Now, even Metal Slug has followed suit and falls into the "Why?" category. If ever there was any evidence needed that nothing is sacred anymore, this game is it. Whilst you can understand why SNK Playmore would polygonise The King Of Fighters and actually hope to have a decent end product, there appears to be no logical reason (other than financial) for them doing the same with Metal Slug. It just cannot work, can it?

In a word, no. Playmore have done a lot of things to upset fans of the original SNK games over the years but this is, without doubt, the absolute nadir of their offerings so far. The fact that it's simply entitled "Metal Slug" without some sort of suffix to differentiate it from Nazca's original masterpiece just adds insult to injury.

Graphically, the game is well below average but it doesn't look quite as bad as those shocking screenshots that appeared on the internet a couple of years ago when the game made its first appearance. Playmore have tried to capture the cartoony nature of the 2D games but have pretty much failed miserably. The characters have a mild super-deformed look which seems reasonable, but there's none of the rich animation this series is famed for. The enviroments and other objects also fail to impress and only succeed in making Metal Slug look little better than a high-resolution PlayStation or N64 game.

The gameplay features the same basic ingredients of a Metal Slug game - the "one-man army" element, the rescuing of prisoners, the same weaponry and characters etc., but that's where the similarities end. Very little of what makes the 2D games such fun is evident in this game. Play one of the original Metal Slugs and it's intense, action-packed gameplay from the word go - there's a constant onslaught of enemy troops and vehicles and they MUST be tackled since you cannot just run away in the opposite direction. Bullets have to be ducked, dangerous gaps need to be jumped, and all the while you're just one bullet away from losing a life.

Sadly, none of that is translated into the 3D incarnation too well. The environments are often quite barren with only pockets of enemy soldiers and if they cause too much trouble, you can just retreat to an empty area of the level and try again. Large enemies such as tanks are a bit more dangerous, but any shells they fire are incredibly slow-moving and even telegraph where they will land on the ground by way of a flashing circular target. Also at odds with the original games is the fact that the player is bestowed with a health bar which allows up to four hits to be taken. This can also be replenished by first aid kits that are scattered quite liberally throughout each level, so this game clearly lacks the sense of danger and urgency of its predecessors. Further emphasising this is the lack of a visible time limit, although clearing levels quickly is encouraged by way of a better ranking and bigger reward.

The combat would always make or break this game, but alas, it's sorely lacking and isn't helped by a really poor camera. The action is viewed from behind your character much like any 3D action game and employs a lock-on system which is rather haphazard. Holding R1 locks you on to the nearest enemy until the button is released, or until the selected enemy is destroyed. Some weapons like the rocket launcher need to be aimed manually, but for the most part, the gameplay is rather boring and consists of locking onto something and shooting it until it's dead whilst strafing around to avoid any return fire. The close-range knife attack from previous games is also present and assigned to a seperate button.

As before, players can jump into the "Slug" vehicles now and again but controlling them is a cumbersome experience fraught with huge amounts of slowdown. Like many things in this game, it's just very badly implemented and another thing to count against it. On the whole, this game really isn't much fun to play at all. Some levels are huge with up to half a dozen checkpoints, but with the gameplay being so mundane and repetitive, this isn't a good thing.

It cannot be stressed enough just how poor this game is. There is precious little to recommend here to anyone. Even fans of the series who may be thinking "It's Metal Slug, it can't be that bad!" should be under no illusions and just save their money for Metal Slug 6 instead.