TAITO’s App Store Holiday Sale has begun! This year’s sale includes all of their shooting games including DariusBurst SP, the entire Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move family, Gardening Mama, and much much more. Check out the list below including links straight to the iTunes store and prices.
Developer: SNK Playmore Publisher: SNK Playmore Platforms: iPad (Reviewed), iPhone, iPod Touch Release Date: December 13th, 2012 Price: $1.99 Get it Here
Overview
Metal Slug 1 is the classic side scrolling arcade shooter that spawned a franchise that almost rivaled Street Fighter in its quantity of incarnations. It was first released to arcades in 1996 and won the hearts of gamers worldwide. The game has been ported to a plethora of consoles and now iOS has received its own port.
Story
Metal Slug 1 is an arcade through and through as there is very little in plot. The game simply drops the player off after a short video demonstrating the controls with the original arcade controls right into the thick of battle. At the end of each level, you get the names of the prisoners you rescued, but beyond that, there isn’t much else.
Gameplay
Metal Slug 1 takes the classic game play and brings it to the small screen. It provides an intense platforming experience that requires both skill and accuracy. The game spans six frantic missions and four difficulty settings. The replayability of Metal Slug 1 is what you make of it. As an arcade game, it is meant to be beaten in a short period of time and replayed in an attempt to beat the high score. I was disappointed to see that multiplayer is only supported with local Bluetooth connections. Considering local co-op is quickly turning into a relic these days with the advent of Game Center and similar services on iOS.
The biggest fatal flaw of Metal Slug is the fact this game needs some sort of physical controller. The accuracy with a touch screen virtual joystick pales in comparison to a physical joystick. I found myself extremely frustrated during Mission 3 which contain a jumping puzzle where failure meant instant death. Although Metal Slug 1 allows the control buttons to be moved where ever is comfortable for the player, the movement stick does not move according to thumb position like most modern shooter controls. Without the movement control centring on the thumb and no physical feedback to figure out what is the neutral position for the controls, Metal Slug becomes extremely frustrating to control resulting in many needless deaths.
Visuals
Visually, Metal Slug is for the most part unchanged from the original. All the original animations and sprites are in place. The game allows players to choose between the original resolution of the game, a stretched 4:3, and a stretched widescreen 16:9 setting. Although the distortion from stretching the game widescreen does not look too bad, it may offend arcade purists.
For the most part, Metal Slug ran smoothly on the iPad 3rd generation, however during the last mission where the screen becomes particularly crowded with lots of enemies and fire, the game noticeably began to slow. I found this a little strange considering the game was meant to run on arcades in 1996 and the iPad 3 easily out-powers those old machines. This may simply be a matter of optimization and hopefully will be addressed in a future patch.
Audio
The audio experience seems to be preserved from the original arcade game. There are still a few words of voice acting intact and the sound effects have survived the test of time. The game can be played without sound as audio cues are unnecessary to beat this game.
Overall
At a $1.99, Metal Slug 1 is probably cheaper than the quarters used up at the arcade. However, Metal Slug 1 for iOS suffers from some control issues that really take away from the experience and some graphic lag on the final mission. If you are a huge Metal Slug fan, then I doubt this review will change your mind, by all means pick up the game, it is in a reasonably playable state. If you are not a fan, I would not recommend Metal Slug 1 without some minor patching and possibly a physical controller of some sort. The game simply does not translate that well to the touch screen.
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Well… hold you’re horses. Tecmo Koei in Japan has only announced the following information so don’t get your hopes up. Now, Tecmo Koei in Japan has announced a Collector’s Edition of Dead or Alive 5 Plus for Japan which will cost 9,240 yen compared to a regular copy of the game for 6,090 yen.
Now this Collector’s Edition will include a code to download 12 “Paradise Costumes” which are described by Famitsu as sexy costumes with the “I’m a Fighter” logo on them, as you can see above, a soundtrack for the game, a beginner’s guide to gravure as well as a code that will allow you to download something described as an extreme gravure movie. Also included in this Collector’s Edition is a skin for the game, which may be the one pictured below. Plus, all launch copies of the game will include a free code that unlocks cheerleader costumes for Tina, Kasumi and Ayane.
Famitsu also notes that the costumes will be released as downloadable content sometime after Dead or Alive 5 Plus is released in Japan, though no date was given. Currently Tecmo Koei in North America has not said anything about these bonuses, though we have reached out to them for comment.
You may remember that last week some very bored, or very obsessed, Borderlands 2 fans had dug through the PlayStation 3’s latest game files to discover that the next piece of DLC for Borderlands 2 would be called Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt. Well today Gearbox Software officially announced the DLC as well as it’s release date.
As you would expect, the DLC is called Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt and will be released on January 15th in North America and 16th in Europe. The pack will cost $10/800MSP and you can check out some screenshots of the DLC as well as a trailer for the DLC below.
We’ve already seen a gameplay video from Atlus showing off the Landsknecht Class, which serves as the game’s swordsman class, and today they have continued what appears to be a running series of videos focusing on each class available in the game.
This time around the Medic class is shown off and no, it doesn’t have a fancy name to go along with it. Moving on, check out the trailer below to see what the Medic is capable of and be sure to keep an eye out for Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan when it is released exclusively on the Nintendo 3DS on February 26 in North America.
Steam’s Winter Sale kicked off with a bang today, knocking down recently released hits of 2012 like Hitman: Absolution and Borderlands 2 for 50% off. The Winter Sale is running in a format that is a combination of the Summer and Fall sales. Daily deals will last for 48 hours, Flash Sales will be posted periodically for a varying amount of time, and a Community Sale will be held every 12 hours. For community sales, three games will be put to a vote and the winner will go on sale at the completion of the vote.
The Steam Winter sale lasts from December 20th to January 5th. Check out Capsule’s recommendations for today’s Daily Deals at Laike’s PC Download Deals article here.
Today it has been revealed that the next Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game will be heading to North America in March 2013. As one would expect, the game is coming out on the Nintendo 3DS and is called Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity introduces something called “Magnagates” which allows you to take photos or round objects with the Nintendo 3DS’ camera and transform these objects into explorable dungeons. There are five playable Pokémon available in the game in the form of Pikachu, Snivy, Oshawott, Tepig and Axew. The title will be released both physically and digitally on March 24th and the official website can be found here.
Final Fantasy IV was released to the iTunes App Store today. The game was an innovation for the series, introducing the Active Time Battle system that was used in five other Final Fantasy games and the Augment system for characters that allowed the transferring of abilities between characters.
This version based on the full 3D remake originally released for the Nintendo DS in 2008. It features voice acting for key events, tweaked difficulty level, a brand new mapping system and a jukebox mode. The game is compatible with the iPhone 5’s widescreen.
Find out more about Final Fantasy IV here. Buy the game herefor $15.99 USD.
If you prefer digital games instead of picking up physical titles, then you will soon have no excuse not to check out Atlus’ Code of Princess. Today it was revealed that Code of Princess, the fantasy side-scrolling brawler, will be making its way to the Nintendo 3DS eShop in January.
To be a little bit more specific, the title will be available for download on January 3rd, as found by GoNintendo, which is great news considering as far as I can tell from my own local stores, the game is very hard to find on store shelves (though it is available and on-sale currently, at Amazon). It is currently unknown how much the digital version of the game will cost compared to the original copy.
That certainly didn’t take long at all now did it? A little over two months after it was announced that Earth Defense Force 3 Portable would be heading to the West under its new name Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable and today it was revealed that the game will be available for purchase on January 8th in North America and January 16th in Europe.
Now unfortunately, the title will no longer be receiving a physical release as once thought. Instead the game will be available only as a digital download for $39.99. Now while this is unfortunate for fans who enjoy physical versions of their games, it is still great to know that the game is at least coming out in the West. Check out some new screenshots below and keep an eye out for the game on the PlayStation Store on January 8th.
