7/31/2007: Playstation 2: Metal Slug Anthology, Taito Legends 2

[VideoGameCritic]

As a bonus to message board readers, at no extra charge, here are my notes about Taito Legends 2 that didn't make the review:

Black Metal - gx astonishing but casio keyboard music awful

Lunar Rescue - You dodge asteroids to land on the surface, pick up people, and then shoot your way back up to the mother ship - mediocre

Balloon bomber is a heinously simplistic balloon shooter

Crazy balloon looks like a real bad home computer type-in game circa 1982

Qix A - played many home versions, but nothing can touch the crisp controls and distinctive sounds of the original

Wild Western -  looks great but unplayable

Chack'n Pop - a maze game where you drop bombs - lousy controls stick to everything

Front line - never realized the arcade version was so cheesy - better on Colecovision!

The Fairyland Story - platformer with a dig dug vibe, complete with chubby fire breathing dragons. ok.

Legend of Kage - standard ninja jumping action has a crazy crouching tiger flavor as you jump between the treetops flinging stars at flying ninjas.  Marginal.

Ki Ki Kai Kai - shoot and repel ghost and zombies as you forge vertically through Japanese village.  Weak

Kuri Kinton - ninja side-scroller with intense kicking action but touchy, imprecise jumping.

Sylvalion - Move large, slithering dragon through a maze frying stuff but most stuff is indestructible. Any arcade game that includes training stage has got to suck

Bonze Adventure - 2nd rate ghost and goblins - throwing bouncing balls which is cheesy

Nastar Warrior - sequel to Rastan.  Controls awfully stiff in this side-scrolling sword slashing game, but large monster sprites of hideous creatures are impressive!

Raimais - interesting maze game best described as Dodge-em with power-ups.  The unresponseive controls wont do with any favors though.

Camel Try - like bonus game of first sonic - tilt a maze trying to move bouncing ball to the goal. Oddly addictive but could do without wacky music

Don Doko Don - addictive cute little platformer where you bash wandering mushrooms and toss them to make them burst into fruit - every platform game you’ve ever played.

Insector X - looks like a childish shooter but tough - could do without the nursery rhyme style music

Violence Fight - Next You!  Funny dialogue, huge fighters but repetitive button mashing gameplay  "Computer score a point over": lousy incomprehensible English translations

Growl - fight against an army of evil poachers!  So progressive you can even beat up women in heels.  Plenty of cool weapons like whips, grenades and machine guns

Gun Frontier - impressive vertical shooter where you collect gold bars from defeated enemies and unleash massive smart bombs.  If only your plane wasn't so damn wide! 

Hat Trick Hero - impressive scaling soccer game along the lines of super sidekicks for the neo geo

Liquid kids - lovable round hero tossing water balloons at fire-creating enemies.  Fast paced with a Supe Mario flavor and a lot of cool water-related strategy cool!

Majestic 12: updated space invaders with timestop and laser beams.  Invaders that become large are just annoying

Grid Seeker - correctly predicted the 2nd Persian gulf war (but in 1999) rapid-fire vertical shooting action.  Have a shield in front of you kick ass

Arabian Magic - pretty darned impressive Arabian side scroller with genie special attacks and rich opulent palaces

Darius Gaiden - side scrolling fish shooter.  Smart bombs create votexes that sucks everything in. Polygons look great

Elevator Action 2 - amazing animated characters and unflinching violence.  Worst part is waiting for the damn elevator!

Space invaders dx - includes a split screen mode and porady mode with wacky aliens

Cleopatra Fortune - heinous Tetris clone

Gekirindan - Frenetic vertical space shooter

Space invaders 95 irreverent take on the classic with goofy characters,bosses, and galga-like bonus stages

Ray Storm - superb polygan shooter with awesome lock-on capacbility  - many will rmember from ps1

Puchi Carat - bust a move meets breakout - hardly memorable

G Darius - remarkable polygon shooter with rapidly shifting viewpoints that lets you control enemies to augment your weapons

There are too many prompts (do I really need to confirm that the save was successful?)

[Tourian]

I agree that most of the games on this collection are crap!  However, there are a few that are worth at least the $15 asking price:

Darius Gaiden
Ray Storm
Elevator Action Returns
G Darius
Gekirindan
 
And several that come close:

Space Invaders '95
Don Doko Don
Grid Seeker
Gun Frontier
Growl
Football Champ
Puzzle Bobble 2

I'm dissapointed that PS2 buyers don't get Rayforce though.  How annoying!

Finally, I recommend playing Puchi Carat with Perydot!

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I already own Metal Slug 4 & 5 for PS2 and Metal Slug X for PS1 but I was going to get the anthology anyway.  However, the control issue you bring up makes me feel that I should wait for them to try it again.

[Michael D]

I'm sorry, but based on the B score for PS2 Metal Slug Anthology, I think you may be allowing your love for the Metal Slug games to cloud your judgement.  If I may go down the list of issues, see if you (and others) agree with the points I have to make.

First, the load times; they're heinous.  For a late generation PS2 game, it should not take more than 10 seconds to load either the games themselves or the individual sections of stages (and some of the games run worse than others, especially Metal Slug 3).  Also, can someone please explain why the game needs to load for 2-3 seconds, just so you can move the cursor and highlight a character to play as?  How is that acceptable, especially on a system lightyears more powerful than the Neo-Geo?!

Second, the control issues that you mentioned.  There is a brief delay between the time you press a button and when the action occurs on screen.   To answer the question of "does it really matter," yes, it does, especially in a game that requires such quick reflexes to survive.  When you find yourself blaming the controls for whether you lived or died (instead of your own gameplay mistake), that makes the game unfair.  Also, why is there even a problem like this in a PS2 port of ancient games like these?    

Third, the continue system.  Yeah, it lets you choose the amount of continues, but when you run out of continues and go game over, you can't even begin a new game right away.  You have to exit the game, go back to the menu, and select the game again so the continue counter will reset.  Instead of being able to jump right back into a new game, you have to go through a counter-intuitive and long loading process because the game isn't smart enough to reset the amount of continues selected for a new game.  What kind of compilation game design is that?

And finally, considering that Metal Slug 3 came out already for the Xbox, and Metal Slug 4 & 5 came out for both Xbox and PS2, why settle for a slapped together mess like MSA?  Sure, you're getting them all, but what's the point if they're so sloppily programmed?  Metal Slug 3 (Xbox) and 4 & 5 (Xbox/PS2) are both far better ports of those games with no loading or control issues, so why'd SNK they drop the ball on them (and the other Metal Slugs) here?  And even though you'll probably have to look around for the two Metal Slug releases I mentioned, they're far more worthy of gamers' dollars (even those unfamiliar with Metal Slug) because the games included there are far better put together than the versions in Metal Slug Anthology (and you can probably pick up the two games for $20-$30, less than the Anthology).

And I have to say, I'm not exactly an expert on Metal Slug, but I think that considering the inexcusible issues, Anthology is a bad compilation and deserves a C- at the most.  What say you?

[Michael Danehy]

If the gameplay for "Camel Try" sounds familiar that's because it was ported to the SNES as "On The Ball". I don't know how popular OTB was, but I used to play it.

[VideoGameCritic]

[QUOTE=Michael D]
And I have to say, I'm not exactly an expert on Metal Slug, but I think that considering the inexcusible issues, Anthology is a bad compilation and deserves a C- at the most.  What say you?
[/QUOTE]

You make a good argument.  Maybe I've been drinking too much of the Metal Slug Kool-Aid.  I might change it to a B-.

[riftt]

Growl is definitely awesome, and Arabian Magic is really fun too (Dungeon Magic looks cooler but I find many of the traps bog down the gameplay and make it too frustrating).  Oh and the critic is a slacker for not giving each game a letter grade like he did with the first taito entry!

[VideoGameCritic]

[QUOTE=riftt]

Growl is definitely awesome, and Arabian Magic is really fun too (Dungeon Magic looks cooler but I find many of the traps bog down the gameplay and make it too frustrating).  Oh and the critic is a slacker for not giving each game a letter grade like he did with the first taito entry!

[/QUOTE]

Would you guys like me to go back and post a letter grade for each game?

[snakeboy1]

[QUOTE=The Video Game Critic]
Would you guys like me to go back and post a letter grade for each game?
[/QUOTE]

I like when you give letter grades for each game. And if you want to go back and do it, that would be great, but I would understand if you didn't since there's so many freakin' games.

[Adamant1]

[QUOTE=The Video Game Critic][QUOTE=riftt]Growl is definitely awesome, and Arabian Magic is really fun too (Dungeon Magic looks cooler but I find many of the traps bog down the gameplay and make it too frustrating).  Oh and the critic is a slacker for not giving each game a letter grade like he did with the first taito entry!
[/QUOTE] Would you guys like me to go back and post a letter grade for each game? [/QUOTE]

That would indeed be great. Collections like this usually have a number of games unknown to the readers of the review, and knowing a bit more about each game is always nice.

[a1]

I'm sorry Critic, but you can't complain about the Metal Slug Wii controls when the game gives you the option of playing with just buttons. I know you have a Gamecube controller.