| Metal Slug Advance review |
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Humans love killing things whilst on the move; just ask the Countryside Alliance. None of that ‘horns and hounds’ guff for gamers, though. We want carnage a go-go, preferably involving big guns. Finally, then, our phallic prayers have been answered, in the form of Metal Slug Advance – the first Slug game to be developed on something other than Neo Geo hardware. SNK Playmore’s decision to ‘slug’ a wider audience by developing for GBA was a wise one, especially considering the popularity of the handheld Neo Geo Pocket versions. After a long wait and huge delays, our bloodlust can now finally be sated.
After first booting-up the game, everything appears to be by the numbers: scrolling left to right, your chosen soldier mows down grunts, tanks and all manner of weapon emplacements until he/she reaches the behemoth end-level boss. Your mini machete-wielder can clamber into vehicles to shoot stuff, get up close and personal and knife stuff or lob grenades and explode stuff. This GBA version is as pixel-perfect as before, and all the main touches (cute enemies going as goggle-eyed as a Looney Tunes character, tight corners that demand precision and timing to squeak out of, bedraggled POWs to rescue) are present, but a good few differences to the series soon show their faces.
For a start, there’s no blood. None. No matter which region you buy the game from. This takes away some of the game’s character, unfortunately. The shock of seeing a massive fountain of arterial claret spurt from the body of a wubbable likkle sprite was always good for a chuckle. Secondly, there’s now a health bar (first seen in the Slug series on the NGPC) - a controversial inclusion that many purists reject as a dumbing-down of the series. Health can also be replenished during the level by rescuing prisoners and collecting the food they drop.
Not just because of the health bar, MSA is a lot easier than the previous games. Not only can a rapid fire option be switched-on, making the handgun almost the equal of the Heavy Machine Gun, MSA is set over five levels that are significantly shorter than those in the other Slugs, and the game can easily be completed in an afternoon using continues. This, though, will prevent the player gaining hidden items and cards strewn throughout the levels. In previous games, POWs gave you points. There is no points system in MSA; instead items, prisoners (and the cards they occasionally drop) are tallied-up if the level is completed using a single life. Some cards are there simply for completist purposes, such as the food description and ‘Mission Complete’ cards, whilst others give you extra weapons and abilities.
This is a very clever and involving system: not only must you navigate your way past mean and nasty mechanical monstrosities, and the occasional clichéd ethnic stereotype, you have to do it in such a way so as your route encompasses all the rewards secreted in awkward corners of the levels. Successfully achieving this is no mean feat, and provides a lot of replay value. On top of this, once you've chopped and mashed your way through a heap of human bodies, you have to confront the iron ogres that guard your exit to safety. Each boss is a form of armoured vehicle, spitting bullets and shells in a complex pattern that has to be learned and mastered. If this still doesn’t tempt you, and an even stiffer challenge is demanded, a ‘Hard’ mode is available. Couple that option with the fact that enemies re-spawn if you backtrack even a fraction on either difficulty setting, and the challenge can be significant, especially if you're trying to one-life the entire game. There’s something for both the tourists and the purists.
One other baffling subtraction comes with the lack of zombies, killer plants, aliens and – most crucially – monkeys from the mix. Once a monkey has been added to a game, why extract said monkeys? Everybody knows monkeys are the greatest (and, more importantly, funniest) of God’s creatures. A fan of the series can’t help feeling some of the wacky, over-the-top distinctiveness has gone along with the apes. Replacing them are a couple of Ooga Booga types in bird masks and a handful of mummified bats. Oh, and the maggots return. But nada on the tree-swinger front. Thankfully, the bad guys that are included are as skilfully drawn as you’d demand, though, and MSA is certainly on a par with the Neo Geo games in terms of animation (albeit sans simians. Grumble) and general graphical polish. Few frames are lost, and slowdown is practically non-existent – SNKP have excelled themselves, and are finally clawing-back some ground lost between the dissolving of the original SNK and their (Playmore’s) subsequent takeover. They’ve also worked wonders with the audio, which is as meaty and triumphal as ever before: a bonus for a handheld release, where titles often feature weedy pops and squeaks.
MSA is certainly a fantastically fun title, and is a credit to SNKP, who have managed (with considerable skill) to bring the distinctive tang of Slug to the masses. Although easier by far than its arcade brethren, at least this means the game has a chance of finding a (mass?) market – a shrewd move by the IP’s new masters. A truly enjoyable extension of a niche franchise, whose sparkly sheen is only tarnished by its chimp deficiency. |
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System: Nintendo GameBoy Advance
Genre: Action
Developer: SNK Playmore
Publisher: SNK Playmore
Players: 1
Version: Japan
Reviewed: Dec 2004
Writer: Stuart Peake
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Pros:
- Genuine Slug atmosphere, audio and graphics
- Intriguing card collection system
- Well drawn characters and backgrounds
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Cons:
- Easier than any other Slug title
- Levels are quite short
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Metal Slug Advance Video: 5.4MB
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