Back in the 80s, arcades were probably the best places to play the latest video games, and when home consoles became powerful enough, it became common to sell these same games for home systems. It happened with Pong on the Atari 2600, it happened with Street Fighter II on the SNES, and now it has happened on the Wii with Metal Slug Anthology. SNK Playmore has released this hit arcade franchise less than a month after the Wii launch, but is it worth the $40?

Background
Metal Slug Anthology celebrates the 10th anniversary of the classic arcade shooter. A button masher from the mid 90s, Metal Slug chronicles a war between a futuristic war between the Regular Army and the Rebellion. The details of the story beyond this point are inconsequential, all you need to know is shoot everything.

I honestly had only seen Metal Slug in an arcade once before receiving this title, so it wasn't a well known arcade hit to me. But seeing as how it was a Wii title, I was willing to give it a shot.

Gameplay
Each of the seven Metal Slug games on the disc follow the same format: a side-scroller shooter with lots of enemies and danger. There are various power-ups throughout the level that change your weapon, and you have limited grenades to use on larger enemies and end-level bosses. Remember: shoot everything.

The levels are all very similar, except for a few levels that have you swimming or flying while shooting everything. Avoiding all the bullets and enemies in 2-player mode can be difficult, but since the game gives you unlimited lives, it's easy to just hit the plus key (+) and keep going. This brings up a point about the number of players. On my copy the box was printed with the 4-player icon, but that is a misprint that will be corrected on future versions of the box. Only two players can play at once, which is probably due to the original arcade limitations.

Graphics
The graphics for each game in the Metal Slug series are pretty good, but are no better than the arcade graphics they originally had. Metal Slug 6 (the last in the series, so far) has the best graphics, but not so much better as to make the rest of the series seem outdated. The animations for the characters are sometimes comical, very detailed, and usually gory when they die. The graphics appear to have been influenced by many sources, and you can tell that the people involved took a lot of pride in making the game look good.

None of the graphics look so good as to require the Wii, which makes me wonder if this was originally supposed to be a GameCube title that got bumped to the Wii. I wouldn't be suprised if it sounded better to be one of 30 Wii titles than to be one of hundreds of available GameCube titles.

Sound
The sound for each of the titles is just as good as you would expect from an arcade title. I never found them mind-blowing, nor were they lacking in any way. There were always lots of gunshots and explosions happening, which matched the on screen action perfectly. Level bosses had no unique sounds, in that there was no audible way to tell which spots were the critical areas on a boss.

Controls
One unique feature for Metal Slug Anthology is the number of control schemes that are available. It's possible to use the GameCube controller for what the manual calls Classic controls, again making me suppose that the game was originally intended to be a GameCube title. Seeing as how a GameCube controller wasn't available, I tried most of the possible Wii remote (or wiimote) control schemes.

The standard Wii controls are used by holding the Wiimote sideways, using the D-pad for aiming up, moving left and right, and crouching/crawling. The 2 button is used for jumping, and the 1 button is used for firing. To throw a grenade, you simply shake the controller. After a couple hours of playing, this was the control scheme I settled on. The only other one that I could play for more than 5 minutes with was the Nunchuck-only mode.

With Nunchuck-only, you use the nunchuck for almost everything, with the joystick being used for movement, the C button for jumping, and the Z button for shooting. To throw a grenade, you again use a shaking motion. This one was still awkward after a few levels, but it could still be used relatively easily. The other control schemes tended to rely on tilting the Wiimote to indicate left and right, and it was hard for me to hold it level enough to only be facing a direction, but not moving that way.

One minor complaint I had was with the in-game menuing controls. No matter what your control scheme is, once you enter the in game menu by hitting the minus key (-), you must use the wiimote in its standard vertical configuration. Well, you wouldn't have to, but if you don't switch to holding the remote in one hand, then you'll be pressing the d-pad in the wrong direction. Once you change your control scheme, which is several levels down in the menus, you have to hit the following combination of buttons to back out of the menus: plus (+) to save, B to go back, plus (+) to save, up (to reach the Resume option), and A to Resume. Not very intuitive.

Conclusion
The button-mashing fun of an old arcade game is faithfully recreated in Metal Slug Anthology, but this may not appeal to the average Wii gamer. If offered on the Virtual Console, $8 or $10 would probably be a decent deal for any one of them, but together it's hard to justify a $40 price point, since they are all so similar. Combined with the awkward controls (which seem to be touted on the box and in advertising to no end), I can't recommend this game for someone looking for more fun multiplayer games. For a Metal Slug fan, this would be a good deal, anyone else should definitely rent it first.

Final Score: 5 / 10

Pros:

• All Metal Slug games included
• Arcade graphics & sound
• Many control options
• It's Metal Slug!

Cons:

• Mostly awkward controls & menus
• Limited replay value
• Cost near that of new titles
• It's... Metal Slug

external links:
Metal Slug on Wikipedia