Metal Slug: Super Vehicle-001 (Neo-Geo)

It's Super Adventures' 10th Anniversary today, which means it's time for a shiny new logo and a shiny new gimmick for 2021. I figured I should celebrate ten years of my site by giving year eleven a theme, and that theme is 'Top Ten'. Super Adventures is mature and respectable now, so I'm going to play only the very finest games... well, games that have made into the top ten of somebody's rankings anyway. Most of the time I'll be getting them from some 'Top 10 Objectively Greatest Video Games Ever Made' list I've found, but maybe I'll throw in something from a list like 'Top 10 Most Embarrassing Movie Tie-Ins' or 'Top 10 Shovelware Releases on the Wii' every now and then to keep things interesting.

It's not a flawless plan, as it means I'll be writing about games that everyone already knows about. Plus I've already played a lot of the games that tend to show up in these lists, especially the console games, so they're out of the running. So to help limit your expectations, here's some links to a few of the legendary titles I've already covered during the last decade:

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To be honest, I only put this row of boxes here because I felt like seeing if I could figure out how to do it. Plus the site needs more game covers on it. More title screens as well, especially the ones that look like this:

Developer:

Nazca

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Release Date:

1996

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Systems:

Arcade, Neo-Geo, Neo-Geo CD, Saturn, PSX, PC

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing the legendary Metal Slug, as seen in arcades and on the Neo·Geo home console. I should warn you that this article will contain flashing GIFs, so if that's an issue for you, then you probably don't want to scroll down much further.

This game almost ruined my 'top ten list' gimmick right at the start, because I struggled to find it anywhere. I did the research, searching through dozens of top 100 lists from magazines and websites, and none of them had the game ranked high enough! Fortunately Shacknews' Top 10 Run n' Gun Arcade Shooters video bailed me out (spoiler, it was #1).

I was a bit surprised when I saw that the game was released in 1996, as it's a bit later than I expected. That's the same year that Super Mario 64 and Tomb Raider came out, and 2D had already started going out of fashion a couple of years earlier, with Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA hitting arcades in 1993 and Donkey Kong Country faking 3D in 1994. The Neo·Geo MVS arcade cabinet and AES console both predate the Super Nintendo by a few months, so this could've potentially come out as early as 1990 and still looked just as good. I guess the original Neo·Geo was tough to kill, as they were still making 2D Metal Slug sequels for the same hardware as late as 2003, long after the N64 and PlayStation had been replaced.

Uh, I should apologise to you for mentioning so many years in one paragraph, it was a bit excessive. In my defence, this is the first time I've ever covered a Neo·Geo game and I want to talk about the system! I suppose it's also technically the first time I've covered a Neo·Geo CD game as well, which is a newer version of the console which came out a few years later in 1994... sorry, sorry.
 

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That's what you want! Metal Slug started off as an arcade game, so it's got a proper attract mode. It even switches to widescreen for a bit for some reason.

Alright, I'm going to stick a few credits in and see how far I can get on difficulty level 4, which seems to be the default.

This 'How to play' tutorial is a great feature, because it means I don't have to talk about the controls.

It also shows off the hero sprite, who's one of the best animated little pixel protagonists in video games. I'm sure his buddy looks just as good, but there's no character select so I'd have to play co-op to see him. The background's pretty good too. And that explosion.

Wait, hang on, does that explosion have a skull hidden in it?

Yeah, I'm going to say that it does! It's been ages since I've gotten to put my 'skullplosion' tag on a game post.

Most Metal Slugs give you a choice of four (or more) characters to play as, male and female, but here it's just two guys: Marco (Marchrius Dennis Rossi) and Tarma (Tarmicle Roving III), with player 1 being Marco and player 2 being the other bloke.

I'm not trying to make a joke here by the way, those are their actual names. It's times like this I wish I had been keeping a 'Best VG Character Names' list, so I could add them to it. They'd be right up there next to Sven Svardensvart and Dr Vincent Gilgamesh.

Alright, Marco just parachuted down to this jungle for whatever reason and now we're shooting enemy infantrymen. The game never bothered to tell me why, but I'm sure he's got his reasons.

Look at all that blood by the way. It's turned off by default, so all the enemies have white android fluid leaking out of their wounds instead (I think it's supposed to be sweat), but I couldn't think of a reason why I wouldn't want to add a splash of scarlet to liven up my screenshots.

I kept running 'n' gunning and I came across this old wreck of a submarine a little further on, because Metal Slug just can't help throwing giant unique pieces of artwork on screen. There's a bit of tiling in the background if you look for it, a few reused blocks of pixels, but I never really notice (or care). There's also no layers of parallax whatsoever, but again I don't really notice or care.

Metal Slug was made by a developer called Nazca, which was formed by a group of people who'd worked on Irem on the stylish submarine shoot 'em up In the Hunt. So I had to go check if this was one of the subs from that. I don't think it is actually, but you should still check out In the Hunt if you haven't already, as it looks almost as good as this does.

Oh by the way, I found a dude tied to a pole and shot him free (because my aim's just that good).

Turns out that freeing these POWs is an excellent source of new weapons, as they've all got something stashed in their massive 6' tall boxer shorts. And it must have been there a while judging by their long flowing beards.

The 'H' stands for 'heavy machine gun', which means my firepower has become just a little bit more powerful... probably. It's hard to tell because regular enemies all die in one hit either way. I'm certainly firing faster now at least (until its ammo runs out and I'm back to my infinite pistol).

Look at this beautiful helicopter I've found! I regret that I have only 103 heavy machine gun rounds to give it. I'll also regret it if I'm underneath any of those bombs it's dropping, as I don't have a health bar. Marco's just as vulnerable as the infantrymen are, he's just better at jumping around and dodging bullets. Honestly, they should've used faster ammo.

Oh by the way, see that explosion on the right? It's being reflected in the puddle underneath! In fact everything here gets a reflection, because the game just can't stop showing off. It was designed to push the hardware to its absolute limits, and you can tell, because there's a bit of slowdown sometimes.

Damn, I think I've missed my chance to get whatever's in that crate on the left, as Marco likely can't jump that high and the game's not typically keen on scrolling backwards to let me look for a step. But hey, who needs a crate when I've found a Metal Slug SV-001 tank just sitting here with the hatch open! It never occurred to these idiots to get in and use it against me, so it shall now be mine.

First though I'm going to shoot the yellow barrel up there and blow up all this scenery.

PlayStation version

I don't know who built all this, but it has to come down I'm afraid.

This is the PlayStation version of the game and honestly I haven't noticed any difference so far. In fact I've tried it on the Neo-Geo, the Saturn, the PS2, and the PSP as well, and they've all been absolutely identical in graphics and gameplay from what I can tell, with beautiful sharp pixels. Though the PlayStation does have a slightly different sized screen. Also hang on, why has it paused?

"NOW DATA LOADING!"?

Oh damn, the PlayStation port has to stop to load a few times during the levels! I don't remember that happening with the other versions. People have also accused the PlayStation version of having choppy animation and they're probably right.

It took me about two and a half minutes to find the mission one boss, and it's the most beautiful wrecked plane I've ever seen!

An earlier version of the game had enemies up on the wings firing down from turrets, and I'm glad they took them away during development. Also, the game was originally all SV-001 all the time, and you never got to play as a human character on foot, but it was heavily reworked before release. Here, check this link out if you're curious and want to see some scruffy images: http://randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com/msmia/1/ef.html. Uh, after you're done reading this I mean.

The beautiful plane wreck is determined to inflict hurt even without turrets as there's a giant cannon sticking out of the side... which opened up to reveal three mortars. It keeps firing blue orbs at me, so I need to keep moving to ensure they arc harmlessly over my head. My tank's head I mean. It's weird for a tank to have a head, but this one totally does.

See, look how its head was knocked back when it was hit by that surprise energy beam. Well, I suppose it wasn't that much of a surprise as it was obviously charging up. My tank actually does have a bit of a health bar though so it wasn't an instant kill like it would've been if I was on foot.

I also saw it firing that second shot along the ground, but fortunately the thing was already dead by the time it hit me and I'm apparently invulnerable once the victory fireworks are going off. Sorry scrap plane boss, now you're just plain scrap.

Oh I should mention that I did a bit of image stabilisation on this GIF to get the size down, so if there's any weirdness at the edges of the frame it's my fault, not the game's.

Whoa, I made it through mission one without losing a life! I'm genuinely surprised. That means all those prisoners I rescued along the way get counted in my score, plus I got a bonus for keeping my SV-001 intact. If I'd used a credit during the boss fight this screen would've been a lot emptier, no matter how many POWs I'd saved along the way.

I've apparently only been playing for three minutes so far, but the game puts you in constant danger so it feels a lot longer. If you've ever thought that there aren't enough hours in the day to play video games, this might be the game for you!

PlayStation version

Here's another feature the PlayStation version has: a map screen! You usually just go straight to the next mission immediately. It also gives each mission a name, and this one's called "A Wish for a Morning Glow". Much better than "The City" or something like that.

And anything's better than "The Sewers". I'm glad we're apparently avoiding any unhygienic subterranean expeditions.

MISSION 2

Crap, that's a really dumb way to lose my first life!

I've gotten used to enemies sneaking in behind me, so I try not to keep 100% focused on the right hand side of the screen. But I assumed that the shielded soldiers only carried a knife, so I figured that problem was solved the moment I threw a grenade over. Didn't see the bullet coming my way at all.

It only takes a single hit to die and there's no body armour to pick up, but you don't lose any progress at least. I just teleported right back into the fray.

Hey they've got parachutes too!

Fortunately got a flame pickup so now my shots can hit two enemies at once... and give them really horrible deaths. It's funny how the flame gun looks just like the heavy machine gun though (and they both look like a real world shotgun).

Look at all the unique animation here! They've even got dudes swimming away. (But my new rocket launcher still looks like a shotgun.)

By the way, Marco's not so good at swimming. Miss a single jump on this semi-collapsed bridge while you're leaping around firing rockets into the ships below and it's instant watery death.

I've ran into my first mid-boss: a railway gun which fires incredibly slow-moving projectiles. They're easy to dodge, but it's hard to slip through them, and the gun's aiming to hit me so the more I move around the more spread out they get. It seems like the trick here is to only move very slowly, so the shots are basically in a line behind me the whole time.

Trouble is all these shield guys keep wandering in from the side and encouraging me to move! Man I wish I still had my rocket launcher. Or anything that isn't a pistol. It would really speed this process up.

Damn, that's my first continue lost! It was actually one of the slow moving shells that got me in the end. I figured I had time to walk out of the way. I did not.

Fortunately still I haven't lost any progress in the stage, so I can just jump back into the boss fight where I left off. Though it still refuses to let me pick my character!

Oh, I should mention that walking into an enemy doesn't generally hurt me, unless they have time to pull out a knife and swipe with it, and I can run right up to them and knife them instead. Shield guys really don't like it when I jump over them and stab them in the back. But it's quicker than trying to shoot through the shield so I keep doing it.

MISSION 3

This is a weird obstacle I've found near the start of mission 3. I have to shoot the button a few times to raise the door, then drop back down quick to shoot the barrel before it drops down. Though not too quick, as I don't want to get shot by the guy with the snowball bazooka.

It looks like that's a bit of a risky gap to jump, but Marco can make it. In fact I've had to jump back and forth across this chasm a few times now as this has been a vertically scrolling stage so far.

I even saw a bird along the way. The thing was busy trying to shove its own egg out of its nest though so I didn't stick around to chat.

Also I have a time limit, not that it ever matters. It's just there because this is an arcade game and it wants to make sure the next person with money doesn't have to wait too long to get a turn, whether the current player decides to charge into danger or not.

Now I've got to fight this asshole, who keeps leaping around, laughing and yelling "c'mon boy!" Leaping around and yelling stuff is my special skill!

He actually wasn't too hard to kill. Killing him without getting hit a few times though, that would be impressive. In fact he stole one of my precious continues, the jerk. Only two left now.

Oh man, this shotgun's amazing! Why couldn't I have found this before the fight with the mid-boss? It almost feels like overkill against regular enemies, mostly because it is. They all die in one hit anyway!

Fortunately I found a few tanks down the road to use it on instead. Though the thing about tanks is that their guns are overkill as well. I mean look what they did to this outhouse:

That wasn't even my fault! Well, I wasn't the one who shot it anyway.

I was trying to figure out what he's holding in his hand, but then I realised it's the handle for the flush! That's why he pulls it just before flushing himself down the toilet.

It seems like things are kind of bad for the guy, especially seeing as they blew up his toilet paper as well, but he's actually the only soldier here who's going to live. So there's that. Plus the next person who uses it isn't going to get any privacy at all.

Here's the last boss for mission 3 and it's a bit of a bastard. First it fires mines to block the sides of the screen and pen me in, then it shoots me while I'm trapped in the middle! It does have to charge up before firing so I've got a bit of a warning, but it ain't much of a warning.

I mean look at that! I was running, I was jumping, what more does the game want from me?

At least I still have a spare continue left.

MISSION 4

And there goes my last continue.

Still, I made it 2/3rds of the way through the game on my first try, that's not too bad I reckon! Even though I did put in a ton of credits at the start.

Oh, the image starts off with that line of black on the right because this is another GIF I stabilised. The files are huge enough even like this. I could've used a video clip instead, but then I'd be sacrificing the beautiful sharp pixels.

This is what the game over screen looks like, if you're curious.

And here's the high score screen. I took the screenshot before the high scores appeared because it looks better without them.

Nice of them to put a label on the human so that I knew what it was.

MISSION 5

Oops, I actually started playing it again and got up to mission 5 this time. I'm only being fair to the game really; I usually play games for at least an hour if I'm writing about them and I haven't actually managed that yet in both of these playthroughs combined.

Also I couldn't not take a screenshot of this street, it's so pretty. Though perhaps less pretty now that I've stomped on this car.

Plus look at this cat, it's absolutely terrified! Not only are there tanks leaping over missiles in the street, but someone's gone and picked the poor creature up!

Oh did I mention that the tank's guns rotate as you drive left and right? It's a pretty handy feature to have when you're under siege by a swarm. These assholes keep jumping on my tank and trying to rip bits off; I don't like it.

I also have the option to leap out of the tank and send it charging forwards as a missile on a suicide mission, but I don't really want to. I'd really prefer the tank to stay intact to be honest.

FINAL MISSION

One of the nice things about Metal Slug is that I rarely think 'that was bullshit' when my dude gets killed; the game generally plays very fair. This is maybe a bit much though!

And now they're laughing at me, that's... that's great.

I could put another credit in, keep going, see the ending, but nah. I don't want to spoil everything about the game. Plus my hand's aching now and I need a rest.

PlayStation version

If you get any version of Metal Slug you're going to get Metal Slug, all the ports are pretty authentic. But the Neo-Geo CD version introduced a new feature: Combat School. Once you've given the game your birth date and blood type it lets you replay stages to earn points. Though it's not quite the same, as in 'Pin Point' mode you get infinite ammo for your guns and the SV-001 blows up in a single hit, and in 'Survival' mode you have to finish the entire game in one life... with no SV-001 at all.

The PlayStation version also has 'Another Story' mode, which features minigames that you play disguised as POWs. Unfortunately it was never released outside of Japan to my knowledge, so you're out of luck if you can't read the language.

PlayStation version

Some versions also have a gallery feature which lets you browse through the game's concept art. It's really low res unfortunately, but it's a real treasure trove of great artwork.

All the main characters are covered here: Marco, Tarma, and especially Sophia.

There's page after page after page of Sophia art here. Which kind of raises the question 'Who the hell is Sophia?'

Oh, she's the woman who runs the combat school!

PlayStation version

To be fair the art does go really in depth on a lot of its characters. If you've ever wanted to see a detailed breakdown of the anatomy of an infantryman's head it's got you covered.

Oh, I'm not talking about this picture by the way. This one doesn't even have the face removed to allow you to study what's going on inside the skull.

PlayStation version

It's just occurred to me I haven't given you a single image of Tarma yet. He looks like this! Except he usually leaves the glasses down to save people from being blinded.

Anyway I think I'm done with the game now. I am a little tempted to give it another try, but if I play it any longer it'll start getting weird that I'm still so bad at it.


CONCLUSION

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I mentioned earlier that I found Metal Slug right at the top of a list of the best arcade run 'n' gun shooters ever made, and... yeah, makes sense to me. Can't really disagree with that.

Run and guns aren't my genre exactly, but this seems like it has the gameplay you want. The game's fun to play, tough without feeling unfair, and being able to kill enemies in one hit means you can cut right through it if you're skilled enough to avoid all those bullets, bombs and grenades coming back your way. Not many bullet sponges here. The guns have a great feel to them and they look good too, because everything in this game looks great. It's an A+ in the looks department, top tier. This is one of the games you study if you want to learn how to do pixel art. Even the music's pretty good! And on top of all that, it's funny. There's always something new to look forward to a few steps down the road; you're basically trying to survive inside an animated movie. I suppose the 30 FPS frame rate isn't ideal for a fast-paced shooter, but it's pretty great for a cartoon, so it kind of works.

The game has arguably been outdone by one/all of its many sequels and spin-offs, but in my experience they feel more like expansion packs than proper sequels. They definitely like to reuse a lot of the game's artwork. Though one big difference between the first game and its successors is that they bring in mummies, aliens, zombies, giant crabs etc. while this one keeps things down to earth. Metal Slug 1 is all soldiers, planes, tanks, aircraft and artillery, so if that's more your thing then the game's probably going to have more appeal for you.

I did put the sequels on for a bit to compare, but I didn't play them long because I was worried that that my hands were going to start flashing for a bit and then explode in a beautifully rendered fireball. That's probably my biggest problem with this game: how gruelling it is. I can play hours of a Far Cry game without even realising it, but after half an hour of this I was ready to be done. If you want to see the ending all you have to do is keep putting credits in, you'll get there eventually, but you do have to keep tapping that button to keep the bullets coming. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap for 2000 seconds straight. It's definitely not a long game, but it feels long, especially as you can never let your concentration slip. The game's so frantic I had real trouble keeping track of all the objects flying around the screen, and if you fall down a hole or walk through a trap that's a life gone instantly.

Of course it's better to play it co-op, and the modern versions make that easy for you by letting you play online. They even throw in an autofire option to sweeten the deal, which helps make it a lot less painful to play. It's on every modern console and they're all a little better for it, but anywhere it goes it always seems to remain Metal Slug, at least in my experience. Different versions offer different ways to adjust the aspect ratio or apply bilinear filtering, but they don't deny you the pure pixels if that's what you prefer. You probably even get the slowdown as well! Though it says a lot about how of a beast the Neo-Geo hardware was, that it took until the Saturn and PlayStation before other consoles finally managed to catch up with it... but the Saturn version of the game needs a RAM expansion and the PlayStation port suffers from mid-mission loading.

Anyway, my final verdict is that if this looks like something you'd want to play and you haven't done it yet, you really should.

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Next week on Super Adventures: The History(s) of Video Games, an article where I finally get to cut loose and start listing all kinds of dates. Like 1993, 2007 and 1691, for example. There's going to be writing there too, it'll be awesome.

Thanks for reading, by the way! Without your eyes on my words I'm just a lunatic yelling to an empty room. About video games. Speaking of words, you should put some of your own in the box underneath. Tell the world what you think about the Metal Slug games.