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By Justin Crowley on October 22nd, 2001
Introduction If you grew up in the 80’s and were a gamer, there is no doubt in my mind that you have played a side scrolling shooter at one point or another. In this modern age of "3-D" and "polygons", it is nice to see a game that embraces its roots. Metal Slug X for the Sony Playstation is one of said games, but the question is not about whether it embraces its roots.... it’s a matter of it doing it well. Presentation Menus ae basic and easy to navigte. Nothing flashy here.Graphics & Sound Nothing spectacular here. The designers obviously went for a SD (super deformed) anime look on this one. Each of the main four main characters look different, however they look similar enough so that it is easy to get your guy confused with your friend’s in two player mode. All the enemies look basically the same with the bosses as an exception. Expect to spend hours fighting wave after wave of Fidel Castro-esqe soldiers, generic looking aliens, and unimaginative tanks. Nothing about the opposition stands out in terms of basic enemies. The bosses are a whole new story though. Each (in traditional side scrolling fashion) is huge and easily takes up almost the whole screen. All of the weapons and enemy fire looks nice. As you would expect from this kind of game, things get a bit hectic due to all of the action going on at once. Enemy fire, your own machine gun, and other annoyances will fill the screen with bright colors and vibrant explosions. The landscapes are of your token action variety, and I am positive you have seen them all before. There’s the jungle, the ice level, the desert, and the urban warfare stages just to name a few. To be honest this wouldn’t really matter, but they don’t look too great. Very flat and very undetailed is the name of his game. First off are the sound effects. These are OK, nothing great but not bad enough to warrant a suck comment. Explosions sound like they should, and you can hear all of the bullets fly around you. The only annoying thing about them are the hostages you must free. The one comment they know gets very old very quickly. Hmmmm music... music, well first of all the only music I noticed at first was that of the main menu, and let me tell you it was nothing to write home about. Once again a game falls victim to the techno MIDI style of the NES. Seriously in this day and age you would think developers would recognize the importance of a good non-liscenced soundtrack, but NOOOO we get crap like this. As for in game, I really couldn’t even hear it over the sound effects. This, by the way, is a good thing. Gameplay Hmm, pretty simple here. Choose one of four soldiers (all of which have the same attributes by the way), and blast your way through level after level of similar looking soldiers, fight a big boss, and repeat until game’s conclusion. Each weapon you get (flame thrower, heat seeker, shotgun) can only be held one at a time meaning if you have a shotgun and accidentally pick up the machine gun you’re stuck with it. Also each can be upgraded once by picking up the same weapon upgrade, i.e. shotgun becomes heavy shotgun. Once you run out of ammo (which is impossible to predict due to lack of an ammo display), you lose the gun and are switched back to your crappy pistol. The game spices it up a bit by letting you control different machinery like the plane, the tank, and the camel(?). Each has it’s own armor and it’s own special weapon. Once the armor is depleted, you must jump out before it explodes. The last gripe I have is the inclusion of unlimited continues. This allows you to blow though the game in an hour even on the hardest setting. Lasting Appeal This game features a mode called "another mission". These are a series of mini games that are unlocked by beating the main game. They’re all of the protect a certain object for a limited amount of time variety, and do little to enhance the longevity of the game. There is also a fan art gallery to view some nifty pics. Conclusion This is a rare game in a dieing genre. However, it offers nothing to warrant a purchase. Rent it to bring back a few memories of your youth. | 
