Genre: Tower Defense
Developer: SNK Playmore
Publisher: SNK Playmore

Metal Slug Defense is like one of those community mashup games that lifts sprites, character animations, and backgrounds from production titles, and makes whole new games out of them. Except this one is official, straight from SNK! And the production quality is incredible; the outstanding Metal Slug art style has never looked better.

The strong aesthetic pattern continues with the game's audio direction; the soundtrack and sound effects were lifted straight from the proper Metal Slug games and, especially on a device with good stereo speakers, the clarity is absolutely wonderful.

Metal Slug Defense is one of those 2d plane, accumulating point-based tower defense games, where the player needs to juggle spawning units in response to the onslought from the AI, who is doing the same thing. One neat twist is that individual units can periodically launch special attacks, requiring the player to tap on the unit to activate the skill. The formula has been done many times before, and it works as well here as anywhere.

As your run-of-the-mill tower defense title, what makes Metal Slug Defense unique is its use of the still amazing series art work, sound track, and all-time memorable sound effects. The game even manages to throw in neat boss fights reminscent of bosses from the series proper; it's cool to be able to fight those using the totally alternate mechanics present in this game.