Genre: Shooter
Publisher: SNK Playmore
Developer: BrezzaSoft
Release Date: May 15, 2005

Pre-order 'METAL SLUG 4 & 5': PlayStation 2

Make it big, make it hard, make it suck out your quarters like a leech on catnip, but most of all… make it funny.

That's been the motto of the Metal Slug games ever since the series' inception, and it's what keeps them fresh and new in the face of the crowded and now-niche shooter genre — as well as in the face of similar games such as the Contra series. Until recent years, these games have only been available to people able to afford a $600 console, or those lucky enough to be able to find a Neo Geo MVS unit in their local arcade (or for that matter, an arcade, period). However, SNK's been porting picture-perfect renditions of this series to consoles, much to the joy of folks everywhere who love their twitch-gaming.

The core gameplay of both Metal Slug 4 and Metal Slug 5 is the same: shoot everything that moves, and don't die yourself. Save prisoners along the way, because a) they'll give you power-ups, and b) they'll give you bonus points at the end. Of course, you only get those bonus points if you reach the end of the stage on the same life you got the prisoner with, which ties back into the whole "don't die" thing.

For your information, "don't die" is very, very hard when you have upwards of 10 enemy soldiers and artillery gunning (pun intended) for you at any given time. You'll be dodging bullets, bombs, mines, hostile terrain, and the occasional giant octopus as you make your way to the end of each stage. Just about any military vehicle you can think of will be sent after you over the course of one of these games—helicopter squads, fighter jets, tanks, submarines, kitchen sinks, everything. To make matters worse, half the time, you'll simply be stuck with a piddly pistol and a handful of grenades. Still, it's the times when you get the dual machine guns or the rocket launcher that make you want to keep going despite the odds.

Outside of gameplay, the differences between the two games are largely aesthetic. Metal Slug 4 ditches long-standing character Eri for newcomer Nadia in the soldier roster; Metal Slug 5 swaps her back out for Eri. MS4 as a whole is more straightforward in its gameplay, whereas the fifth installment is varied in everything from terrain to types of soldiers to vehicles to the prisoners which can be picked up (Japanese businessmen? Well, all righty then). Simply put, MS5 pulls out all the stops. It also introduces the new slide move, which is invaluable in getting away from those pesky hails of bullets that the game seems to want to keep throwing at your hapless soldier sprite.

Graphics have never been a number one priority for most Neo Geo Games, Metal Slug included. Polygons, bump mapping, any other industry buzzword, you won't find them here. That being said, though each installment pushed its host hardware to its limits every time a new one was created. Both MS4 and MS5 give us bigger sprites, bigger bosses, and more types of Metal Slugs vehicles than you can shake a high-powered weapon at. Each character sprite is bursting with animation, almost on the level of games like Street Fighter 3, and the game packs a whole lot of them on the screen at once. (Ninety percent of these sprites will be enemies, just so you know.) There are also well-drawn special effects, and huge explosions that engulf and brighten the screen, and will char your eyeballs if you're not careful. Even with all of the madness going on, the frame rate stays solid thanks to the added horsepower of the PS2, and load time is minimal.

Your ears never get a break either; you're constantly assaulted with thumping, action-packed tunes, and more sounds of things blowing up than your average summer blockbuster popcorn movie. There's war (very, very funny war, but war nonetheless) going on in these here parts, and these games make sure to drive this point home.

It would also appear that SNK has learned from past mistakes. Many people panned the otherwise solid release of Metal Slug 3 for home consoles due to the fact that there were no unlimited continue credits. This, in turn, made it hard to enjoy the later levels of the game, and the extras that were connected to them. People will be happy to know that the problem has since been rectified. While people who wish to designate themselves as "hardcore" may wrinkle their noses at this decision, I tout it as simply giving the player the right to choose. No one, after all, is forcing anyone to jam on that continue button when they lose a certain amount of lives and/or credits.

Speaking of extras, it looks like there won't be room for any on this release. Whether or not this is because this is a preview build, this writer isn't certain, but all that could be discerned from the menus in each game were a stage select option, and record keeping screens. Still, get yourself a joystick and it's like having two arcade machines at home, which isn't bad at all.

The wait won't be long for this combo-pack by the time you read this; May 15th is but a month away. If you're a fan of 2D gaming, of shooting things until they fall down and go boom, or just like some well-done gameplay that will take you back to the glory days of the arcades in an instant (yet still holds up well today), look no further than this disc.

Oh, and while you're waiting, go ahead and pick up Metal Slug 3 to prepare yourself. You'll need it.