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:
Cynicus on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Sarwar senior went to become Governor of Punjab. However Punjabophiles can relax since the office is not hereditary.” Jul 23, 00:49
Confused on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Question of the day must be : how many times is it permissible to hit a tory on the head…” Jul 22, 23:47
Alf Baird on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “The dishonesty is first and foremost in the mankit annexation and ‘Union’ hoax which gives rise to its need for…” Jul 22, 23:26
Young Lochinvar on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “AX Tut tut.. I don’t think anyone has seriously given that moniker to Glasgow for quite some considerable time and…” Jul 22, 23:06
Young Lochinvar on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “HMcH That bad? Really? Made you reply though didn’t it? Validation an’ that eh? Enjoy lock down through the night…” Jul 22, 22:29
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Sorry, Auld Lochnagar, but as a wind up that’s a piss poor effort. Try again around 2 AM. Your output…” Jul 22, 22:22
Dick Wall on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Well now. Let’s have a wee bit of nuance. Most places have a way of appointing ministers who are not…” Jul 22, 21:16
Young Lochinvar on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Chas Why do you lay that responsibility at Alfs door? Is it so you can blame him if things don’t…” Jul 22, 21:10
Young Lochinvar on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “HMcH Aaaaah! In other words ie Yoda-speak; “Rampant Cringe leads to unhappiness, unhappiness leads to non conformance, non conformance leads…” Jul 22, 20:48
Young Lochinvar on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “SF In fairness; “sins of the father” and that.. Not that I’m a fan!” Jul 22, 20:39
Scot Finlayson on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “His dad, Chaudhry Sarwar, was knocked back for a Lordship, `His nomination by outgoing Prime Minister, Gordon Brown for a…” Jul 22, 20:28
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““This I must say for Scotland, and I may truly vaunt it; here I sit, and govern it with my…” Jul 22, 20:08
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: “If it’s gonna take 300 years to “decolonise”, we’re beyond fortunate to have a thousand year old Pict on our…” Jul 22, 19:58
Lorncal on The Wheels Of Industry: “Alf: I have ever been the contrarian, but I have never considered our situation to be ‘colonial’ in the accepted…” Jul 22, 19:57
Young Lochinvar on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Oooh err.. I see Skynet slipped the leash and started flexing its AI muscles! AI is insanity on steroids and…” Jul 22, 19:49
Hatey McHateface on Progressing To Oblivion: “Relax, James. Burnham is gonna end rough sleeping soon. Once you have a fixed address they’ll give you new clothes,…” Jul 22, 19:47
Chas on The Wheels Of Industry: “Wow. That’s a first…………. Northclown has been thinking! Did it hurt?” Jul 22, 18:34
Chas on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “It is different shite Alfie boy but shite is still, well….. shite. What is surprising is not a quote in…” Jul 22, 17:55
agentx on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “It’s great to see that the Second City of the British Empire – Glasgow is hosting the Commonwealth Games which…” Jul 22, 17:28
Effijy on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “He will look well in beside Baroness Money Bags Mone and Wee Baroness Ruthless. The 3 prize monkey’s, Hear No…” Jul 22, 17:26
Nick on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “It’s called recycling! It’s what we do with the rubbish in this country these days!” Jul 22, 17:00
Alf Baird on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “There is a long history of elite Scots selling out their nation for English gold and status: HoC, speech of…” Jul 22, 16:31
Mark Beggan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “It’s his payment for standing up against Mr Sausage. Although he had absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain.…” Jul 22, 16:20
Nicky T Naquetti on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “New Mayor of Scotland? It would not surprise anybody if that Indian tranny from the Green Party ended up lording…” Jul 22, 16:05
Andy Wiltshire on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Interesting. Were Private Eye one of the ‘Branchfoot’ offenders?” Jul 22, 14:16
Onlooker on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Fuck that racist eighth-wit, hope he fucks off down to London and never comes back.” Jul 22, 13:50
