Gameplay

The gameplay of the series is characteristic of run and guns: The enemies come in hordes, the weapons have high fire rates. All of these characteristics come from the Contra series, which the gameplay is based on. Metal Slug however takes the concepts introduced in Contra and expands upon them. First and foremost is the ability to perform melee attacks. In most run and guns, contact with an enemy leads to immediate death. In this series, contact only results in either party’s death if an attack is performed. This leads to the ability for the player to run in and use melee attacks to take down a number of troops.

The SV-001 is the main vehicle of the Metal Slug franchise. It is a small, silver or gunmetal grey tank (SV is short for “Super Vehicle”). The tank is armed with one cannon and twin vulcan cannons. The vehicle can jump and crouch. Crouching opens a hatch on the top of the tank through which grenades can be thrown. The grenades are independent of the cannon’s ammo system. The vehicle can run over infantry and perform a suicide attack, with the driver jumping clear and the tank ramming into and exploding upon the target. The vehicle can take three direct hits before it is destroyed. The enemy chaser variant has a shield that must be destroyed before the vehicle can be destroyed. It is propelled by caterpillar treads. Over time, these specifications changed into any vehicle armed with a vulcan cannon and a cannon variant suited to the role of the vehicle, and propelled suitably for that vehicle’s environment. In Metal Slug 6 (and the home version of Metal Slug X, 3, 4, 5), Tarma can lock the vulcan cannons into one position and fire continuously. The “slug gunner” is considered the epitome of slug evolution.

Setting

The first game’s story involved the Peregrine Falcon (PF) Squad, a small but skilled team of soldiers serving under the Regular Army’s special operations division, who fight against the army of General Donald Morden in order to prevent a massive coup d’etat and the creation of a New World Order under General Morden. Later games featured characters from the Sparrows Unit, which is under the control of the Regular Army’s intelligence division. In the games following the first, the PF Squad also battles an alien threat to Earth (the Mars People), as well as several other supernatural threats including yetis, zombies, ambulatory Venus flytraps, giant crabs and mummies. Outlandish elements were removed from the fourth game to return to the feel of the original title, which resulted in poor critical and commercial reception. The fifth moved to the motif of modern guerrilla warfare, leaving only traces of the series signature quirky humour and paranormal enemies (except for the final boss). Metal Slug 6 returned to the plot of the first three installments, bringing back Morden’s Rebel Army and the Mars People. Metal Slug 7 has less outlandish elements with the Mars People replaced by an alternative universe of Morden’s Army with futuristic equipment and weapons

Development

The aspect of the Metal Slug series was to create a simple, but exciting side-scrolling shoot-em-up game with a very easy control scheme (one joystick and three buttons). The same team that created Metal Slug for the Neo-Geo previously created a handful of games for Irem which have very similar graphics and gameplay. Cyber Lip (1990) had some of the core developers as the original Metal Slug. Gunforce (1991) and In the Hunt (1993) had noticeably similar gameplay, with graphics that have a slight resemblance to Metal Slug. Gunforce 2 (1994) not only had similar gameplay but the sounds of dying soldiers were almost exactly the same as Metal Slug. Because of this, some fans refer to Gunforce 2 as “Metal Slug Zero“.

Download Links:

Metal Slug 1,2 and X

Metal Slug 3