the different games won’t offer any different experiences. It’s a shame then that the collection package itself is very weak.

The “Collection” Part

In recent years game collection packs, especially on the consoles, have been really trying to add ‘value’ to their old game offerings. The amazing Sega Genesis collection is a good example, featuring interviews, bonus features and unlockable games. It gave players a reason not just load up an emulator.

In contract, the Metal Slug Collection has no additional features at all. You get a very basic and unattractive menu system, a very basic option to configure controls and that’s it. There’s not even any consistency between the games. Metal Slug 6 gives you infinite continues so you can play through to the end no matter how bad you are, Metal Slug 3 let’s you insert ‘credits’ with the ‘5’ key while Metal Slug 1 only gives you a few continues before game over.

If there was a way to change how the continue system worked in every game, I couldn’t find it through the menu or in the poorly made PDF manual.

Without any unlockable features, background or style invested in the Metal Slug Collection, it all feels a bit cheap. Even emulated it’s easy to download cabinet art, posters and further information on these games, so it’s pretty inexcusable that a commercial release ignores all of those extras entirely.

Still, for those of us that don’t have the original arcade machines sitting in our living rooms, it does provide one of the first legal ways to play the Metal Slug games. Poor quality menu or not, if addictive arcade shooters are your style and you don’t mind a challenge, Metal Slug is one of the finest examples of its genre.
 

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Reviewed By: Rob