Metal Slug 5
Format: PS2.
Disappointingly sluggish.
In this age of 3D, polygon filled, bump mapped, shadered and bloomed graphical technology, it’s always refreshing to settle down with an old-school 2D pixel pushing game. There’s something about the art direction - the fact that the designers have to squeeze so much character out of what basically amounts to a collection of different coloured squares is testament to why the pixel art scene is still flourishing. Paul Smith has jumped on the bandwagon and with Malcolm Mclaren doing the same with chip music (electronica made using old gaming technology) these retro stylings are thankfully here to stay.
The Metal Slug series is one of the last champions of 2D on home consoles although even it has succumbed to 3D with a new, soon to be released title. Starting out on the legendary NeoGeo it has carved out its identity as an over-the-top, run and gun two player shooter with distinct cartoon stylings, wildly imaginative design and of course its trademark humour and the titular Metal Slugs - super deformed tanks and various other combat ready vehicles and animals.
Metal Slug 4 was developed by a different company to the rest of the series and was a disappointment to many fans. With Metal Slug 5 the game was back in its creator’s hands so did it reclaim the series’ throne? Unfortunately not.
From the outset the game runs at a noticeably slower speed to usual and as soon as the action really gets going (there’s little time when it isn’t) the game hits criminal slow-down. For a series that has speed and mayhem as its trademark it’s game destroying and unforgivable. The PS2 should be able to handle it so it seems to be victim to sloppy porting (from the arcade version) and lazy programming.
Elsewhere the game treads the same old ground but seems to have lost some of the spark that made the series great. Environments are more detailed and there’s a more convincing depth of field but overall the game just lacks the imagination and humour of old - it’s as if they made it on auto pilot.
A lot of the humour still resides in the sprite animation - the stupid expressions and the way characters move but it lacks the insane comic situations, the B-movie parodies and the over the top boss battles. Riding a freshly thawed woolly mammoth with a side mounted vulcan cannon shooting zombies, panicking soldiers and snow throwing yetis whilst avoiding becoming one of the undead or a snowman is what you’d expect from Metal Slug (specifically MS 3) but this kind of action is lamentably missing and replaced with something far more generic.
There are some entertaining moments like the car chase level with its exaggerated jumps but they are fleeting and prone to the ever prevalent slow down. Lacking the branching pathways of Metal Slug 3 and much of the imagination and humour it’s only made worse by the shortness of the game and the unwise decision to include infinite credits which means it’s a brief, disappointing affair.
5/10