July 19, 1999 - With most of the Neo Geo Pocket Color's lineup firmly routed in the fighting, sports or puzzle genres, SNK's Metal Slug 1st Mission stands out as the system's first true shooting game. Luckily, being first isn't Metal Slug's only claim to fame -- the Contra-style sidescroller is so well put together that it easily beats out the greater part of the Game Boy Color's action library .

Features

• Singe-player game.
• Five difficulty levels.
• On-foot, tank and air missions.
• Seven different weapons.
• Energy-up, score and special items.
• 16-megabit cartridge.
• Compatible with NeoGeo Pocket and NeoGeo Pocket Color.

The Game
SNK's portable version of the popular arcade (and later Sega Saturn) hit casts players in the role of a Rambo-esque member of the Elite Special Forces Squad, the Pregrine Falcons. As the young recruit, you have to fight yourself through more than 16 combat missions, infiltrate a hostile materials storage facility, destroy it and capture guerilla leader Colonel Bildegaarn. Gameplay is very similar to Konami's Contra series. During most of the missions, players run their armed soldier from the left to the right, shooting both human and mechanical enemies, dodge bullets and jump over obstacles. At key moments, you will also be able to hop into the "Metal Slug", a multi-function tank with a machine gun and missile launcher and even the ability to jump and crouch. A VTOL (Vertical Take-off and Landing) called the "Slug Flyer" is the transport of choice for the game's occiasional air battles, during which gameplay switches to Scramble-style shooting and bombing runs.

Don't let the title fool you -- Metal Slug is everything but sluggish. The game moves along at a brisk pace and players are firing their weapons almost non-stop, even while jumping platforms or hitching a ride on ropeways. The competition consists of tanks, flak cannons and numerous well-animated soldiers who try to take you out with guns or even jump at you with knives or machetes. Taking out a target will often yield a power-up, such as energy items, score items, ammo, invincibility, 1-ups, rank medals or new weapons. Unlike in similar action outings, like Turok 2 on Game Boy Color, Metal Slug's arsenal delivers a satisfying punch. The machine gun sprinkles the screen with dozens of spinning bullets, rockets home in on their targets and grenades are indispensable for taking out larger targets, such as the game's occasional mechanical bosses. There are eight different weapons all in all (not including the standard issue knife), seven of which can be picked up from eliminated enemies throughout the game:

• Pistol (unlimited ammo)
• Machine Gun
• Shot Gun
• Rocket Launcher
• Grenade
• Special Shot
• Cannon (for Metal Slug)
• Missile (for Slug Flyer)

Control is responsive and the game moves along at a fast pace ¿ but most importantly, Metal Slug is a lot of fun to play. The missions are varied enough to keep the game interesting throughout all the levels. For example, just when you're about to get sick of looking at a military base, your hero jumps into his jet and takes to the air. Depending on how good you are at evading missiles and enemy planes, you will either get to the end of the stage, or your soldier will have to cut out early and use his parachute to safely get to the ground. If he makes it down in one piece, he will have to finish the level on foot. There are lots of different environments, ranging from jungles to underground sewers and city scapes.

Graphically, Metal Slug pleases with varied and well-drawn backgrounds and plenty of moving objects on screen. But it looks like most of the storage space on this 16-megabit cart was used to accommodate the many detailed animations of the enemy soldiers. Some soldiers walk around on guard towers and point at you when they see it, others sit around reading newspapers or sneak around camouflaged as bushes. Monty Python, anyone... On the downside, Metal Slug suffers from slowdown when there's lots going on (just like its arcade predecessor) and most of the sprites are dual color only. The latter is a typical symptom of handheld games that were designed with both the color and monochrome units in mid. It's time SNK realized that not supporting the old NeoGeo Pocket is a small prize to pay when its programmers could create even more stunning color-only titles.

The game's audio includes lots of simple gun shot and missile sounds as well as plenty of militaristic sounding music tracks. It would have been nice if SNK could have squeezed in a few screams or voice samples to let players know when they hit a target. Although most of the music pieces are pretty forgettable, some seem to be inspired by action movies like Mission: Impossible and fit the action well.

Closing Comments
Metal Slug is well-designed action shooter that impresses on nearly every level. The action is fast and varied, the control is dead-on and there are enough levels to keep even veteran gamers busy for a long time. As far as handheld action titles go, Metal Slug is definitely at the top of my list. How about a two-player mode for the sequel, SNK?

Rating	Description
out of 10	click here for ratings guide
9.0 Outstanding	OVERALL (out of 10 / not an average)