Retro Game Club - Jan 14-31. Let's Play 'Metal Slug'. Leaderboards in first post

[merrychan]

36 minutes ago, Skull Commander said:

First playthrough and it wasn't pretty. 23 credits, around 5 of them were on the last boss.

 

The game is REALLY unfair in places, but I'm sure there are some ninjas around that can manage to master this (haven't looked on YouTube but will), but I have no chance!

 

Still a lot of fun though (since I don't have to actually pay for my credits!).

I've always found Slug 3 much worse, bullet sponges everwhere

[acidbearboy]

I have this on PS4. I went in cold and finished it with 28 credits. I reckon half of them were on the final stage, which is pretty ridiculous.

 

I started again to see how far I could get on one credit. Best effort so far is the tank on the roof on stage 2. 

[mash]

There's a lot of versions of this. I opted to play the Saturn version (emulated of course). Exhausted the 5 credit default setting and got to stage 4. I can usually make it to stage 3 on 1 credit but I was half watching Beverly Hills Cop at the time. 

[spanky debrest]

Some of my player deaths were down to mistiming bullet avoidance due to unfortunate slowdown.

Sloppy play too of course but I think getting used to compensating for performance dips will be part of getting better.

 

I also think I saved a bunch of lives by ignoring power-ups that spawn upon death/revival in the literally the most dangerous spots during boss fights (particularly the final one).

 

Of all the random bits of animated background detail that caught my eye I'm thinking about the bird doing something with an egg in its nest. Those Nazca / ex-SNK / ex-Irem artists were on top of their game. 

[acidbearboy]

Are we able to compare points? I have the ACA Neo Geo port on PS4. Maybe we could do a stage 1 high score challenge on default settings- 1 credit, 3 lives, difficulty level 4. 

[loathsomeleopard]

Great timing on this, as I’m stuck in bed on surgical recovery, and pick up and play games are ideal, because my concentration ain’t what it should be. 
 

Also, it struck me that I’ve dabbled in Metal Slug over the years, but usually just to throw in a few virtual credits here and there, never to completion. 
 

Wasn’t helped back in the day by all the Neo Geo cabs near me being on the pay=time system rather than lives. I always felt that was bad value, so rarely played “proper” metal slug. 
 

Made my way through, 27 credits. Some great sequences and some horribly unbalanced design - genuine traps that will kill you first time out stuff. But fun. And fun can forgive a lot of those kinds of sins. 

[Ninja Doctor]

Well looking at some of the credit counts here I feel less bad about my complete lack of metal slug ability. 

[fat flatulent git]

Right.  It’s the NGPC version for me, starting now.  I got this with my console back in the 90s and loved it.  Also got Pac-Man- not sure why.

 

Time to be rubbish again.  This is even lower than GnG on the list of games I’m good at.

[Ninja Doctor]

IIRC the ngpc version is actually completeable without credit spamming it. 

[bradigor]

I've got the MAME version so will give that a go when my RP3+ is charged

[MagicalDrop]

Hopefully as many of us as possible can play the same game, ie the MVS / AES original Metal Slug, emulated on whatever is your format of choice. 

 

In answer to @acidbearboy, I think a 'high score on a single credit' would be best, chiefly because there doesn't seem to be much scope for score variance in the first mission as there's always the same enemy and hostage placements. There's also the random element briefly discussed earlier where some bonuses yield 10pts in one game then 50,000 in the next.

 

So I suppose I'd suggest we all play to at least see the end, credit fed or otherwise, then those still engaged can submit a single credit high score. Perhaps the winner gets to choose the next Let's Play game. 

 

But ultimately folks can join in however they want 😊

[acidbearboy]

I had another bash at completing the game today and managed it using 17 continues (down from 28 last time). There are still a few sections where I can’t see how you can avoid dying but that’s a good improvement. 

[Soulstar]

23 hours ago, acidbearboy said:

Are we able to compare points? I have the ACA Neo Geo port on PS4. Maybe we could do a stage 1 high score challenge on default settings- 1 credit, 3 lives, difficulty level 4. 

So is this a better port of the game than the supposedly laggy Anthology ports that came out on the PS4 too? I was considering getting this but wasn’t too sure what system to go for. Part of me considered the SNES mini make emulation route as I don’t really want to use my laptop. Haven’t tried emulation of anything other than SNES games though, however I did install Hackchi to add extra roms. Annoyingly I’m quite busy away all week. 

[loathsomeleopard]

Going to try to see if I can just reduce my credit numbers -- target is for under 20, currently at 27. Here goes...

[acidbearboy]

6 hours ago, Soulstar said:

So is this a better port of the game than the supposedly laggy Anthology ports that came out on the PS4 too? I was considering getting this but wasn’t too sure what system to go for. Part of me considered the SNES mini make emulation route as I don’t really want to use my laptop. Haven’t tried emulation of anything other than SNES games though, however I did install Hackchi to add extra roms. Annoyingly I’m quite busy away all week. 

I’ve read that the emulation in Anthology isn’t the best. The ACA ports are supposed to be nigh on perfect. 

[loathsomeleopard]

... and done. Improvement made, down to just 20 credits, though some of those deaths are pretty cheap. I can imagine getting better at this, but it'd be a real grind to 1CC it. If that's even possible, given some of the bullet traps it sets.

[Soulstar]

2 hours ago, acidbearboy said:

I’ve read that the emulation in Anthology isn’t the best. The ACA ports are supposed to be nigh on perfect. 

That’s good to know then. I might try and grab that as I think I saw it for around a fiver or so when I checked yesterday briefly on google. 

[Yobo Ahoy]

Great idea, especially in these times where we have squillions of ROMs at our fingertips. I hadn't actually played this since I got my RG351 last year but it looks astounding, so vibrant.

 

Managed to scrape through the first stage on one credit, about 51k points. Literally the second enemy on stage 2 killed me though 

 

[phillv85]

Just had another run and died after the stage 3 mid-boss, lost my tank by getting a little gung ho and it’s hard when there’s two tanks firing at you on foot and a couple of guys throwing grenades. 
 

Managed to get 2 of the 50k point bonuses on the second stage, if you get the doll quick enough it’s 50k, otherwise 5k, then the frog that goes down with the bridge when it gets blown up.

 

My high score so far: 329580

[acidbearboy]

I managed to get to the end using 16 credits today. One less than my previous best, but it felt like a bad run so I was pleasantly surprised!

[K]

I could almost one-credit this back in the day, when I first discovered MAME and spent hours surreptitiously downloading ROMs in the university computer room and copying them to a teetering pile of 3.5" disk; MS1 itself had to be spread across multiple disks thanks to Zipsplit. Even then, I had to run it without sound to get a decent frame rate and it took forever to load on my 166mhz PC, but holy shit I played it a lot.

 

The PS4 Anthology is indeed absolutely terrible - it seems to be emulating the PS2 version, even down to the PS2 bios screen and the memory card access messages. It looks very fuzzy, it's jerky, and very laggy. The ACA versions are great, and don't cost more than a few credits did in the arcade.

[Skull Commander]

125920 is my best 1 credit score so far but I know I've got better in me. Can easily get to the 2nd mission without losing a life now, which is a vast improvement on Sunday!

[acidbearboy]

I am regularly getting through mission 1 on a single life now and a single credit is getting me to the mission 2 boss. I keep forgetting to make a note of my score but I know it’s around 55k after stage one - 6000 bonus points for six hostages and 10000 for not using the Slug on the boss. Struggling to get the 50000 animal on the bridge of stage two without dying. Might hit up YouTube for some tips.

[MagicalDrop]

56 minutes ago, acidbearboy said:

I am regularly getting through mission 1 on a single life now and a single credit is getting me to the mission 2 boss. I keep forgetting to make a note of my score but I know it’s around 55k after stage one - 6000 bonus points for six hostages and 10000 for not using the Slug on the boss. Struggling to get the 50000 animal on the bridge of stage two without dying. Might hit up YouTube for some tips.

 

I never knew about that 10k bonus! 

 

As for the bridge my method is to run up the steps, jumping halfway and again to reach the bonus just before the bridge blows. Immediately press and hold left to land safely at the waterside and collect the second bonus item. Jump onto the arch to get back up on the bridge. 

[loathsomeleopard]

Tried again today. Can do it in 20 credits… but not less. Mostly on the last 2 levels as you’d expect, with more than a few stupid deaths along the way. 
 

I guess I’m at least making everyone else feel better about their own skills. Yeah. I’ve got that. 

[fat flatulent git]

Played to the end of Mission 4 last night, not actually dying until the second mission, but once the third started I had to pump in a load of credits.  I quite enjoyed it but after four missions I had had enough.  Love all the animation but especially liked the enemies frantically trying to pump water out of their soon-to-sink boat.  Was too lazy to get the NGPC collection cart so it was the ACA Neo Geo Archives version.

 

It’s a quality game and series but honestly I much prefer Shock Troopers.

[acidbearboy]

I picked up Metal Slug 4 half price on PSN last night as I’m enjoying this one. Can’t be bad for £2.89. Will keep on with MS1 until I can no longer improve/get bored. 
 

Side note - the soundtracks are on all on Spotify. Although the music suits the game brilliantly, it doesn’t work as well in isolation. 

[MagicalDrop]

44 minutes ago, acidbearboy said:

 

Side note - the soundtracks are on all on Spotify. Although the music suits the game brilliantly, it doesn’t work as well in isolation. 

 

Good spot, although I can't imagine a scenario where I would sit and actively listen to them. In fact after the next 2 weeks I shall be glad not to hear the Mission 1 soundtrack ever again 🙂

 

I was thinking we should have a couple of forum leaderboards

- Best score on one credit

- Fewest continues used to complete the game

 

Get your submissions in.

[geldra]

Was it the Saturn version that had a cool leaderboardy thing where it was distance travelled on one credit too?  

[MagicalDrop]

Starter for 10 on the scoreboard

 

Single credit

1. 299,270 Magicaldrop

 

Fewest continues

1. 16 Magicaldrop

 

Bit of a lucky run on the score with 3 x 50,000 bonuses. Could definitely have saved a few continues late in the game too on my full run.