Forget Duke Nukem. Forget Mega Man. If you want a good side-scrolling shooter, get this game: Metal Slug 1st Mission. Alright, so maybe Mega Man is more of a platformer, but you get the idea :)

For NeoGeo fans, Metal Slug is nothing new, there's a few of them on that platform (don't ask me how many, I don't know exactly :P ). But for the rest of us, Metal Slug is a side-scrolling shooter with somewhat realistic, yet humorous graphics and animation.

The levels are ultra-colorful and make full-use of the NGPC's palette. Everything is shaded, the game's visuals really remind me of a Genesis game, maybe one of the Shinobi games, or E-swat. The animation, like every other NGPC game, really makes the system shine. I sat in awe wondering how they can possibly do that kind of animation with 16k memory. I suppose the sprites are small, but still, it's pretty damned sweet animation. Some of the enemy's do pretty funny things, such as the footsoldiers. One caste of soldier has a shield that he holds up to block your shots. If you shoot a rocket at him, his shield melts in his hands, and he just stands there with this shocked look, his jaw hanging open, waiting for you to finish him off.

The gameplay is pretty much standard fare for the genre. Run, jump, duck, crawl, and fire. You've got secondary and primary modes of fire, the primary fires bullets, the secondary explosive weapons. There's quite a variety of weapons, from your regular gun, to a machine gun, to grenades, to rockets etc. There's a lot of different powerups, and you also get to fly in a plane and drive a tank in some of the levels. The gameplay is tight and as well-done as can be. The level designs are great, and the game, as a whole, is just a heck of a lot of fun to play. Too bad we'll have to wait another 6 months for 2nd Mission :)

I would say that this game is pretty straightforward, it's a rock-solid shooter that's a lot of fun to play. If you absolutely detest shooters, avoid it of course, but for everyone else, you'll get your money's worth.