The fun ends as soon as you start enjoying it
I was one of the many people out there who were greatly disappointed by the lack of multiplayer support on this game. I mean c'mon, I for one couldn't think of a good reason as to why they chose not to include such feature unless they were trying to rush the game to come out into the market and had no more time to add a multiplayer option. The multiplayer is almost always a must have feature especially on a title like this one that can be played in co-op on the arcades. Contra 4 was able to do it, right?
As I try and set that aside I played the game and had a blast doing it. Most (if not all) of the gameplay elements that can be found in the arcades can be experienced here as well. You have a number of guns in your arsenal, along with the usual tanks, planes, and even mech robots that you can blast from enemies or take control of. And even though I consider myself as probably one of the worst side-scrolling shooter gamer on our planet, I found it too easy to beat the game using the easiest difficulty setting. Cranking it up a single notch however seems to be too tough for me, and I find myself getting butchered by the enemy soldiers. But regardless of how fun a game is, there is in my opinion no excuse for creating a very short game. This game only have a total of 7 missions. It might be enough for an arcade game, but not for a console game.
Graphically the game looks pretty much as what you'd expect out from a Metal Slug game. It leans a bit on the pixelated side and animation isn't something that you can applaud to but you wouldn't even care about that because the game is fun to play. There are occasional slowdowns on heavily crowded portions, but they're tolerable.
Sound on the other hand is pretty good, and you won't get the feeling that they have over-compressed the audio like with some DS titles. Background music, sound effects, and VO's are all here.
Controls is also quite easy to pickup. The stylus can only be used here to move your view around the map while playing ... which in my opinion is a not so imaginative use for the lower screen.
All-in-all this game gives out the excitement that Metal Slug fans like me are looking for. However given the lack of multiplayer support and short lifespan, the game doesn't deserve to receive a "great" rating of 8. It's almost there, but not quite ... I give it a 7.5
.:My reviews are only as good as everyone else's. Take every single one of them with a grain of salt:.