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Metal Slug (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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Yes, yes. We’ve all played Metal Slug before and own it on various compilations a hundred times over but that doesn’t stop it being good. And! This time I completed it in co-op with my daughter, which I’ve never done before.

It has horrible slowdown, which I don’t remember from any other version but apparently even in the arcade it did that. Not what you’d expect from what was, at the time, the most powerful gaming device in the world. Probably.

Doesn’t matter though because it’s great and silly and why isn’t Metal Slug 2 (or 3/4/5/6/7/8/9/X) on the Evercade yet, eh? Ridiculous.

Oh yeah, and I know the screenshot that accompanies this post is rubbish but – again – you can’t take screenshots on an Evercade so it’s from the Evercade website.

Ironclad (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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Ironclad is a pretty standard side-scrolling shooter, originally for the NeoGeo but I played it on the NeoGeo Arcade Evercade cartridge. I found it a lot easier than most games in the genre, which is especially odd for an arcade game, but I’m not going to complain!

It’s got a nice weapon upgrade system, a floaty drone thingy and some interesting bosses (like a big train), but the biggest draw is the graphics. Backgrounds seem to be pre-rendered, and remind me a bit of something like OverTop. Sprites are pretty decent too, and they feel a bit like Metal Slug in art style, just zoomed out.

So yeah, it’s OK, nothing incredible but perfectly playable.

Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp: blasting through

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AW1+2RC is a compilation of the first two Advance Wars games (not the first games in the series, mind – Famicom Wars and Game Boy Wars hold that honour) with new graphics, the war room separated out into a combined section, and a few niceties added to make the game run a bit smoother. It also has a ‘casual’ mode which I seem to have been enrolled on, even though I answered “no” when asked if this was my first time playing Advance Wars.

As a result I am powering through the levels, getting S and the occasional A rank. The most difficult level I’ve found so far was against Kanbei, when his heavy units were obliterating my army; I realised a few turns too late that he had left the South of the map undefended, which is where his HQ was; it took me a couple of turns to send an infantry unit along and capture it, meaning I won the level but with a much reduced score.

Otto’s Galactic Groove!! (Playdate): COMPLETED!

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This is one of the Playdate games that is in the Playdate Season 2 pack. It’s a rhythm game where notes scroll across the screen and you press a button when they hit the Pong-like bat on the right, and you have to move the bat up and down with the Playdate’s crank. It works well, although does remind me of how Trombone Champ’s mechanics work.

The music is good, and each “planet” you visit in the game – the aim is to collect musical essences from each – each planet has it’s own musical style like jazz or dubstep or chip tune. It’s all either original for the game, or borrowed from other Playdate games.

It’s OK. A bit short but that’s fine.

It Takes Two (PS5): COMPLETED!

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Seems these days that games I’m interested in playing end up free somewhere if I just wait a while. It Takes Two is one of those titles, as there it is, on PS+++++ (I forget how many +).

It’s a two player co-op title, with players each taking control of a heading-for-divorce couple who, because of magic or something prompted by their young child being upset with Mummy and Daddy arguing, have been turned into toys. You know, standard stuff. Each level they’re individually given different abilities, and you use these together to navigate a very Honey I Shrunk The Kids world, from a garden shed to a greenhouse and a tree.

Guiding you (and, clearly, hindering your progress) is a sentient Book of Love who explains that the obstacles and challenges you face are allegories for the relationship issues you’re having and overcoming them will bring you closer together again. There’s platforming, puzzling, spider-riding, shooting, and a wide variety of situations to deal with along the way, and none of the gimmicks last long enough to become stale. Despite the happy colours and generally upbeat and humorous events, there are some pretty dark places the game goes to, with a level where your “mission” is to set out and “kill” your daughter’s favourite stuffed toy (trigger warning: you cut off a limb and horribly maim a cute elephant who is screaming pleas for you to stop) just to make your girl cry. Horrible.

It’s a very pretty game, but I did find some issues in with the audio. Cut scenes suffered from silence (but only the voices), or sound and video went out of sync. Reading up, some others with the same problems suggested changing the PS5’s audio format from (or to) PCM or other possible options, but no matter the setting it made no difference. Seems it affects other platforms too. Jarring, but I have subtitles on so that helped a bit.

Other than that, it was a great, varied, and sometimes clever game, which works really well as a co-op title.