What I'm Playing (Volumes 145 & 146): Metal Slug 2 & Metal Slug X

I almost never review multiple games in one post anymore, because I would get a little lazy back when I used to do that sort of thing. But with these two there's really not any other option. Metal Slug X is an enhanced version of Metal Slug 2 in more than just the dope name, but they're so extraordinarily similar that it makes sense to discuss both in one go.

The action is is more of the same from my Metal Slug review, but the action is bigger and better than ever. The visuals are functionally the same, but there are a lot of new sprites here that are in keeping with the delightful art style of the original. Metal Slug X adds even more enemies, animations, and powerups, and is unquestionably the game to play if you have to pick one. In both games, you can now choose from one of four characters. They all play the same, but it's a nice touch.

The humor still works great here, and is dialed up a notch if anything. They tell a really silly and fun story here with identifiable characters and some real plot development with essentially no dialogue, and that's quite an achievement. There's a great twist in the story that comes during the penultimate mission that will substantially change the tone of the game, and it's definitely worth playing til the end to see it. The twist comes along with a change in art style as well, becoming more sinister and brutal. It's a great maturation of the series, and gives it a bit more depth than Metal Slug.

It's still a quarter muncher, but it's a bit fairer than the first game. They had to make their money off it, but good play is rewarded a bit more in this game than in the last. It's not a fair game, but it's a ton of fun and that's good enough to bump it up a few notches from the first. I'll give it an 8.2/10.

Up next is a game I've already teased in a previous post, and which I've already finished, so check back tomorrow! I've been on a torrid pace with clearing out games in June, so I'm going to have no problems hitting my goal of 30 by the end of the year.

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 144): Metal Slug

I truly do not know where I have played Metal Slug before, or even if I had ever played the first one in the series. I used to see Neo Geo machines all over the place, and the demos it would play of Metal Slug always made it look really good. I'm sure there has been some free play machine in a game store or something that I've played, but I've always had an affinity for Metal Slug because of the art style.

Oh, that art style. This is one of the most beautiful video games ever created, period. Every single character and animation positively crackles with life and humor. My favorite moments in the game were when you would die, come back to life, and the enemies would scream in terror, a touch that few other companies would have given, and that animates this world in a way that lets you know that this isn't serious, and have a good time with it. Everything moves oh so smoothly, and 1996 me was (I presume) blown away compared to the fare we had on the SNES and the Genesis. Unlike some of its arcade peers from the time, though, this game still absolutely dazzles. Apparently the original had a lot of slowdown, but I didn't detect any on the version I was playing, which was the Metal Slug Anthology on PS4.

The controls are good enough, but not great. This might change if I had an actual clicky Neo Geo joystick on which to play, but unfortunately I am restricted to my humble Dualshock 4. Oh well.

I really didn't notice the music, but the sound is generally good. The weapons all make satisfying sounds and the death and enemy sounds are all tremendous. Especially the terror screaming. Music was rarely an important factor for arcade games anyway, since you couldn't hear anything in an arcade anyway.

The gameplay is fun, but the difficulty of this game is definitely balanced to eat. those. quarters. I used 33 (roughly $8.50 in 1996) continues on my way through the game, which seems like cheating, but it's actually the only way for an average person to beat this game. The designers wanted you to need to sink $5-10 into the game for a complete playthrough, so I obliged with my pretend quarters. This is not a game with a ton of replay value as a result, as there's essentially no challenge that can't be overcome with deep enough pockets. Or enough shamelessness to keep hammering that continue button. If I played it again, I would almost certainly have fewer than 33 continues, but not less than 20.

Metal Slug does what it sets out to do, and does it really well. I can't stress enough that it has to be played as though you were standing in an arcade with your friend, $10 of quarters from your mom jingling happily in your pocket. It shouldn't make the slightest sense to those who grew up without arcades, but will absolutely speak to anyone who's ever paid $5 for a box of lollipop hammers on Candy Crush Saga. It has all of the hallmarks of bright and shiny slot machines at the casino; flash designed to simulate entertainment while draining a tiny bit of your wallet, and perhaps your soul as well.

I really enjoyed Metal Slug, but also felt like a victim of some of the more predatory and manipulative aspects of capitalism while doing so. It's a game that everyone can enjoy, but should they? I'll give it a 7.6 out of 10. Up next I'll review Metal Slug 2!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 143): Batman: Arkham City

What else should I jump into after enjoy Batman: Arkham Asylum so very much? Arkham City is the sequel to Arkham Asylum that expands upon its predecessor in nearly every way. The game boasts a more open-world environment with a larger area to explore than the original, new gadgets with which to solve puzzles with, and an expanded roster of villains to bludgeon in your pursuit of peace for Gotham City's innocents.

The gameplay is very similar to the previous game, a reality with which I have no problem. Batman does have some new tricks up his sleeve, but for the most part it will feel very similar. The excellent combat from the first game returns in its essence, but is even better this time. The controls in combat are much sharper and the animations of your assaults on the criminal element of Gotham City are better detailed and more brutal than before. Gadgets felt more impactful in combat, and the game places you in a wider arrange of combat situations than before, forcing you to be very creative about the manner in which you dismantle your foes.

The story, written by Paul Dini, is excellent once again. The game opens with you being arrested as Bruce Wayne (obviously by your own permission) and being placed in Arkham City, a new prison experiment championed by the new Mayor Sharp, and executed by Dr. Strange. No, Dr. Hugo Strange. This one isn't magical at all. And believe it or not, this Dr. Strange actually existed before the Marvel one! Anyway, Batman needs to investigate a sinister plot known as Protocol 10, while also handing side-machinations by Joker, Riddler, Penguin, and other Batman villains. The narrative is well paced and compelling, and the ending to the game is really tremendous. The voice acting is extremely good again, although I do miss the old actress for Harley Quinn, who was awesome. Conroy and Hammill are back as Batman and Joker again, though, and that's what really counts.

The process of getting around in the city is a bit clunky, again. The gliding just feels a bit imprecise, and it's hard to land where you want to. This complicates the game's long post game, as a significant number of solving Riddler puzzles will involve you needing to be in very precise control. Oh well. Hope you enjoy trying puzzles a ton of times with frustrating outcomes!

In the post-game, the city crackles with life in a way that the Asylum never did. Baddies will regularly repopulate the City, in keeping with the endless waves of villains that comic book Batman needs to beat off one at a time. This makes playing the game after its completion much more of a joy than in the original, where it was impossible to find anyone to fight without doing the combat challenges. They replaced the existing system of finding a map with all of the Riddler secrets (lame) with a much better solution of interrogating Riddler informants around the map to find out where they are. This makes much more sense practically (how would Riddler rig up 400 complicated traps in such a short time, without some help) as well as thematically (Riddler delights in the mental games he plays with Batman, and wouldn't just leave maps of his secrets lying around) than the system from the first game. The Riddler secrets themselves are much more creative than in the previous game, with more puzzle solving required to obtain them. Getting them can be frustrating due to the control issues mentioned earlier, however.

All in all, this is a really excellent game. It keeps up with all of the strengths of the original game while adding more of a living, breathing world for Batman to explore and cleanse of the criminals that haunt his city. I wish they could have made the controls a bit better for Batman, but that's my only real complaint here. I'll give this game a 9.6/10.

I'm currently enjoying winging around Arkham City and exploring the secrets it conceals, but I'm also working through another game at the same time during the hours in which my kids are using the "modern games" area. See below for a teaser of what's coming up next. I may even finish it today...

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 142): Batman: Arkham Asylum

In my glowing review of Marvel's Spider-Man, I include some throw away line about how certain aspects of the gadget use in the game were borrowed from the Arkham games. Boy, did I underestimate just how much of that game was blatantly stolen from this game and its sequel, and with excellent reason. These games are trailblazers of how to do a modern superhero game well, and any subsequent game that didn't learn from these are idiots.

Well, I've spoiled the ending to this review, but boy is this game excellent! It's a game in which you control Batman as he tries to stop Joker's attempt to take over Arkham Asylum, his home away from home. Arkham is on an island off the coast of Gotham City, so you get a pretty generous amount of real estate to roam, explore and cleanse of the villainous filth that has spread. You'll follow the Joke from building to building, adapting your technology to face off with the devious traps and schemes your hilarious foil has left in your way, and bashing through countless crooks and super villains.

Combat is very similar to Spider-Man in a completely anachronistic way. Rather than dodging, however, you have a counterattack ability that will stop enemy attacks in their tracks and return an elbow, fist, knee, or foot in very satisfying fashion. You have access to a wide range of gadgets which you can use in combat, although I used them very little. You have batarangs, remote controlled batarangs, sonic batarangs, multi-batarangs...you get the picture. The combat is insanely fun, and doesn't suffer nearly as much from one of the main issues in Spider-Man, which is that it's actually pretty accurate when selecting which opponent to attack. The animations are not quite as fluid as Spider-Man, however, and there's a certain joy to witnessing the finesse of the webhead, even though Batman's brutality is its own delight.

Batman, however, is not just an incredible boxer, judo expert, kickboxer, wrestler, etc. He's also the World's Greatest Detective, and somehow this game makes you feel like it. You'll be decoding security terminals, analyzing DNA, tracking alcohol residue and fingerprints, analyzing evidence, and generally being five steps ahead of the menagerie of villains you'll be facing. Batman's "detective mode", a visual filter that highlights weak spots in walls, trails to follow, enemies hiding behind walls, etc. will facilitate your detective skills along the way.

The game has a superbly fun system of secrets in which you must find hidden objects and solve riddles left by...who else? These are a great little side quest, and give you the delightful Zelda-esque rush when you discover a new gadget and are able to backtrack to get that one Riddler trophy that you just couldn't figure out.

One of my biggest complaints about Spider-Man was that the stealth sections were dull and uninteresting, and would quickly devolve into you jumping into the middle of your enemies and brawling it out. Well Batman, without the supernatural spider-sense gifted to the webhead, can't just jump in the midst of his enemies without a plan, particularly if they have guns. Stealth is a must in this game, and fortunately, they made it extremely fun and rewarding.

The writing for the game, penned by longtime Batman writer Paul Dini, is flat out superb. The man knows how to coax all of the pathos he needs to out of Batman's villains, and let Batman talk with his fists. All of the baddies here are pitch perfect in tone, with a particularly genius turn from Joker, voiced by long-time voice actor Mark Hamill. Hamill is the equivalent of peak Roger Clemens in his voice work on Joker, and this is perhaps his best performance ever. He manages to wring exactly the right blend of dark humor, viciousness, and depression out of the character, and Kevin Conroy's Batman is similarly correct in tone.

The visuals for the game are really good, even today. The character models are extremely detailed, and they did a superb job making the creepiness of Arkham truly come to life.

The music is pretty good. It's pretty much what you'd expect from a Batman game, and does the job well.

While I'd like to make this review a hagiography, it's not perfect. The controls can occasionally be finicky and imprecise, particularly in the sections in which you need to glide from higher places to lower. You'll face plenty of awkward situations where Batman will feel clunky. This is one area where Spider-Man is truly miles ahead of the Bat. There are also some points that just don't feel like an authentic Batman experience, such as the Riddler conveniently leaving out maps displaying the locations of all of his secrets throughout the Asylum. I mean, come on. It's also difficult to navigate around the island, as you'll just have to walk/run, and it's pretty big. Getting to the one particular spot to which you want to get can be pretty tough. I wish they'd included some sort of subway type situation like in Spider-Man. The bosses are also not nearly as fun as they should be, and this is another area in which Spider-Man is ahead of the curve.

Spider-Man is the superior game, but it's also nearly 10 years newer than this. This game just shines in its love for the Batman universe, and created an extremely fun and inventive experience that other comic book games should absolutely emulate. Apparently, Arkham City is even better than this one, and I just so happen to be playing it through right now. I just can't get enough Batman! I'll give this one a 9.5/10 for inventiveness, quality, and huge amounts of fun.

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 141): The Messenger

The Messenger is a platformer developed by Sabotage Studio, and is also their first game. The game plays similar in controls to Ninja Gaiden (NES), but borrows significantly from other NES and SNES game styles.

You play as the titular Messenger, an 8-bit ninja tasked with carrying a scroll from the western side of his island to the east. You'll play through a variety of colorful levels on your way to deliver your message, but at the far eastern part of the island lies the real hook of the game. It's been spoiled in just about every review so far and is shown in the trailer, so I don't feel bad revealing it here. Once you progress through the first few levels, your character will jump through time, changing not only the look of all of the levels, but also your character! He'll go from 8-bit ninja to 16 bit ninja, and the music will all change to the appropriate time period. It's all very tongue in cheek and meta, but the effect is really nice.

The game really shines in its controls, which are the absolute best for any game in this style, rivaling games like Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden, Contra, and Shovel Knight. Everything you do in this game feels exactly right, from the wall jumping to the grappling hook to pull you to distant walls to the great new mechanic invented for this game, cloud stepping. This is basically a double jump with a twist. Any time you hit something with your sword, you get a cloud to jump off, making it so that you can basically stay jumping and slashing around for eternity if you're skilled enough (there are plenty of non-enemy objects to hit). The cloud stepping is insanely fun, and never, ever gets old. They also use it in some skillful game design scenarios that will ask you to use your abilities in new and more challenging ways, which is a delight. The hit and hurtboxes are exactly right, and you'll never find yourself blaming the game or the controls for your failures.

The game's approach to learning is tremendous as well, giving you low risk opportunities to try out any new skills you obtain as you go, and gradually increasing the challenge of using those mechanics throughout the levels. By the end, you'll be mixing and matching all of these skills you've trained and will absolutely feel like a real ninja. Scratch that, real ninjas were never this cool.

In addition to the flawless controls and skilled level design, the game also has some of the finest action platforming bosses ever. There are a few that aren't so fun sprinkled throughout the game, but for the most part these would be absolutely iconic boss encounters for any NES game, and they still are magnificent today. There's also a free DLC with two additional levels and extra bosses that are a ton of fun.

The look of the game is fantastic, particularly the 8-bit style. The 16-bit looks a little like an 8-bit artist's best attempt to translate from one to the other. The 16-bit graphics are not on the same level of other 16 -bit style platformers like Shantae or the more recent Castlevania handhelds, but they're good.

The music is good, if not great. There are a bunch of really good tracks here, but a couple of snoozers as well. Arranging all of the music at least twice was quite a feat, though, and the composer deserves some significant credit here. The Tower of Time song is particularly excellent.

My main complaint is that the game is simply too broad in its scope. It plays like a game from a developer doing their first game with the fear that they would never have a chance to do a second. They jammed this game full of as many homages and gameplay styles as possible. Once you change from 8 to 16-bit, the gameplay changes from linear platformer to Metroidvania, and the Metroidvania parts just aren't as good. For one thing, the fast travelling between levels is extremely cumbersome. There are fast travel points to several levels, but not to others. Additionally, sometimes parts of the levels are inaccessible from the fast travel points due to the way the levels are laid out. You'll sometimes need to trek through three full levels to get to the specific point you need to collect whatever upgrade or item you'll need to advance in the story. Fortunately, the actual process of getting from point A to point B is really fun in general. Because you're a ninja with excellent controls. But you can only slog through the same level so many times before it starts to get a little tedious.

There's also sections of the game that feature horizontal shooter mechanics, Turtles in Time style water skiing levels, and even a Punch-Out!! boss fight (note: I did enjoy this one). In general, these sections take away from the things the game does well, and shifts the focus to genres with which the developers are not quite as skilled at executing.

The resulting addition of tons of extra features took a game that felt a little short at about two hours and stretched it out to closer to ten, which is certainly too long for a game in this genre. And if you, like me, tried to 100% the game (I succeeded), it's probably closer to twenty hours, with most of the time spent cloud stepping around the map in the Metroidvania part. I would have greatly preferred if they would have made four more linear platformer levels with four more platformer bosses and had the game up to four or five hours.

The game's story and dialogue are also pretty ponderous. The writing is not great, and attempts to walk the line of parody without becoming goofy, but it rarely hits the mark. I laughed very little, and found the serious attempts at plot development a little confusing, as almost all non-Chrono Trigger time travel tales are. But plot and dialogue aren't the first things I look for in a 2D platformer, so it didn't bother me much.

On the whole, this is a really good game, and a very impressive effort from a new developer with a ton of promise. Their love of the classic games that inspired them shines throughout, and their dedication to creating a character that controls seamlessly will keep you playing this game longer than there's new content to enjoy. A too-long experience with too much trimmable fat keeps like from being an all-time classic, but it's well-worth picking up if you enjoy any kind of 2D platformer. Just play Shovel Knight first for the definitive modern retro-styled experience. I'll give it a 9.0/10. See below for a teaser for my next review, for a game I finished this weekend!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 140): Halo: Combat Evolved

In 2001, first person shooting had always been the province of PC gamers. That's not to say that you couldn't play FPS on consoles. Doom had a passable port on the SNES. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark were really fun experiences on the N64. There were a handful of solid FPS on the PS1. But if you wanted fast paced, skill rewarding first person shooting action, you were probably playing Quake, Half-Life, or Unreal Tournament instead of their console imitators. Mouse and keyboard has always been the best way to play an FPS. The natural online and cable connected multiplayer capabilities of PCs lent well to facilitating the twitchy and fun multiplayer experiences that now comprises a huge chunk of why people play video games (this and sports games). Plus, no screen watching.

Enter Halo: Combat Evolved. It's not the first console game that had dual stick controls for a console shooter, but it's the first one that people really paid attention to, and the controls are just so superior to the auto-aiming attempts of the previous generation that it's laughable. It had the fast paced motion of a PC shooter. It had a huge, detailed world that rivaled the quality of experiences on PC, likely due to the PC-like quality of the Xbox. You could link up multiple Xbox and play with up to 16 players, mirroring what most multiplayer experiences on PC were like back in the day. You could play PC games online, but you're still dealing with a lot of dial-up connections. A fast-paced genre like FPS doesn't necessarily translate that well with lag, so many people were using LAN parties as their multiplayer experience of choice.

I recently beat the campaign for Halo with my son for the first time. I played through it a bit as a teenager, playing at some kids' house who I was supposed to be babysitting, but really just ate their food, played their Xbox, and watched their Family Guy DVDs. But I never had the chance to finish it. Having a coop campaign is a really nice touch, and it's implemented pretty well here. I have a few quibbles, like the checkpoint system, which can result in some spinny experiences where you get teleported to a friend, and then accidentally trigger the checkpoint again, and in the very similar environments it can be very difficult to remember where you've been and where you're supposed to be going. The campaign also struggles with those similar environments, where it's very difficult to know where to go in your homogeneous surroundings. But the shooting action is always really fun, you have a radar to show you where nearby enemies are (hint: if you get lost, head towards the red dots), and the enemy AI is fantastic. Each variety of unit has their own equipment and tactics, and a real personality. It's so fun to see the grunts screaming and running away from you if they get to be alone against the mighty Master Chief, and the Hunters never fail to be scary when you encounter them. The voice work is tremendous for the creatures, yielding a wide range of screeches and grunts that will immerse you in this campaign even more.

The multiplayer is excellent, if a bit limited. You need real players to play, as there are no AI enemies to insert into matches. In a game with only two players, the action can get pretty dull. This was a game made for LAN parties in an age where that doesn't happen too much anymore. Grading it for its time, though, it's really good. If you really want a richer experience, there's always Halo 2 through 5. 

While this game is still fun today, its historical impact is the real reason this game shines. Microsoft lost a tremendous amount of money on their XBox experience, and I feel pretty confident in saying that there would have been no Xbox 360 (an amazing console) without Halo. The console only sold 24 million worldwide during its life, and an incredible 4 million copies of Halo were sold! That's a pretty insane attach rate, particularly as the game wasn't a pack-in title, and the XBox had a pretty big library with plenty of options. More importantly, it paved the way for Halo 2 (which sold even more than the first), the game that defined an entire generation's first online console experience, caused people to be comfortable with paying for online gaming, and was generally just awesome.

With all of this in mind, I'll give Halo: Combat Evolved a 9.5 out of 10. It's a true trailblazer that pales a bit in comparison to its successor, but has aged really well. If you haven't played it, it's a great time! Here's a little teaser for the next game to be reviewed (I've already finished it).

-TRO