Wait. Back? What the heck is Metal Slug? At least that what I’m picturing most people thinking when they read that first sentence. Well let’s flesh that out a little bit.

This year is Metal Slug’s tenth anniversary. In 1996, a little company called SNK studios put together one of the best 2D, side-scrolling action shooters to ever hit the arcade scene. These games, all seven gloriously animated adventures, were some of the most greedy, quarter-eating endeavors that you could choose to embark on at the arcade. The concepts in the game were simple and addictive.

By choosing either Marco or Tarma, or later anyone from an ever-growing cast of characters, playing can launch into Metal Slug’s hectic action in seconds. Metal Slug’s action is one thing: shooting. By mashing whatever button you have assigned to be your trigger (which can be a lot of different buttons, but we’ll touch on that later) you can unleash a flurry of bullets at your cartoon animated enemies and the environment you fight them in. In each mission, usually six to a game, your sole goal is to burst through each level and destroy everything in it. This is both very fun and very difficult.

You see, SNK has tossed players more than enough means to dispatch of the enemy. Your pistol ammo is unlimited. Rescued POWs, which are plentiful, reward you with new guns and grenades. Metal Slugs—bouncy, all-terrain tanks—can be found randomly throughout each level and will help you dole out damage like its going out of style. You can even have your friend hop in at any time to help you blast away the legions you’ll come up against.

Staring back at all this fun and merciless killing is the HARD part ofMetal Slug. Now I capitalize “HARD” for a reason. Metal Slug is no breezy walk through Flanders Field. One enemy bullet, one little scratch from their knives—let alone a barrage of bouncing explosives from one of the boss enemies—will have your character on the ground with a groan and a death. It’s an arcade game, remember? It’s meant to be frustratingly difficult. The Wii version, however, doesn’t ask you to plug quarter after quarter into it, so the name of the game becomes mastery. Each time you set out into one of Metal Slug Anthology’s games, you’ll be allotted fifteen credits, each one giving you a ticket to another three lives. Now let’s do the math: fifteen times three is forty-five. You have forty-five lives to get through one game. Sounds like a lot, but that will really only carry you somewhere into the second level on your first run through a game. Don’t even hope to make it to the fifth of sixth levels until you’ve owned the game for a few days.

Before I get to carried away in the punishment-is-pleasure gameplay that I love Metal Slug for, let’s talk about the fact that this title has the word “Anthology” in it. This disc is a veritable treasure chest for Metal Slug fans. You might even call it “Metal Slug Booty.” I do. You don’t have to.

Anyways, this is not your typical anthology. You’re not just given a smattering of titles, only one of them any good while the rest are just tack-ons. This disc is every single Metal Slug. All seven of them. Even the previously unreleased number six. If you’re going to get technical on me, you might say that it’s missing the 3D Metal Slug released in Japan last year, but I’m not going to count half-hearted 3D evolutions. Case in point, if you like Metal Slug, even just a little, this game will last you forever. Not to mention that if you’re a big enough fan to have sought out the rare editions of Metal Slug 3 and Metal Slug 4&5 on the Xbox or the PS2, you paid forty to fifty dollars for each one. Just for one game. Metal Slug Anthology is only going to run you forty and you get the whole kit n’ caboodle. Seven games with adjustable difficulty and drop-in/drop-out co-op? Yes please.

Now why was this game released on the Wii? What could a console system with gyroscopic sensors in the controller do for a ten year-old 2D arcade shooter? Well, to be honest, not a whole hell of a lot. Metal Slug Anthology does sport 5 different controller configurations for the games, each with a left handed option which is handy (har har), but you’ll probably only end up using the config that allows you to hold the Wiimote sideways and play it like an NES controller, with the d-pad to move and the 1 and 2 buttons serving as fire and jump respectively. The only real Wii function this game sees is in the grenade throwing, and it ain’t that pretty. Players have to shake the controller to toss them ‘nades and it becomes obvious pretty quick that this method just isn’t responsive enough. Yeah, it’s neat and with good intention that they jammed some Wii functionality into good ol’ Metal Slug, but it really didn’t need it. That, and you’ll find out that shaking your controller doesn’t let you throw grenades as fast as a button press, and you’re going to need to crank those things out at a steady pace in order to beat a lot of the later bosses, something that gets really tough to do while you’re shaking your Wiimote around and still trying to mash shoot and jump on it at the same time. It’s not like it robbed me of any of my fun while I played though. You’ll get over it.

The other controller configs consist of using the Wiimotes sensors to tilt the controller to move your character. Again, they are an interesting addition and fun to try out once or twice, but these new modes won’t be your guiding light to beating any of the games. They’re experiments and curiosities, not pillars of gameplay.

So before we close up shop on this little reading session we’re going to inventory the good and the bad of this Holy Grail of a Metal Slug collection. We have golden co-operative. We have beautiful 2D animation. We have humor and frenzied gameplay. We have seven games that are hard enough to last and fun enough to come back to. We have dorky controls, but they get the job done. Really, what we’re looking at is the Wii’s first hidden gem. This game will be overlooked now and sought after later and if you know what you like, you’ll get it now.