Metal Slug 3

"More Metal Sluggin' fun and madness..."

As SNK USA announced their decision to close down, many gamers fell to their knees, weeping... well, maybe not many, but I did.

But if there's one consolation available in this fair city of Miami(Which is deprived of SNK), it would be the Metal Slug 3 cabinet hidden behind multiple machines with Marvel vs. Capcom 2. They put it along with Pac-Man, for God's sake!

Psyched, I gave it a go. And I was in for a pleasant surprise. I thought that Mark of the Wolves was the best you could get for the Neo Geo system, but I was wrong. Metal Slug 3 will blow you away.

The gameplay is still mad mayhem, with sprites flying everywhere. The most noticeable thing is a new vehicle, a submarine that you use underwater. Underwater, you say? Yes, from the very start, you have a battle underwater. As for weapons, I have very little to say... because this game was HARD. My friend and I jammed in 2 quarters in order to get to the first boss! From the very start, Metal Slug 3 will test your sanity with bullets, debris, and... giant eels shooting out of walls to crush you.

The story still deals with those tentacled aliens - they're back. And this time, you get to tangle with them from the very start. From that point on... who cares? It's fun, fun, fun.

The graphics haven't changed much, and I won't have it any other way. Of course, the resolution of the Neo Geo system is a bit low compared to newer games on the CPS-3 systems, and sometimes you wish it was released on the Naomi board or something, not the Neo Geo. But it does a pretty good job to give us many humorous animations, and amazing displays of fireworks without the slowdowns that was prevalent in Metal Slug 2. I couldn't tell how the audio was that much, though, mostly because of the sounds of Ryu's 'Hadoken' combined with Wolverine's 'Weapon X' that dominated the arcade room.

Replayability? Yes. You'll always come back to play this game, even after you finish it, which you won't for a long time. Time to change my life savings into quarters...

To buy or to rent... if you have cash burning a hole in your pocket, and you have a Neo Geo system, you need this game. But for poor people like me, visits to the arcade(5 times a week ;) is good enough.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/09/00, Updated 07/09/00