User Rating: 4.1 | Metal Slug 3 XBOX
I just don't get the Gamespot review. Sure, I can appreciate the history and challenge of 2D scrollers, but this one is a relatively expensive game that's four or five years old and would/could run equally well on a PS1, MAME setup, or even a SNES. The review points to great animation and no FPS loss during boss battles... sheese, uh yeah, I'd expect my XBox to handle a game like this without a problem when it can also crank out networked giant 'mech battles or running car gunfights in a fully 3D Vice City world. It's kind of an embarassment to be playing it on an XBox on a 56" 16:9 HDTV. When I rented this my girlfriend was thrilled because she thought I somehow figured out how to hook up her Gameboy Advance to our home theater system and HDTV. That's how low-tech and simplistic the game looks and plays. It can also be a frustratingly difficult game, and like most classic arcade games it's only about pattern recognition and quick reflexes. It didn't feel retro to me, it just felt like a rip-off. The graphics and gameplay are decent for what they are, but the game just doesn't stand up to any of my other titles. On a positive retro-gameplay kind of note, the game does have a bunch of ridiculous, poorly translated Engrish words in it - I knew it was gonna be bad when I immediately saw your ammo counter being called "ARMS" and your grenades/missiles being called simply "BOMB". If you're a fan of the Metal Slug series, or a die-hard 2D scoller fan, there's nothing really "wrong" with the game if you know what to expect, but it wasn't worth much of my time.
