Back from a much-needed week’s holiday and I’m fighting fit again. I wrote this before I left, tired and spent and, coming back to see it published last night, I wish I’d read through it a couple more times before submitting. It’s a little patchy, preachy, one-sided and it doesn’t point out enough of the faults in the later titles in the series. Nevertheless it’s mostly right and, while Ignition should be strung up for their handling of the Anthology’s front end, the games inside mostly play and run brilliantly. While away I’ve been trying to finish (!) the new release of Final Fantasy VI on GBA ahead of an EG review next week. It’s been more fun than expected racing to finish a big RPG you first played and loved as a relative youngster before writing the review but I suspect that’s mainly because the game in question is so enjoyable. Anyway, onwards!

Forget Alan Wake, Metal Slug Anthology showcases the best graphics ever seen in a videogame.

One day soon, people will realise that there are only so many virtual suns reflecting on the surface of virtual lakes that one can go ‘wow‘ at. Yes, sunsets are pretty to look at and yes, it’s terribly impressive how life-like the metal on this AK-47 looks when viewed through that particle effect, but surely we play games to visit new worlds: not marvel at slightly more rubbish versions of the current one?

Excuse the antagonism but, for fans of 2D pixel art, the decade-old Metal Slug series has never really been bettered for intricacy, personality, character and colour. Indeed, it’s thanks to this series that there are those of us for whom the prettiest face of videogames lies not in the future but in the past. Sure, the latest 2D Street Fighter or Guilty Gear may have pin sharper characters and backgrounds but this isn’t a stationary beat ‘em up. Rather, SNK’s side-scrolling, run-and-gun war parody, takes in a hundred different locales, from the deepest jungle to the deepest sea, each bristling with an individuality and style that a Tom Clancy cast would, er, kill for.

The gameplay couldn’t be simpler: make your way from left to right shooting enemy soldiers and vehicles before they shoot you. There’s no life bar: it’s one shot one kill. Your basic pistol has unlimited shots. You have a fire button, a jump button and a bomb button and, should you find any vacant vehicles or willing animals along the way, feel free to appropriate them to the cause. And that, in sixty-nine words, is how the seven Metal Slug games, each brilliantly emulated here on the PSP, function.

You can read the rest here