Angry Robot

Metal Slug 3: You. Have. To. Play. It.

The first second I played it two things struck me:

1) The revamped animation instantly made me feel like I was playing in an Anime film from 1985. Seriously, the animation style is the tits, so fun and detailed and retro sharp cool.

2) The music is so A.D.H.D-Coked-Out-Insane it is perfect for a hyper freak out like me. It was done by a company called Noise Factory. I can’t read Japanese and maybe you can or can’t so here is the Wiki as well.

This is a run and gun that moves fast and frenzied. The game was developed by SNK, makers of one of my favourite games of all time and my first real experience with falling in love with a game: Crystalis. You are part of a team that’s trying to stop these bad rebel dudes led by an evil General, but soon you find that evil aliens are invading so you have to team up with the rebels to stop them! The alien design is so good and rips straight from the pages of Heavy Metal in some cases. At least it felt that way to me, with a certain 80’s action adventure sci-fi feeling to it. What does that even mean? It means a movie with Grace Jones in spandex and a big laser gun with spiked gaunlets. Bitches.

The weapons are great and upgrades come often as you save dudes that rip their pants off to give you stuff. Awesome. Weapons range from classics like machine guns, shotguns, and rocket launchers to lasers and flame throwers. Live Arcade lets you set it up with any difficulty you want and you can have as many lives as you want too for extra challenges. Like try beating the first five levels with one life. I can’t do that at all. I play with infinity! And I don’t care because not having to worry about death lets me play the game all the way through in one sitting and that, my friends, sincerely wracks your brain with pixel madness.

The whole concept of “slugs” are vehicles that are loaded with power but move more slowly than when you’re on foot. Not all of the original slugs are included in this release, but there are plenty to keep you entralled. My personal fav was the laser shooting camel. Yeah. And then there are helicopters and walking mech like ones too. All have heavy firepower and you can only stay in them for so long before they explode from too much damage (cept the camels…) unless you keep getting gas cans to keep their live up. There are ground levels, air levels, water levels with subs, and finally space levels. See why this is my perfect game?

The narrator voice is great too with funny lines like when you eat too much food for health you can get super fat and then he’ll say like “Whoa! Big!” It’s just wee touches like that I appreciate. I also appreciate it when I finish a level and he tells me “You’re Great!” in a weird aggressive voice.

The point here peeps is that words cannnot express this one, there’s far too much. Like in the zombie level (oh yeah there’s a zombie level) if you get hit you turn into a zombie and fight all creepy like until you die again and then respawn. Love it.

The boss battles are immensely satisfying with the classic “just hit it there, REPEATEDLY!” action that doesn’t make you think, just lets you enjoy the visual chaos.

This is fun, plain and simple and satisfying. Get on Live Arcade, get the demo if you must but please just get the full game. It’s a great deal for hours and hours and hours of messed fun.