Caltrops Senior Writer Jerry Whorebach once revealed that there was a Metal Slug 7 save file on Osama bin Laden's computer. This fascinated me. bin Laden was a man who, in spite of his various faults, had earned retirement. Metal Slug offered something interesting to him? I am sure Shakespeare would have had something to say about the "games that men doth play in retirement" if retirement in his age was something other than being carted out on the Black Plague trolley.
There is a pretty big gap in my gaming knowledge when it comes to Neo-Geo, so someone correct me if any of this is wrong: video gaming started with games "burned into" the circuits like on the Fairchild Channel F. Then we got cartridges. Then arcade games had single-game circuit boards. Then we had JAMMA, which allowed for a bit of swapping. And Neo-Geo took cartridges. I was shown a box of cartridges by the local arcade tech out here and Jizaboz bought some. Is that how the Neo-Geo arcade cabinet worked? I think, right? You would open the thing up and swap carts? Everything else I know about the system comes from this video. A banger!
As for Metal Slug - I think this is the definitive / best in class "run and gun" game. It is a genre I enjoy, but I haven't done a kind of deep dive on it. We need more run and gun games in the world. Although there are side scrollers without shooting that are yet to come on the list, it really is better to be able to side scroll AND shoot. I put Contra, Cuphead and maybe even Rush'n Attack in this category of the best of the genre. I like that Metal Slug is not shy about giving you weapon power ups often and early. Being able to shoot up, and also jump and shoot diagonally is a welcome feature. They look great, with expressive pixel graphics that are in a style I enjoy a great deal. My memory is that some of the sequels jump a little into possibly harmful racist stereotypes, but - again, I didn't fact-check this, I think these games are made by Japanese people, so whatever conclusions they draw about the world are not my problem.
