Formerly known as a benchmark for side-scrolling shooters in the heyday of coin-op arcades, the long-revered “Metal Slug” franchise has made its way to Xbox in a double dose.
Also released for PS2 earlier this year, “Metal Slug 4 & Metal Slug 5” is a faithful translation of the last two overblown, gloriously excessive, 2D, left-to-right, run, jump and gun cult-classic action titles.
As always, these are imaginative but hopelessly retro pixels and sprites just the same (“Slug 5” does contain some freshly minted supplemental art and sound). That seems a shame considering the graphical horsepower of the Xbox.
You might recall that neither of the two games lasted more than an hour from start to finish, as befitting the presumed balance of addictive play versus the number of quarters in the average player’s pocket. They don’t here, either, so it’s not exactly deep.
Still, if you’re looking for a flashback to your button-mashing glory days, this is it.
Hot-B; PlayStation 2, Xbox; $39.99. Rating: Teen (13+) (animated blood, violence)
Title aside, Taito’s “Graffiti Kingdom” is not about the paint-spraying counterculture.
It’s an overtly cute, sometimes cuddly and other times obnoxious cartoonlike adventure in which you draw and paint your way through a cheesy kingdom, sloppily or diligently rendering your own characters (or modifying stock ones) and bringing them to life (they go 3D automatically), scrawling out ad-hoc appendages to help you along. (Chasm in the way? Draw some wings!)
You’ll end up with an arsenal of scribbled creatures, harnessing new powers and attributes for each along the way, much akin to those trading-card battle games. It’s bizarre; a rare gem that offers a lot of long-
term doodled dueling, as well as a short-but-fun platform-hopping, puzzle-solving, coin-collecting, boss-bashing jaunt.
The whole process of drawing something and then assigning movement and a combat function to it and its limbs/
wings/wheels (if any) can be a little clunky, but it’s rewarding because it’s all yours.
Game play doesn’t push any envelopes or cut any edges – it feels dated right away – but considering the novelty (and “value” pricing), it’s all good.
Taito; PlayStation 2; $29.99. Rating: Everyone (cartoon violence)
Shaun Conlin is a freelance games reviewer for Cox News Service. E-mail him at shaunconlin@evergeek.com.
Top games
The top 10 rented games for the week ended Sept. 4:
1. Madden NFL 2006, PS2
2. Madden NFL 2006, Xbox
3. NCAA Football 2006, PS2
4. Midnight Club 3: DUB
Edition, PS2
5. Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, PS2
6. Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, PS2
7. Destroy All Humans! PS2
8. FlatOut, PS2
9. Darkwatch: Curse of the West, PS2
10. Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, Xbox
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