Metal Slug 7

The Regular Army and its surrounding city is experiencing a brief moment of peace and are able to rebuild after the many battles that were fought. HQ receives a video transmission from the Regular Army's Intel that one of the Morden soldiers were spotted on Garbage Island. HQ assigns a six man covert strike-force to investigate and eliminate all Morden Forces on the island. -summary

The slapped together story feels almost as rushed as the game. SNK decided to cash in on their hit series with yet another sequel. Released in 2008 for the Nintendo DS, Metal Slug 7 features that exact same run and gun formula that the fans all know and love; but as fun and addictive this sequel may be, it still has its shortcomings.

Game play:

Metal Slug 7 sticks to its guns (literally) and delivers that shoot first forget the questions game play that is now legendary in the gaming world. The game is still a 2-D side scrolling shooter, jam-packed with countless enemies, big bosses, and a pretty high difficulty. It's still easy to get into and someone brand new to the series could start from right here and have a very good time.

The game is seven levels of intense action with the player being able to man heavily armored vehicles, and wield massive firepower in the forms of lasers, rocket launchers, homing missiles, and heavy machine guns, as well as a brand new laser weapon with a twisting effect and a mecha vehicle. The weapons can be obtained by freeing prisoners and the mecha can be used on one of the later missions. Metal Slug 7 uses the gaming engine of Metal Slug 6, which I believe was a very good move since that chapter improved on the game play the best in my view.

The game once again features six playable characters with their own specific attributes. There's an option to turn the rapid fire on and off. For those who may not understand what I mean, this is basically giving yourself the ability to fire constantly, simply by holding the shoot button down when rapid fire is on and the exact opposite when it's off. There are also difficulty settings to choose from; easy, normal, and hard. The latter two clearly increases the difficulty, and every character uses the pistol as their default weapon. While on easy, the heavy machine gun with unlimited ammo is the default weapon; but unlike Metal Slug 6 where the game cannot be beaten on the easy level, this game can be ran through with ease on the aforementioned setting. I'm willing to bet that the folks who claim this game to be very easy, and that their 8 year olds are running through it are more than likely only playing it on that mode.

The game does not have unlimited continues this time around. Therefore, on the harder settings, it would be wise not to run into every situation with no strategy. The enemies are relentless and they're packing some mean weaponry and they play the numbers game very well. The bosses can be very tough with different attack patterns that have to be memorized. Speed and eye coordination is the name of the game here, as well as patience if you're trying to make it through every single stage without dying once.

Although Metal Slug 7 is a solid game to me it suffers from one crippling flaw, and it's that he game is not two player co-op. I really don't know what SNK were thinking here. It was a very bad move to just eliminate that option when the entire main series has been two player from day one.

Controls:

The control set up is still very easy to handle and very responsive. The character can still pack two special weapons at the same time, and the game utilizes the weapon swap which performs nicely by tapping the right shoulder button. Other button combinations can make the character drop the special weapon in favor of something else. Controlling the vehicles is still a breeze, as well as firing overhead and leaping in the air to fire downwards. Overall, there's no issues in this area at all.

Graphics/Music/Sound:

The cartoony visuals and the animation are still very good, with some pretty cool details that will go unnoticed by the untrained eye. When the character isn't shooting he will take sips from his canteen, or stick his tongue out and wipe sweat from his forehead in very hot, lava filled stages. However, I did notice a small amount of pixels though. The graphics didn't really seem that clean to me.

The artwork and character designs are excellent and some of the bosses are overflowing with imagination. I especially thought that the boss that breaks into three pieces was very cool. The stages consist of the usual settings with the battles taking place in small villages, caves, and mountain areas. The sound effects are very good for the individual weapons and different bomb explosions. Although the music is effective when enhancing the atmosphere, I don't think it's really on par with any of its predecessors. This is the weakest soundtrack in the series to me.

Overall:

There is no excuse for the lack of a two player option and the short length only adds to the complaints list. This sequel has a thrown together feel, and I scratch my head every time when I hear someone say this is among the best in the series; each sequel introduced something new no matter how minuscule it could have possibly been. This game has almost nothing new in its overall game play. Now SNK did add an extra missions mode, with about 80 missions that must be completed with different goals that must be met, as well as an option to keep track of how many prisoners were left behind during the missions, and those missions can be replayed. However, this is something that only the true hardcore fan will find value in; but at the end of the day, a two player co-op trumps these extras. Recommended only to serious fans like me.

Overall Rating: 6/10

Pros: Still easy to get into, linear, extra missions mode

Cons: No two player co-op, short, almost nothing new in gameplay