Alert WoS viewers, who may find much of the text of this review oddly familiar (but do read on, for all is not quite as it seems), will already be aware of my range of views on the history of SNK’s Metal Slug series. From a hugely refreshing beginning, the franchise rapidly degenerated into a cynical cash-milking business punting out lazy and increasingly inferior titles with ever-growing rapidity and desperation.
The nadir actually arrived fairly early, with the abysmal Metal Slug 3, and there have been a few flickers of hope – like the inventive Neo Geo Pocket spinoffs (now excitingly playable via emulation on PSP, finally solving the problem of the NGP’s murky un-backlit screen and awkward controls) and the aforelinked GBA title, which came up with many of the ideas that have been more fully fleshed out in this latest release.
But mostly the announcement of a new addition to the Metal Slug family has been occasion only for some sad reflections on the latest half-arsed indignities to be inflicted on a once-proud name in the name of a quick profit. Metal Slug XX is a step back in the right direction.
It’s good to know that Sony still has one market-leading piece of highly efficient and productive hardware on its books. The ailing megacorporation seems to expend most of its effort these days launching acres of cretinous lying drivel into the ever-compliant media, blaming anyone but itself for the catalogue of ineptitude that has beset the company over the last few years.
The space of that single hardware generation has seen Sony’s games division crash from being the overwhelming market leader by a factor of 6:1 over the nearest opposition (the PS2 has sold around 140 million units worldwide compared to the original Xbox’s pitiful 25 million and just 21 million for the Gamecube) to a dismal last place in every field of operation it competes in.
The company’s products populate the Blue Square Football Conference of the videogaming leagues – the PS3 is still making basically no inroads into the Xbox 360’s lead and gazing far off into the distance at the dust trail of the Wii in the mainstream market, and the PSP has been humiliated by the DS and now the iPhone and iPod in the handheld field. But who’s responsible for the latter catastrophe? You’ll never guess in a million years.
Which is why they’ll never get another penny of my money. There is no greedier games company in existence, perhaps no more nakedly greedy corporation on Earth.
The other day I finally lost patience waiting for Namco to release an update to iPhone Ms Pac-Man (which hasn’t worked since OS 3.1) or answer any support queries about it, and emailed Apple.
Widely regarded as an extremely grasping company themselves, Apple nonetheless replied within 24 hours refunding the purchase price of the game in full, which is customer relations at what ought to be the elementary bare minimum.
(Actually it’s a little better than minimum – the game doesn’t get remotely deleted in the event of a refund and is still on my iPod, so if Namco ever do bother their backsides to make it work again, I effectively get a freebie in compensation for all of the considerable inconvenience that I went to in trying to get it to run – repeatedly deleting and reinstalling, rebooting, even doing a complete six-hour system restore.)
Yep, it’s so good I actually played it twice, which as alert WoSblog readers will realise is a substantial accolade in itself, so it seems only proper that it takes the No.2 slot as well.
Yeah, bit behind schedule on this one. Sorry. You know how it is.
No.3 – Earth Defence Force 2017
EDF2017 pretty much killed static-console gaming for me. Apart from Super Mario Galaxy (which exists in a separate category to pretty much all other videogames), it’s the last game for any of the mainstream formats that I’ve invested any significant amount of time in, because nothing’s ever been this much fun again.
Alert WoS viewers will have seen this a while ago, but as it’s my all-time favourite piece of videogames-related art it’s worth repeating for the hundreds of new readers of WoSblog. Once you’ve grasped what it is you won’t expect that you’re going to watch all nine minutes of it. But you will.
The content industry has a long and shameful history of spurious figures when it comes to the subject of intellectual-property piracy. This much we already knew. But the most recent set of “statistics” on the economic cost of piracy – which have, of course, been seized on and repeated unquestioningly by the press – may have set some sort of record.
As the writer of the Definitive series of games histories for Retro Gamer, the bane of my life is websites repeating stuff they found somewhere else and didn’t bother to check. Because if the original “fact” isn’t actually true, the weight of repetition quickly causes it to become accepted as the truth anyway, and you end up with a load of cobblers becoming the official historical record, at least until I have to come along and fix it, usually by playing the game(s) all the way to the bloody end myself.
(I suppose I shouldn’t complain, as if it didn’t happen so much Retro Gamer’s first feature on R-Type wouldn’t have been SO full of glaring errors that I couldn’t stop myself writing them an angry letter about it, and thereby managing to secure the Definitive gig in the first place, which has been quite a nice little earner.)
And printing rubbish about games can still be dangerous even if you think you’re really obviously joking, as this picture I recently found lurking on my hard drive proves:
robertkknight on Irony you can’t buy: “More neck than Melman the giraffe! If there’s any justice in this world she’s due at the very least a…” Mar 20, 21:38
George Ferguson on Irony you can’t buy: “Another post disappeared into the ether. I have worked out it out. A defunct 5 year old e mail account…” Mar 20, 21:15
Mark Beggan on Irony you can’t buy: “And it’s Mr Beggars to you.” Mar 20, 20:34
Alf Baird on Irony you can’t buy: “So-called ‘Nationalist’ elites retiring on fat colonial pensions tells us all we need to know – colonial administrators all. Mair…” Mar 20, 20:34
Mark Beggan on Irony you can’t buy: “That’s the financial damage and then there’s other damage. The lifes lost, the back stabbing, the lieing, the attack on…” Mar 20, 20:20
Southernbystander on Looking up at the stars: “NC: ‘In contrast to Persia’s great contribution to humanity America’s very, very few inventions include . . .’ Jazz?” Mar 20, 20:10
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “There won’t be much food coming anyway. That’s Qatar oot the game & with it the worlds fertiliser along with…” Mar 20, 20:04
Mark Beggan on Irony you can’t buy: “A war cant run itself you know. Just getting my Dragon Ladies in order. The Chief Turnip? You’ve got to…” Mar 20, 20:02
Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “Aidan No need to start by apologising Aidan. Thick am I? Well and well, just watched ITN. They must be…” Mar 20, 19:43
Geri on Irony you can’t buy: “Gawd. You’re right. We wouldn’t be that lucky. The failed politician will be wheeled out every now & again to…” Mar 20, 19:28
ABruce on Irony you can’t buy: “This thrawn wee besom really really shouldn’t have fooled us. I mean, who could possibly have any doubts about someone…” Mar 20, 19:28
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “Sorry YL, I appreciate you aren’t that smart and to you this is all a bit of a mystery or…” Mar 20, 19:23
Young Lochinvar on Irony you can’t buy: “Where’s Hatey? Even Beggars has gone quiet.. Sorry my bad, celebrating Eid el fatr no doubt 🙂” Mar 20, 19:20
Iain More on Irony you can’t buy: “She churns my stomach like all Quislings do. The damage she has done to Scotland should bring charges of Treason…” Mar 20, 19:18
Geri on Irony you can’t buy: “I always liked Joanna. She’d have been a good FM. If she’d challenged Sturgeons leadership she’d have won it hands…” Mar 20, 19:15
Scot Finlayson on Irony you can’t buy: “`All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is…” Mar 20, 18:52
TimePilot on Irony you can’t buy: “Oh, to see ourselves as others see us Nicola. If only Mr Salmond was still alive to recite this in…” Mar 20, 18:49
Young Lochinvar on Irony you can’t buy: “To add to the litany of comments already made I would add Branchform, sneaky Pete dropped like a hot potato…” Mar 20, 18:37
Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “Aidan Largest “ferry” port. Doesn’t the use of “ferries” in and out of a quarantined area strike you as rather…” Mar 20, 18:11
ScottieDog on Irony you can’t buy: “And a tidy pension. Wondering if she’ll become baroness sturgeon one day, sitting next to lord Blackford of humblecroft and…” Mar 20, 17:59
christine on Irony you can’t buy: “Failed lawyer Sturgeon peddled and condoned the genital mutilation of our children. She sanctioned the abuse, torment, degradation and trauma…” Mar 20, 17:49
agentx on Irony you can’t buy: “Ex-SNP MP Joanna Cherry: “It is easy to make a promise. Much harder to keep it. Sturgeon governed by press…” Mar 20, 17:01
Onlooker on Irony you can’t buy: “Is there any way to sue her to get the money back she claimed as an MSP, whilst not turning…” Mar 20, 16:54
Jon Drummond on Irony you can’t buy: “Well put. I agree 100% and more.” Mar 20, 16:18
Lorncal on Irony you can’t buy: “As a woman myself, I cannot get around the fact that both Thatcher and Sturgeon respectively and individually destroyed the…” Mar 20, 16:16
Jon Drummond on Irony you can’t buy: “The nastiest, most self-centred, little b1tch in Scottish history. A fucking disgrace to the whole nation. Burning in Hell would…” Mar 20, 16:15
Willie on Irony you can’t buy: “Her time I am sure will come. Her dark deeds will come back to haunt her. In the meantime she…” Mar 20, 16:15
Sven on Irony you can’t buy: “Geri @ 13.00. If only she were going to disappear back into obscurity, Geri. I’ve no doubt she and what…” Mar 20, 15:30
