Gamesugar

July 20, 2012

Review – Metal Slug 3

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , — TJ "Kyatt" Cordes @ 6:29 pm

Review Metal Slug 3
SNK masterpiece Metal Slug 3 is a side-scrolling shooter that, despite being twelve years old, possesses an expressive level of detail and animation that most modern 2D games can only hope to match.

Apple’s mobile platform, iOS, features a touchscreen-based interface that, when used as a conventional button-based controller, offers a level of control that makes the Xbox 360’s d-pad seem precise in comparison.

With this veritable Odd Couple now living together in what is known as Metal Slug 3 for the iOS, let’s hop into this Metal Slug and see if it’s even possible to steer the thing.

(more…)

December 9, 2010

Refresh Rate – Crystalis

Filed under: Archives — Tags: , , , , , , — Nathan White @ 5:49 pm

crystalis
It’s funny how growing up with video games can fragment your perception of them in retrospect. I vividly remember my mom picking up a game for me on her way home from work from Acme Video on a regular basis, and hastily grabbing the most visually pleasing box from the shelf devil-may-care, as she always did.

That habit led to my introduction to Crystalis, which I remembered really liking, but when the time came for the game to return to the store it fell away to new anticipation – would the next game to come home be another Crystalis, or merely a Captain Comic?

Crystalis must have left an impression on me, because later in life, being a grown up and able to pick my own games, my thoughts drifted back to that particular weekend, necessitating a trip to my local video game haunt to find out if my memory was playing tricks on me.

(more…)

March 16, 2010

Review – Metal Slug Double X

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 3:06 pm

Metal Slug Double X
Metal Slug is a series that always gets plenty of my attention. I’ve devoted a ridiculous amount of love to the franchise during my stay on Starship Earth, even going so far as to attempt playing it on a Neo Geo Pocket Color – which requires the player to sit directly beneath the sun in order to see the screen clearly.

Even after all this time, I’ll still put money into a Neo Geo cab when one turns up at a gaming event, and still lament the fact that I couldn’t afford any of the fancy Japanese hardware that allowed the game to be played at home when I was younger. In many ways, Metal Slug is why the dinosaurs had to die – so we could use the oil from their corpses to fuel the boats that would one day bring this franchise to North America. The animation of characters and actions grabs me every time I see it, that melodramatic Looney Tunes mix of over-action that separates Metal Slug’s cartoonish hyper-violent-bullet-coaster-ride from any other title.

With this in mind, it’s easy-peasy for me to fall into this PSP enhanced port of the DS release (Metal Slug 7), finding my groove and slugging a path through more enemies in a single level than exist in the entirety of other run and gun titles. And yet, like an indecisive Emperor, there’s enough weight on either end of the judgment scale to keep my thumb from turning up or down over this release, creating an unfortunate zone of indifference.

(more…)

Powered by WordPress