TGS 06: Metal Slug Complete Hands-On

TOKYO--This year's arcade release of Metal Slug 6 marks the seventh game in the series. To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the long-running side-scroller series, SNK is releasing a compilation of all the games on the PlayStation Portable. That's...a lot of Metal Slug.

The series made a transition of sorts this year, when the arcade version of Metal Slug 6 was built using Atomiswave hardware, rather than the practically ancient NeoGeo hardware that has driven every other game in the line. But aside from some additional characters and control options, Metal Slug 6 falls right in line with the rest, visually. Those visuals seem to translate over to the PSP really well. In addition to the sharp 2D display, you can set your video options a bit, too. The game defaults to a regular 4:3 aspect ratio that fills the height of the screen without getting stretched out of shape, which looks quite good. However, you can also run the games in a smaller window that reflects the games' original resolution, or you can get all crazy and stretch the game to fill the entire PSP screen. Doing so, though, looks quite ugly.

The games all appear to control well in single-player mode. Also, the games will have a network mode that lets two players play Metal Slug together over a local ad hoc connection.

It's an impressive package that offers a whole lot of action-packed gameplay. Metal Slug Complete, known as Metal Slug Anthology in North America, is scheduled to be released later this year.