Metal Slug was one of the first games I ever played in the arcade when I was younger, and I haven’t played it since. Now with the meager amount of games at Nintendo’s new console’s launch I got to check the ACA classic “Metal Slug 3” which is the fourth installment in the series. So well how did it age?
Clean or old arcade? That’s up to you!
First thing you want to do when downloading MS3 on your Switch is going straight for the OPTIONS menu. In here you can tweak the many settings such as button mapping, going widescreen (stretching) and even activate filters that range from crisp graphics to old arcade aliasing etc. You can mess around these video settings until you find what you’re looking for. You can even activate the small screen area on both edges left and right that had gone lost by the original arcade machine’s bezels.
UNLIMITED LIVES!
There’s a lot of modes you can pick from and one thing that was so frustrating on the original arcade version was the fact that once you spent all your lives you were prompted to a countdown CONTINUE screen that asked you to put another round of your money in the machine. Since the Switch is not sporting a coin slot you’ll have an unlimited amount of continues to keep on shooting stuff!
And yes there is a lot of stuff to shoot at! MS has always been a challenging side scrolling shooter where a number of times you died didn’t matter. It’s all about having fun and finding all the wacky overpowered guns and slug machines to plow through the never ending hordes of soldiers, zombies, giant aliens, oversized lady-named eels and many more!
Alternative fire modes!
You’ll get to choose from 4 characters to play with but it’s more of an aesthetic choice although it’s nice to hear another voice yelling it out when you die. The true charm of the game is the way you choose to obliterate your various foes. You can use the armored vehicles or just run and gun everyone. Sometimes you’ll get transformed like when facing zombies. Once you get bitten you become one yourself and instead of throwing grenades the button will now activate an all powerful beam of blood that will clear all foes on the screen.
Conclusion: BANG for almost no buck!
So how well has it aged and what is its value in the eShop?
MS3 is still the fast easy to pick up shoot ’em up it has always been and it’s nice to have this well-ported arcade shooter in the Switch’s launch line up. It is a timeless classic and with the addition of the unlimited lives anyone can pick it up. It has a “quick join” story co-op so you can play with another friend and best part is; You can play it by sharing single Joy-Cons! Perfect!
It is money well spent on the eShop for a fast classic that you can now take anywhere with the new Nintendo Switch!
