Hi folks!
Here we are again with another entry, the second, of the [Game of the Week] column and this time the game featured is Metal Slug 4 for PS2!
Developer: Mega Enterprise (PS2 version), Brezza Soft, Playmore, Noise Factory (PS2 version)
Publisher: Playmore, Noise Factory, Ignition Entertainment (PS2 version)
Platforms: Arcade, Neo Geo, PS2 (pictured), Xbox
Genre: Scrolling Shooter, Run ‘n Gun
Release Date: 22 September 2004 (PS2 version)
Probably this is just my opinion but I consider Metal Slug the last true arcade game. During the 90s the arcade genre, due to the release of powerful home console, was virtually dead: local arcades still existed but they were mere shadows of what they were a decade before. When I was young, so in the mid 90s, my grandmother ran a restaurant-cafe in a forgotten village in the hills and she had two coin-op machines, one with an old (really old) arcade version of Super Mario Bros. that, much to my dismay, was slightly diffent than the console version, and a shiny new one with the very first Metal Slug.
We all remember the great arcade games of the 80s, the fathers of all of the console games we had in the years after, but in the 90s a lot of console games didn’t have an “arcade twin”: they were developed and released just for console. Well, back in the day to my young eyes (and even to my less young eyes now) I considered Meltal Slug the state-of-the-art of gaming: everything was smooth, colourful, fast paced, graphically impressive; everything was simply great.
Althoug other games after Metal Slug have been released for the arcade marke, none of them had the same feel and the same importance of Metal Slug. The inflation of fruit machines, gambling machines and horrible (to my point of view) demonic machines where you can dance tyransformed the arcades in something very different – and worse.
But Metal Slug still stands. The game proved to be extremely popular and it received home conversions and many sequels. The game we’re takling today is the fourth entry of the series released on PS2. Of course there’s also a Neo Geo verison but I think you know that my tiny wallet cannot afford it…
Do you own this game? Have you ever played it? Tell me more in the comments section, let’s discuss!
