Metal Slug 7

I don't understand how Metal Slug has gotten to 7 major iterations. The games are pretty damn identical to one another and each new entry is fairly worse than the one that came before it, so there isn't anything new that I have to cover here. Number seven is a change in the sense that its actually better than Metal Slug 6, but since that game was just all sorts of awful, that's not really saying much. Like the previous games, this game is about action, and lots of it. The game is split into missions that you just blast your way through and towards the end, you will encounter a boss who you have to defeat. It is your typical run-and-gun arcade style game level design. You can choose any one of the six characters, each slightly different from the others. For example, Marco starts out with a powerful handgun while Eri has more grenades. In spite of who you choose in the end, it is all about dodging bullets, killing the enemies and rescuing the POWs.

The problem with this is the same that has plagued the series more and more as it has progressed: At times, the action can get quite chaotic on screen, bullets flies from every corner of the screen, endless enemies keep appearing from the most unlikely places, and POWs crying for help from some obscure locations...this is all well and good but the chaotic action has become more than is reasonable to deal with. The early games (the first game in particular) were able to be chaotic, but it was still that rare breed of challenge that was fair, fun and balanced. Here in Slug 7, you're luckily to get anywhere without taking a shot to face or getting blown up by something you can't see. Everything just comes at you at rate that too much to react to. In the game's defense, the attacks thrown at you here are much more fair to deal with than Metal Slug 6 so at least the game is playable. Despite all this whining I'm doing, the core experience and some of the things I like about the series is still intact here and it's also nice to have a portable version of the series. It's just that its getting more apparent that the series needs to end.