Metal Slug

How to play Metal Slug

1. Choose one or two players. Your soldier drops in while MISSION START flies across the screen; then advance, shooting what comes from both sides.
2. Free prisoners with a shot or a close knife attack, then touch them to receive their gift and add them to your rescue count.
3. Shoot supply crates open and walk over the released letter: H, R, S or F. Check the ARMS counter before committing to a long fight.
4. Jump onto an empty Slug to board it. Fire the Vulcan in any direction, use Bomb for the forward cannon, and pick up gas cans to repair it.
5. Learn each boss’s pattern: duck Tetsuyuki’s laser and jump its ground wave, keep moving under falling orbs and bombs, and spend grenades where their blast can reach.
6. After the tally, the next mission starts by itself. Clear the sixth mission to reach the ending, or press Continue after losing your lives.

Controls

About Metal Slug

Metal Slug takes the original 1996 Neo Geo MVS game as its benchmark. You play as Marco, or join a friend as Marco and Tarma, and fight through six missions against General Morden’s Rebel Army. This browser recreation runs at the arcade’s 304 by 224 resolution with newly written rules, newly drawn pixel art and synthesized sound. Its walking speed, jump arc and mission timer were measured from recorded play of the original, and its six routes follow the original’s sequence of places, enemy groups and bosses. It does not run or copy the arcade program, and it is an independent recreation rather than an official SNK release.

The campaign opens beside a giant carved stone face in the jungle, crosses a log bridge and a moss-covered wreck, wades through a river village on stilts and climbs a waterfall to the Tetsuyuki bomber fortress. The second mission moves through a night railway station and a bridge of lit restaurants over the river, then over dawn rooftops to a train tunnel and the Hairbuster Riberts. The third is a vertical climb up a snowy valley to Allen O’Neil and the Tani Oh. Death Valley ends with the twin tanks Shoe and Karn, the occupied city with the Iron Nokana, and the last mission sails to Morden’s harbour and his Hi-Do helicopter.

On foot you can run, jump, crouch and aim upward; in the air you can also aim straight down. Fire next to a soldier or a prisoner’s ropes to use the knife. The pistol never runs out. Pickups replace it with the heavy machine gun, which fires bursts and sweeps through diagonal angles as you turn, the slightly homing rocket launcher, the short and very strong shotgun, or the flame shot. When a special weapon runs dry you return to the pistol. Stick grenades arc, bounce once and explode, and you start every life with ten.

Shoot or cut a prisoner’s ropes, then touch him: he searches his trousers, hands over a weapon, grenades, a gas can or a score item, salutes and runs off. Rescued prisoners stay with that player until the mission ends and are lost if that player dies. The Recaptured Prisoner screen after each boss lists their names and pays one thousand points each, ten thousand for an intact Slug, and a large GREAT! bonus for a big rescue haul or for the better rescuer in a two-player game.

The SV-001 Metal Slug changes how you approach fire. Jump and land on an empty tank to climb in. Its Vulcan cannon turns through a full circle toward the direction you hold, while the main cannon always fires forward with its own shells. Hold Down and press Bomb to drop a grenade from the hatch. The tank can crouch and jump. Three hits leave it burning, so leave before it explodes: Down and Jump eject, while Fire and Jump launch the empty tank at the enemy as a ram. Gas cans repair it.

Each credit has three lives, and a new life drops in from the top of the screen with a short blink of protection. When everyone is out of lives, the Continue countdown starts; Continue returns you at the same place with three lives and drops a heavy machine gun nearby. This browser version runs in free play, so Continues are unlimited. In co-op, an exhausted partner can rejoin while the other keeps fighting. Reaching a mission unlocks it for practice, and the browser stores your best score and sound preference when storage is available.

Keyboard and touch drive the same rules. Each touch player has a direction pad and separate Shot, Jump and Bomb buttons, so a direction and an attack can be held with separate fingers. The four-to-three playfield keeps the full arcade scene visible as the controls rearrange for portrait or landscape. Pause stops the simulation; leaving the game releases its input, animation and audio resources. You can also play with sound switched off.

A few useful tricks

• Stay a few steps away from shield soldiers until their shield breaks; close up, the knife replaces your shot.
• Aim upward at helicopters and planes. Jump and hold Down to fire on enemies and barges below you.
• Protect your rescued prisoners until the tally; a death forfeits that player’s count.
• The tank cannon fires forward only. Turn the Vulcan when a target is behind or above the Slug.
• In the snowy climb the screen only scrolls upward, so never drop below its bottom edge.
• In co-op, advance together so both players can see the next landing and share the supplies.

Good questions