I’ve been finding myself wanting to play platform games lately for some reason. Maybe because they are a throwback to the simpler gaming days where I didn’t have to worry about stuff to my sides as I moved around in a 2-D world. Or maybe it’s just that I like brainless exploding stuff sometimes after a long day at work. Either way, Metal Slug Anthology for the Nintendo Wii fits the bill nicely.Metal Slug Anthology is essentially a compilation of 7 Metal Slug platform shooter games. From the very first Metal Slug: Super Vehicle 001 to Metal Slug 6, you get to play through the main ‘storyline’ of the game and follow the missions of Marco and Tarma, essentially the two main characters that you play throughout the games. In actuality, you can mostly ignore the story if you want, because the fun lies with the fast paced shooting and short levels, mixed with different weapon choices and sometimes the Metal Slug tank itself!
Controls for the game are simple, but configurable. There’s little SNK Playmore has changed for the Wii platform, besides some afterthought about flicking the controller to throw a grenade. Actually, having played the older Metal Slug games here and there throughout the years, I prefer the button combination instead. When you’re in the heat of battle button mashing your pistol fire away, you don’t really want to be flicking your controller just to chuck a grenade. In fact, one such incident early on led to me being swarmed by the enemy as I let go of the Wii Remote and fumbled around for it as it dangled on my wrist. Yes, I put the wrist strap on like a good little Wii player.
One of the intriguing ironies of this game is that it deals with two warring factions. One is the Regular Army and its constituents, including yourself, and the Rebellion, which consists of an organized army plus terrorist-like elements. The Regular Army has the technology, the manpower, and the advantage, except that they’re so bureaucratic and corrupt they never saw the Rebellion coming. Sound familiar? Strangely enough, the game came out in 1996, foretelling events that have happened in the last 6 years. However, in this game’s storyline, the good guys always win, and you’re the person to make it happen.
A nice feature of the Wii version of Metal Slug is the saving mechanism. Being able to more or less save whenever lets you treat this game casually, unlike the arcade versions where you pretty much were glued there, popping quarters, until you either ran out of quarters or beat the game.
As for the graphics, don’t expect too much. These are all ported, and SNK did little in the way of changing the games to use the technology of the Wii to its fullest. In fact, with the exception of the grenade tossing I mentioned earlier, the games look and feel exactly as they did when first released. This is fine though, as Metal Slug was probably one of the first shooters with an interactive background, meaning there were elements in the background that could be destroyed, and sometimes would yield bonuses and weapons. One interesting thing to note: These games were obviously released before any ESRB organization became involved, as shooting, knifing or otherwise killing your enemies results in spurts of blood and/or death throes. It’s animated of course, but its still blood.
This wouldn’t be a complete anthology without the addition of unlockables. In Metal Slug’s case, it comes in the form of a gallery where you can use tokens earned by completing the different Metal Slug games. Cashing in the tokens allows you to access things such as the concept art, soundtrack and additional commentary by the developers.
The gallery is probably what SNK intended for replay value. To unlock everything, you just about have to complete all 7 games in several difficulty levels. In fact, to unlock some hidden items, you have to complete the games on the hardest difficulty. Imagine walking into an arcade, with only a few quarters and the goal of “flipping” a Metal Slug game. More than a little difficult. Unfortunately to me, it seems a contrived way to try and build replay value into a game that you really don’t need to enforce. It’s a shooter, it’s sidescrolling, and more than one person can play it. You don’t need anything else!
Metal Slug Anthology is one of those games for the Wii you pick up for nostalgia, and something that will be in your game library for the times you want to just pick up a game for a few minutes and blow stuff up. Given the different versions of the game included, it’ll be a long time before you ‘complete’ the game fully. Your thumbs may just about cry uncle before then.
