If you were born in the eighties or in the nineties, you have played coin-op games in an arcade. If you ever entered in an arcade, you have played, seen or heard the iconic SNK Metal Slug, for sure. I said heard, because the Metal Slug voice that says “Heavy Machinegun” is one of the most iconic sound of that era. If you were born in this millennium, the game mechanic (and only the mechanic) is quite simple: you have to walk from left to right, killing hundreds and hundreds of enemy soldiers, tanks, planes, boats, helicopters and sidecars. Doing all of that, while avoiding every single bullet and bomb, or you risk losing a life.
Images that you can hear:
The Hall of Memories
Playing the game will make you remember the good old days. When we were young and naive. We went to the arcade after school, or instead of going to school… or when we went to gramps in their small town for holidays, and one local shop got one or two coin-op, where we played with other nephews of the old local people, just like yourself.
Everything starts here:
Metal Slug: Hardcore difficulty
People nowadays have hard times with titles like Dark Souls and Sekiro. Back in the days, there were games like SNK Metal Slug and Capcom’s Ghost and Goblins. As stated before, those games got the screen full of enemies and one-hit-death, causing the expense of several quarters to finish the game.
A lot of people have seen the beginning, but very few have seen this:
Do you see the 9 at the end of the score in the GIF? The game tracks the number of Continues by adding 1 point. In my last playthrough (the first in the last 20 years), it takes 28 Continues. I remember high scores of 2 millions with 0 continues, made by real people: they were my heroes. FYTK, there’s an Achievement on Steam for beating Metal Slug with no continues. Only the 2% of people who own the game did that.
Become the Hero of the Arcade Legends
Now, we can play it again, with just a few quarters once, for unlimited time of playing and training, to reach the skill level of the masters we envied and admired. You can also find a brief excuse for the whole series here
The Steam version of Metal Slug has full support for controllers and you can easily play along with a friend online. Check out more SNK deals here.
