Metal Slug Defence (iOS)

Watch her hat when you hit the screen...

Normally, I don't like this kind of game. You know the type, the Tower Defence games. Or Defence games in general. The idea for the most part that you can put down a few items without really knowing your opponents and hope that somehow, what you made and placed will be perfectly suited to kill the enemies of which you have no clue as to how many there are, nor what they have, nor what they can do. Some might argue "That's the point" or "That's what war is like" I would to take this moment to respond that for the most part, it's very unfulfilling and bores me to the point that I want to puke BLOOD in your faces! Having said that, I gave Metal Slug Defence a shot because I heard it was a little like Army of Darkness Defence and I quite enjoyed hearing Bruce Campbell sound bytes while playing.

It doesn't take long before the game becomes utter mayhem while you're spewing out units left and right

Let's get this straight first of all, you'll enjoy this game a LITTLE more if you're a fan of the Metal Slug series. It's got the graphics from the games, most of the characters and enemies and uses them all in a sort of rolling tower defence strategy.

How much? For how little?

The game itself runs on this basis, you get points by simply sitting there. When you've accrued enough points you can spend them on a unit to deploy, said unit then runs right until it gets to an enemy unit and then they fight. The loser dies, the winner goes on with reduced (usually) health until they die. You keep doing this until you're attacking their base (or they're attacking yours) and someone's base is blown up. Game over, move on.

He makes a return, he'll kill your units very quickly. Better pump out some more by now.

Progression through levels (of which there are 3-5 per area), will net bigger and bigger challenges, while gaining more and more in-game cash to spend on upgrades and improvements. There's also the Prisoners of War to rescue akin to the original series though they seem to be only found on chance when the game deems you've played enough to earn them. There might be conditions behind it but I'll be damned if I can work out what they are from here. In unlocking all the prisoners from an area you can gain boosts to specific units, to all units, to the rate at which you charge points, even down to just getting new units and items to use in battle.

So many units you really shouldn't buy. You don't need them.

Pointless items to get you to spunk money at the system. I've loads and paid for none as you win many in the game anyway.

Other nods to the game are the use of backgrounds from the games, key and recognisable bosses that have been fought across the series from the giant hermit crab to the aliens from the meteor, a giant robot with laser cannon eyes and even (almost as synonymous with the game as the main characters are) Mr "Come on, Boy" Allen O'Neil with his heavy machinegun and usual vocal insults. It reeks of nostalgia and it's loved for it.

The background is red, this is clearly hard mode now.

And that's it. However what this game does have, which a lot of similar games do not, is style. The added bonus to this kind of game is that each character has a special move which highlights even more of the series. Marco has his Heavy Machine Gun, Tarma has his Shotgun, Fio has a Rawket Lawncher (yes with the original odd accent) and Eri has a laser. Other weapons and units come in from various games including the Metal Slug Tank itself, an Ostrich with a gun mounted on its wing and an Elephant. Other units include virtually ALL the enemies but you're not going to get those straight away and I'll happily tell you as to why.

Another welcome return boss!

In-App Purchases. They're here and they don't exactly help. You win credits in the game, but stars are used to buy extra units and items to boost your abilities in the game. You can win SOME stars during the game but then these become more valuable than gold dust and by the time you've enough to get something really big like the giant tanks or walking crab monsters, you're likely upgraded enough to be able to one-shot most levels and bosses even on the hardest setting. There's a whole 2nd world at least (only played for a week, sod off) offering the same levels as before but with more P.O.Ws to rescue and harder enemies and bosses. Along with that, other bonuses too from beating the levels, new enemies to buy with REAL CASH stars and so on and so forth. But you can get to this point easily if you play through the older levels repeatedly until you unlock all the P.O.Ws, get their bonus effects and you can breeze most of the boss levels by that point in the harder worlds. The only annoying part is that you've got a Sortie points level that determines which levels you can do and each attempt costs points, but you regain one point every minute. A full refill costs about 30 stars... or you wait about 2 hours i.e. FOOADS, (Fuck Off Outside And Do Something).

Or play another time based waiting game.

...whoo

There is also a Vs Mode for people to play with friendly games and full rank versus games. The linking up is reasonable for the game itself, assuming people are still playing it by the time you get to play. You get to see what they're taking into the game from their deck of characters/soldiers/tanks and you play from your own point of the game onwards. Becomes amusing when you see what they focused on and what they actually bought and you're slapping the shit out of them with you game-won items rather than paying real cash and STILL WINNING, so I'm seeing even less of an incentive to pay for items I just destroyed while keeping all my cash-monies to blow on Jelly-Babies.

They're only memorable because they're weird.

It's good to play as a quick pick-up, as something you can come back to every now and then between work shifts, over lunch breaks etc and the multiplayer is fairly innocuous to the point of being a chuckle seeing how badly you're doing or how over powered you are compared to some other equally sad prick on the internet. It's an ok game with little depth but a lot of upgrade potential for those that want to get ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING marred by the flagrant abuse of the in-app purchases but the game itself is free (for now) perhaps if it was worth a little but had none of the in-app purchasing, I'd be more appreciative of this system and the dynamics of multiple units and the tactics behind those.

Nearly every original series, game enemy, makes an appearance here.

However it doesn't, so I'm not. An ok game that you'll get tired of eventually, likely before you beat everything and unlock everything.

Spy Hunter (C64)

Thankfully it's not like Tron. Though Tron's LightCycle game was good.

There was always something amazing about cars when I was growing up. Before I knew of the wonders that were traffic jams and being pulled over having been driving at 90+ MPH (not 100, never take that risk... sometimes), but the fact you could get into a vehicle as a kid meant that you HAD to have high speed car chases. Films with car crashes and chases ruled supreme until you were old enough to watch people getting limbs blown off in high detailed blood splat gore. So here I'm going to review Spy Hunter on the C64, simply because it's got a car that has guns built into it.

Fuck this, I can't handle the pressure of such questions.

It's the ultimate spy car. Inspired by the Bond age (heh, bondage) of cars where you get smoke screens, oil slicks, machinegun placements behind the lights and rockets for the most painful enemy you'll encounter. However the game translates into a top-down display of you chasing your car as if from orbit while you navigate in and around roads, avoiding pedestrian vehicles and taking down other spy cars.

You can only shoot the one that has cotton ear buds for wheels. You'll want to though.

In the arcade, you had a sit down cabinet, high and low speed gear shift, buttons on the steering wheel for you to navigate through multiple weapons and then use them to fullest effect against your opponents and a good rendition of the Peter Gunn theme tune. Not quite so in the C64 version, though you do have a nice rendition of chip tune Peter Gunn theme tune and there's a few extra sound effects that don't sound too terrible on the C64. Instead of a steering wheel, you'll get yourself two joysticks (need the extra fire button) or the keyboard.

All the spy gear in the world and we still use a TUG BOAT

You get to start off with your car being rolled out the back of a van and then you're free to drive along and shoot everything. Though that's a bad idea as you're left with few points if you shoot non-enemy characters. While shooting the spiked wheel cars and ramming off the bullet-proof cars will give you bonus points, while also using oil slicks and smoke-screens will help in this regard. There's the challenge of getting around the spiked cars, slamming into bullet-proof cars while simultaneously avoiding other cars and falling off the track. Once again, this is a one-hit kill game, you get spiked, you're dead. Bombed, dead. Go off the road, dead.

The chopper (mad bomber) will quickly become the bane of your play time

During your driving you'll occasionally hit routes where the track narrows, splits up, goes over bridges and have to take a quick exit into a house where upon you become a boat so you can travel down the river instead of crashing your car off a bridge. Once in the water, you'll be boating your way idly down the river with a rod in one hand and getting shot at by torpedoes and mines. Ok so not so relaxed and the idea of having your rod in your hand makes me wonder who here is thinking that was a wanking joke.

I'm all of a second away from having my tyres blown out.

You can start at either Novice (wuss) or Expert (less of a wuss) where you either get one car on the road at a time, or four. Initially at least, as once you get to the next area, it gets harder anyway for both sides. What is interesting, is that you've a 999 timer, while this is on, it's impossible to lose a life. You can die, but it's not game over. But once the counter hits 0, your lives come into effect and the lovely gun car rolls out to take one straight off if you're not ready for him. He'll turn up every time the 999 rolls around but you won't see the numbers from here on. Once you get to the 2nd area, the helicopter comes in to drop bombs on you.

Being a boat stops things like....

The difficulty ramps up steadily in the game, though it's easy to get caught between cars in Expert mode and blown up or smashed apart. Power ups come in the form of trucks/lorries that have the icons on the roof indicating if it's rockets, oil or smoke screens. To gain them, just let the lorry overtake and drive up into the back of it. While of course not being killed from the various enemies around you. Ammo is limited on oil and smoke to an unspecified volume while you get 3 rockets at a time and you CAN miss the chopper with them.

....this from happening. Unless you cheat like I am here.

For those who are looking to an end to the game, you're in for a bad time as there's no actual end to the game. It loops between the 2nd and 3rd areas in that it's either yellow background or ice level (yes, even in this game there's a fucking ice level!) with the usual situation for bridges being out, boats needing to be jumped into and sudden colour changes implemented at all times. It does however have that appeal of being a game you could quickly play again and see if you can get just a little bit farther into it. Or run up the side of the screen and cheat your way to bonus lives, assuming the chopper doesn't get you while you're doing that. It's still fun but feels a little unfinished.

Moonwalker

Yep, THAT Michael Jackson

I have to thank my cousin for reminding me of this little gem. But Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, is probably one of the most offensive and horrific games of all time... in hindsight. It's a game that was released in 1990, developed by Sega after the release of the original Mish-Mash film, Moonwalker (which was basically several long music videos thrown together and then MJ fights Joe Pesci by turning into a car, a robot and a spaceship before leaving and coming back for a gig... I wish I was making this up but it sounds more impressive than it really is), the unfortunate side-effect of MJ's life is that in this game, you save kids by touching them...

I'll try to keep away from joking about this, but I make no promises.

Start of almost every level has this comic book approach to the level.

Dancing McPaedo (Never convicted but often insinuated, not quite the best tagline for someone, would much rather have Outnumbered but never Outgunned, but oh well..), is the only "person" for want of a better word, that can save multiple kids that were spotted hanging out with MJ when they saw Joe Pesci doing a drug deal. Joe now wants MJ dead so he kidnaps the kids (MJ's obvious weakness) and forces MJ to rescue them while trying to have him killed.

Smoking, Drugs, Drink... they all kill, but few will name Dancing as a dangerous weapon.

Cue 5 levels of isometric perspective maps, moon walking power moves, dances and turning into a robot when collecting Bubbles the Chimp... We're really trying to shoehorn a lot of MJ's life into a game here. I'm just sorry there's no plastic surgery powerups but then the game would look entirely different. I'm also surprised that arcade cabinets didn't have extra hands under the machine to try and fondle the players, but hindsight is 20-20 after all.

Onto the game, you know, the whole actual point of this article.

The threat level bounces around within the game, some areas are nice and quiet, this isn't one of those areas.

You control Dancing McPaedo (I'll try to stop now) as he moves around the levels and rescues children. Each level looks like it's been fairly closely, but not overly accurately, recreated from scenes in the film. You've Mr Big's base, (Pesci's character name, original isn't it...), a street and bar, another dark street, a graveyard with zombies (to force us to hear Thriller as the music for the game), then the last level which is the first level but backwards followed by an elevator set then the last boss. Most of time you'll get to fight and "kill" Joe Pesci in the same way we fight and kill Robotnik in Sonic The Hedgehog games and that he flies off when defeated to "get you next time, McPaedo!"... Or something along those words, the speech isn't entirely clear at this point.

As far as final bosses go... this is shit.

You move around the level in the standard 8 compass directions, which translate exactly in the game as those directions. This isn't one of those games where pressing up moves you diagonally up into the "background" of the perspective. This does make the game a little easier to avoid enemies as they tend to move on the 4 diagonals provided by the isometric view. It does become awkward when trying to navigate through narrow points unfortunately or when you're up against larger enemies that can tank the damage you dish out.

You too can dance along, and look like as much of a prick as he does.

Your primary method of fighting is a charge/release attack. Hold the button and MJ starts to moonwalk while moving, holding his hand up while charging his laser and then when released, fires in the direction he's moving (not facing, as he's backwards while moon walking... go figure). This charge also determines the size and power of the shot, so a long shot goes across the distance of the room/screen and does huge damage, while tapping the button will fire a short blast that goes less distance than an asthmatic wheezing out a death-rattle.

Joe Pesci chokes a fat kid, and MJ looks like he's being sucked off...

Thankfully, there's some help in this game in the form of Bubbles the Chimp who can be collected and then turns MJ into Robo-Paedo, where he becomes a hulking great moon walking robot that fires lasers and missiles, doesn't require large charge up times for the power move and has a greatly increased range of attack. Though this usually turns up before or around the boss areas. On top of this you've your dance attack, which is your special "Let's slap everything in the face with MJs dick" move, forcing all characters and enemies on screen to dance for a moment before being killed or heavily damaged. You get one per life and can find more in the kids pockets when you rescue them.

Robo Wacko Jacko... Sadly, MJ was the conceptual designer for this game.

More disturbingly, are some of the enemies. If you've played the game then you'll know what I mean when I talking about the 2-legged robo-cock machines. It's like one of those two legged walkers from Star Wars with an extendable strap-on that can be used to punched MJ. Perhaps someone in the design team had a glimpse into the future and saw what was going to happen, wrote this enemy and thought "That's one MJ takes instead!" But given the later years of MJ's life, it's probably even more disturbing with the hindsight.

The aptly named "Location not appearing in the film" level.

You'd think though, that the music in the game would be sublime. MJ, who at the time, was the BIGGEST name in pop-music around the planet, riding the thrill of having the biggest albums and breaking more records than almost anyone else ever, would have had decent renditions of his music in the game. We can get people speaking badly, but the musical over tones are the worst level of hell of Dante's vision for this kind of elevator musak. Bad is barely recognisable, Billy Jean is butchered (and not my lover), Thriller is vaguely recognisable and none of it really represents the music for what it was at the time. Fairly decent (until MJ opened his gob...).

"Now for today's caption contest, just send in your own quote for this picture to..."

Interestingly, the arcade game was for 1-3 players, with each rendition of MJ being in a different coloured suit, though player 3 had the added bonus of being in a black suit, with a red arm band... They got to be the Gestapo version of MJ, adding in holocaust bonuses along with playing as Dancing McPaedo. 2 fuckups for the price of 1.

It's the power of DANCE!

It's a short game, even for 1990 and won't take too many credits to get through, between 1-4 for a seasoned player of arcade games and less for someone who's played it before. But it's worth playing, just to see how MJ liked to see himself as the saviour of kids while the rest of the world recognised him as being a filthy little pae- [Obscured on legal advice] -p his own rectum.

Like Joe Pesci, this is pretty much my reaction to this entire game.