| Metal Slug 4 Neo Geo |
| Review by Joe Laurino |
| SNK made a HUGE mistake in letting go of the Metal Slug series, because obviously, MEGA Enterprise has no FRICKIN' clue what they're doing. |
| ..Why, Mega Enterprise ? Why have you done this to one of my favorite game series in the world ? Why have you fouled up the Metal Slug series with reused animation and uninspired levels ?! WHY?! Do you realize that my life has been shortened greatly because of your ... TOMFOOLERY!? 'Yeah, sure' , you might say , 'the levels ARE crappy, and the graphics are reused, and the bosses are nothing special, but it's still Metal Slug, right ?' Right, but only because of the fact that MEGA Enterprise just tore the coding out of the other games. Right from level one, you'll be saying 'Haven't I done this before ?' and you probably have. What makes things worse, is the graphics that weren't done all those years ago by SNK sticks out like a sore thumb full of nasty things. SNK's animation is , as it always was, beautiful and fluid. Don't get me mixed up here, I'm not saying the graphics that SNK drew suck. I'm saying that MEGA Enterprise's 'fill-in' graphics suck . You can tell that SNK did not make this game. The new characters, Trevor and Nadia , are not as cool as my boy Tarma , who was my character throughout the other 4 games , or Eri. All Trevor is is Tarma's animations with a different hairstyle and a bigger face , along with different colored clothing. I don't even know what to say about Nadia. Gameplay, yes, is still spot on, so we don't even need to go into that. Let's head right into sound. You know, the sound effects stayed and still are awesome, but the soundtrack for Metal Slug 4 is almost entirely new and redigitized. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's not really a good thing either, because you won't really 'feel' like you're playing Metal Slug with this music. It doesn't use the same set of instruments or the same catchy melodies. Yet another disappointment. So, what's 'new' to this game ? Well, for one , you can hiijack an enemy tank known as the 'Bradlay' , and you can hiijack a truck. ...A TRUCK. You get rode around sometimes by hostages, which doesn't make much sense. And, to the addition of the SLUG Vehicles (Which, by the way, are a a rarity in this game) , is the WALKMACHINE SLUG, which is just a crawling zombie frome number two, edited to look like a robot with a police car light on it's head. Very un-cool. New weapons ? Besides the Dual Machine guns (which tears through enemies) , there ARE NO NEW WEAPONS. Perhaps the most ambitious of all new things is the Combo system. Problem ? I have NO FRICKIN CLUE HOW IT WORKS. The combo system makes no sense and adds nothing to the game. The bosses SUCK , SUCK, SUCK! They're frickin' HORRIBLE ! The bosses of the second and third levels are HARDER THAN THE FINAL BOSS ! The first boss in just totally unprofessional. This sort of cheapness in boss fights is inexcusable, especially for the Metal Slug series. Mad at SNK ? Yeah, but not for making a crappy Metal Slug game. For chucking the torch at MEGA Enterprises, who doesn't deserve this series at all. Mad at MEGA Enterprises for butchering the game ? Yeah. A WHOLE Lot of anger towards them. I'm just sad this happened. Maybe SNK will get the rights back and make up for this screw up with Metal Slug 5. Worst in the series, hands down. |
| Graphics : SNK - 10 - MEGA - 2 SNK did great graphics ; MEGA, you SUCK. Music : 7.0 A good soundtrack- for another series. Where's my Metal Slug melodies?! Sound : 9.5 At least the sounds didn't change.. Gameplay : SNK - 10 MEGA did nothing for this game. This is all SNK's hard work. Lastability : 7.0 You'll probably play through twice, seeing as how alternate routes are almost nonexistent. Overall (Not an Average ) : 6.5 What a huge dissappointment. Easily the worst in the series. Is this the end of Metal Slug ? |