E-Mail This Article to a Friend Sluggish Metal Slug 4 & 5 is a throwback to throw back BY MITCH KRPATA
	Metal Slug 4 & 5 Published and developed by SNK Playmore USA. For PlayStation 2. Rated T for Teen.

Metal Slug 4 & 5 serves as a great reminder of why we don't go to arcades anymore. The two most recent installments in the cult franchise have been released as one arcade-perfect package for the PlayStation 2, and the result is in every way ungainly, inelegant, and unfulfilling. In an era when so many games can offer deep, story-driven experiences, a throwback twitch shooter like Metal Slug needs to bring more to the table than a cynical reliance on gamers' fond memories of the side-scrolling classics of yesteryear.

The cynicism starts with the packaging. This two-disc set is offered at the allegedly low price of $39.99, which sounds great if you're under the impression that there's simply so much run-n-gun gameplay here that a second disc was required simply to store it all. Instead, it's a ploy intended to give the impression that SNK is offering more for less – not only could these games fit on one disc, they could probably fit on a cartridge. And when you consider that each game consists of five stages, and there are no extra features or game modes to speak of, well, you tell me if forty bucks is a deal.

At first glance, the Metal Slug style seems appealing. It's a streamlined platform shooter that, although short, offers occasional branching paths and huge boss battles. Playing as one of four characters in some poorly explained future war, you blast your way through wave after wave of both human and mechanized enemies. Along the way, you can pick up weapon upgrades like heat-seeking missiles and lasers. It's basically the formula Konami perfected with Contra for the Nintendo Entertainment System (a personal favorite). One innovation, if it could be called that, is the ability to commandeer mechanized fighting machines – the eponymous Metal Slugs.

The games offer unapologetically 2-D, hand-animated graphics, which are now so rare in the industry as to be refreshing. And, of course, nostalgia is always a powerful attractor. Nothing about the art direction, however, is particularly breathtaking. The backdrops tend toward generic industrial and urban landscapes, although there is the occasional outdoor stage to switch things up. Where the visuals really shine is in presenting screens full of enemies, whether it's legions of foot soldiers firing rifles and mortar rounds, attack choppers strafing your characters, or massive, multi-part bosses unleashing hell from cannons the size of Buicks. Even so, there are unforgivable stutters in the frame rate, and neither of the games looked markedly better than a good Super Nintendo title.

Metal Slug 4 & 5 is distinguished by two things in particular: the sheer excess in what it throws at you, and the oppressive limits it imposes upon you. That there are often several enemies onscreen firing all manner of salvos at your character is, on its face, a good thing. Less appealing is the ear-splitting soundtrack. In addition to the non-stop cacophonous effects, the musical score often plays like a collision between a methed-out techno loop and a masturbatory Steve Vai solo. It's an aural assault more brutal than any of the in-game violence.

At least you can turn down the volume. What you can't do anything about is the frustrating, restrictive gameplay. It's weird that in this day and age SNK wouldn't even make a concession to analog control, but since this is intended to replicate the arcade experience, it's forgivable that you have to play with the D-pad. And I'm not going to complain about a streamlined control scheme that relies on three commands: jumping, shooting, and tossing grenades (the armored vehicles control a little differently). But the control scheme has a flaw so appalling that it deserves its own paragraph:

You can't aim diagonally.

Seriously. No ordinal directions here. I know there's a small group of SNK aficionados who love the Metal Slug series more than life itself, but I can't imagine why anyone would embrace a game that so severely limits your ability to play it. Particularly when enemy fire is coming from every direction, it's nonsensical that the characters can only adjust their aim in 90-degree increments.

Want to aim downward? You'll have to jump first, since you can only do so in mid-air. And when Metal Slug 5 adds a "slide" move that's accomplished by simultaneously pressing down and jump, that means that you'll often slide when you mean to fire at foes below. The jump controls are also unresponsive, and mid-air control is so stodgy as to make dodging enemy fire next to impossible. Good thing there are unlimited continues.

Well, maybe not. Considering that the reward for slogging through each one of these games is a voice announcing MISSION ALL OVER, an early Game Over screen might have been the best feature SNK could have added.

Score: 3.5 (out of 10)