Most games today give players certain goals and missions to accomplish, and after everything possible to do is done, a person has little incentive to pick up the game again, or at least until a few months later on when the memories of initially completing the game become so vague that playing it over feels almost like a new experience. This characteristic is hard to find within a game such as Metal Slug 3. Metal Slug 3 comes from the old school of gaming, where the games you played rarely ever lost their appeal, solely due to the fact that every time you laid your happens upon the game, your gaming skill was tested and pushed to its limits.

Metal Slug 3 is a 2D shooter, and by shooter I do not mean that it’s a game played in the first person perspective in which players are required to complete a certain amount specified tasks for each and every mission. In Metal Slug 3, you start from point A, rapidly firing the provided or acquired firearm at everything you see coming your way until you reach point B, where you will encounter some large end-level boss that is sure to require a finely shaped battle plan is order to defeat; a battle plan created by numerous failed tries from previous attempts.

In the game there are numerous amounts of weapons that players may acquire, which include a Heavy Machine Gun, a Rocket Launcher, amongst many others, all of which are limited in ammunition. These weapons are quite useful, since they are more powerful than the standard pistol player’s are equipped from the beginning of each mission, which mind you features unlimited ammo. However, there is another destructible force found within the game, and they go by the name of slugs. Often, these slugs are heavily armored vehicles such as a tank, helicopter, or even a submarine. In Metal Slug 3, these slugs even take shape the forms of an elephant, a camel, and even an ostrich. This is sure to add some humor to the game. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy annihilating baddies from atop a feathered war machine?

What is sure to be found in each and every one of the game’s levels is complete chaos. Enemies are often thrown at players in groups. At times even approaching from all sides of the screen, left, right, up, down, whatever it may be. In order to be successful players must rely on proper examination and timing of an enemy’s attack, and this is a must since it only takes one hit to kick the bucket. This threat alone makes Metal Slug 3 one of the most difficult games players will encounter this year, and similar to Tecmo’s Ninja Gaiden, it’s the type of difficulty that truly challenges a gamer; nothing too unfair, but something that requires a level of skill and mastery that many of today’s casual gamers are afraid to encounter… The completion of a single level in Metal Slug 3 delivers such a great feeling of accomplishment. Even greater, is completing a stage without dying once, which truly shows that you’re brining your best skills to the table.

Adding to the possible enjoyment to be found within the game is a highly addictive co-op mode in which two players can play through the game’s Arcade missions. While co-op does in fact make the game’s missions a tad bit easier, the fun factor of the game manages to increase ten fold. Without question, Metal Slug 3 is one of the most enjoyable multiplayer games I’ve ever laid my hands upon, but it’s unfortunate that this aspect of the game had not been emphasized upon with the addition of Xbox Live, which is utilized in the game only to show scoreboards.

Without question, multiplayer adds to the lasting appeal of the game, but the odd thing about it all is that with only five playable stages within the game’s main gameplay mode Metal Slug 3 still manages to keep players glued to their television sets for many hours upon hours before the completion of their first initial run with the game. The game’s extreme default difficulty setting can be thanked for that, and YES it can be increased to a harder difficulty level. However, those looking for something more should be pleased to hear that SNK Playmore did throw in two new gameplay modes by the names of UFO and Fat Island; gameplay modes that are only available once the game’s Arcade mode is completed. In UFO players play as one of the game’s faceless enemy foot soldiers and storm the inside of an alien mother ship in order to rescue your comrades, with each one saved joining forces alongside you, giving you strength in numbers, but there’s a catch. The catch is that playing as one of these soldiers means that you’re weaker than one of the game’s four heroes and that’s where all the fun comes from, since once again you’re facing a difficult challenge. In Fat Island players fight for their survival by consuming the foods dropped by killed enemies, foods that cause your character to become heavily obese. The plumper you get, the less agile you become while your attacks become more powerful. As a result, players must learn to balance out their food consumption while their goal to attain the highest scores is still being pursued. Press the start button for player two to enter and you double the fun of this pointless, yet fun gameplay mode.

Metal Slug 3’s visuals aren’t the best looking found in a two-dimensional game found on the market today, especially not on the home console front. However, this is not to say that Metal Slug 3 isn’t a good looking game… The 2D sprites used are rendered colorfully, all of which feature some great over-exaggerated animations. They appear onscreen in large numbers, in a variety of sizes, with large amounts of explosions, gunfire, and other visual effects consuming the screen. Additionally, the game’s stages are also rendered nicely, featuring nice details in order to present us with beautiful and unique looking environments. Luckily, everything manages to run on the Xbox flawlessly, without a single hint of slowdown to be experienced; a definite improvement over the original coin-op version from years ago.

Metal Slug 3 doesn’t use today’s best sound technology, so there’s no true incentive in using your surround setup (that is, if you have one). However, I’ve never been one to care about the technological aspect of sound in a game. Personally, I believe a game’s audio portion contributes largely to the atmosphere of the game, and in Metal Slug 3’s case, all is fitting to the game’s fast and intense gameplay. The soundtrack is filled with a variety of tunes, some of which are classic Metal Slug themes which almost have this heroic adventure-like feel to them, and other new tunes which are heavy guitar riffs that fit the game just as well as the rest. Of course, the loud sound effects of gun fire, explosions, and the screams of flame scorched enemies are all done nicely as well. The only real complaint I have is that the game’s announcer, the one which says “Player Select!” or “Mission One, GO!” sounds a bit scratchy, but then again, it comes with port of the coin-op.

Now, while Metal Slug 3 may not be the best example to show off the technological progress of gaming since the sixteen bit era, it’s still a title that utterly destroys the majority in terms of gameplay and sheer fun. Metal Slug 3 is an extremely difficult game that tests a player’s natural gaming skill. The game doesn’t take itself too seriously, but at the same time demands a level of concentration and focus experienced in classics such as Robotron 2084 and Berserk. Additionally, the game is so fast-paced, so hectic that the fast, hard, and repeated tapping of the fire button has the potential to give you a numb thumb. I would suggest Metal Slug 3 to any true gamer looking for a challenge and, of course, for some simple fun. The game is ideal to pick up and play for both short and long periods of time, so the chance of losing interest with the title is slim, that is unless you’re not quite fond of games of this nature or extremely difficult titles is general.