Thanks for the tip, and as for the supergun; Arcade titles are more of a sideline for me so this would be a bit wasted on me. Having said that, they look cool and I'd love one just for their uniqeness.
I might go for the PS2 anthology instead...
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Bah, all Metal slug games are sh1t, they all play like sh1t, the name: Metal "Slug" says it all, Nazca may have chosen that name because that's how the controls over the characters feel, like you were trying to move a slug witha a stick, the game controls suffer from lag and the gameplay is all over the place, the whole series owes its fame to the shitty system the games were designed for and nothing more, the shitty Neogeo, where Metal Slug type of games are a dime dozen, if it were designed for a different system from the ground up, such as the Saturn or PS1 it could have been a different story, the whole series would have passed unnoticed.
Metal Slug is my favourite as well. Mostly because I feel its the most balanced and the one with the most Nazca vibe.
The scoring system is unfair, but that is the same for all the other Metal Slug games. Random items that can vary between 0 and 50 000 points are NEVER good. Especially when a score attempt in Metal Slug takes you at least 1 hour (especially to milk the leeching spots). However since the first one is easily 1cc -able (new word,yay) I still prefer it to the other titles, to this day.
Sadly I've never owned it for my AES. I remember seeing this in the arcades, rushing to my local shop that was importing neo games ..and hearing that they were not carrying the games from that year onwards (thank you good old europe). I never could track down a copy until I got internet in '99..and discovered it was worth too much (something around 800 dollars or a bit more) which then skyrocketed into the madness of today. So...I'm still on MAME for my Metal Slug 1 fix (even though in the end..we need to always play on mame to record and inp..so..)
You can get MVS cart cheap. It does not have the color artwork label but there's something cool about those VHS style carts :) There's plenty of MVS2AES slot converters available.
I never got into AES collecting because of the ridiculous prices. I love my supergun and I like the idea of using the my MVS board in a candy cab if and when I finally get one.
I believe Nazca vibe is something like this:
http://randomhoohaas.flyingomelette....a/1/co/030.jpg
http://randomhoohaas.flyingomelette....a/1/co/028.jpg
http://randomhoohaas.flyingomelette..../1/co/004b.jpg
http://randomhoohaas.flyingomelette..../1/co/003b.jpg
http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs43/f/20...nks_by_fzp.jpg
http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/20...gh_dralisk.jpg
I wish more later games sticked to this style.
Thanks for the artworks, always appreciate that!
Not trying to go off topic but I actually never decided to start collecting AES, I just had an AES since 93ish and bought a few carts now and then through sales or gifts by my parents for important occasions. I noticed I had around 20 carts by 1996 and since I had a job by then I decided to start buying the games that I really liked at the arcades. Most of the were relatively easy to find during 97-99 (usually via mail communities) but I had no internet so there were a few titles (mostly those damn 96 titles, when they started producing a LOT less) that I never could track down until they already were inflated above the 600$ mark (roughly converted from our currency).
So actually, AES were not always SO expensive. On release they hovered around 300$ (until in fact 96ish when they started to go for a bit more on release already) and if you patiently waited OR scouted every game magazine you would find the most popular ones for even less than 100$.
Today however its a pain, I understand that. Had I not started on AES by chance I would be an MVS only kind of person today, for sure.
MVS used to be cheap, but not anymore, prices are skyrocketing for titles such as Magician Lord, Ninja Masters, World Heroes Perfect, Breakers Revenge, Garou, Viewpoint or Blazing Star, all common titles bar Breakers and Ninjas Masters, but it is just a matter of time before we start to see prices equal or higher than their AES counterparts for many more MVS carts..
Loose cartridges, last Magician Lord on Ebay sold for 160 euro, and its already near $80-90 on forums.
The secret is out with MVS cartridges and a lot more people are buying them up than they used to. Metal Slug is still relatively affordable though since they made eleventy-bajillion of them.
The rising price point of Neo Geo titles is why people get tricked into buying garbage like the Neo Geo Gold X.
Stay away from it. The game runs at like 5 fps if there are more than three enemies on screen. It's a bloody joke, even with an official 1mb cart (the slowdown is NOT caused by the Action Replay, unlike what some people say).
Its only redeeming grace is the vocal version of the 2-player ending song, and the high-resolution (640x480) art gallery.
I didn't think that the slowdown was quite that bad, but I totally agree about the Action Replay myth. When I first tried tried the game with an official 1MB cart, I felt like it was running a bit better, but after trying both carts back-to-back, I'm pretty sure it was just the placebo effect and nothing more. I had a similar experience when I tried a different region's version of In the Hunt.
Slowdown is not that bad, arcade game has slowdowns almost as bad. As I said, Saturn version suffers from tons of cut animations and background details and heavy control lag.