Metal Slug 3
  An arcade game by SNK also available on the Neo-Geo, the third installment of the Metal Slug series is quite possibly the world's most perfect video game. Stunning hand-drawn graphics, constant, hectic and addicting action, a wide variety of enemies and environments, tons of destructive weapons, and a great deal of violence balanced out with just the right amount of quirky humor and a lighthearted artistic style to keep it from being another dismal and depressing gorefest. In each game you play one of several soldiers battling enemy troops, their vehicles, and an assortment of just barely cuter-than-normal soldiers and monsters. Metal Slug 3 is thought by most to be the best of the series, as it takes the action to extremes with far more content than the previous two combined. The stages are massive, each with at least one alternate path.
The Characters
  Players can choose between four different soldiers to control, two male and two female. They're all basically the same, so it doesn't matter who you pick. I played Fio for most of the game. There are tons of weapons to pick up, like homing missles, a flamethrower and the heavy machine gun, but they last only a hundred shots or so. Your default gun, luckily, has infinite ammunition, and each character is armed with ten hand grenades.
This is an explosion, the co-star of the game..
Slugs
  "Slugs" are the vehicles you can find here and there to pilot and fight with. Most important is the miniature tank, the Metal Slug, after which the series was named. Other slugs include a submarine, drill tank, helicopter, and the three animal slugs shown above, each with a set of cannons attached.
Missions, Enemies & Bosses
  Ok, so I didn't get many sprites of the human soldiers, but that'd be because plenty of other websites have them and most of them are also encountered in the previous games. They're obviously supposed to be nazis, but their insignia has been cleverly altered to keep the game P.C. The "super soldier", wielding a huge gun, has been in every Metal Slug to date.
Mission 1
Giant Crabs are the first enemies you meet, and come in two sizes. All crabs spit toxic yellow bubbles and can also attack with their claws.
  Massive moray eels emerge from artificial tunnels in the underwater area. They crash through the opposite rock walls to pull out delicious giant jellyfish, inadvertantly releasing dozens of normal-sized but very deadly electrical jellies. The eels seem to have been domesticated by the enemy army, and have names posted above their tunnels. The four eels are Helen, Linda, Jenny, and Barbie.
  These giant locusts are a little more interested in brains than ...than GRAINS! You know, because grains are kinda more along the lines of what would ordinarily comprise part of an Orthopteran's diet along with leafy vegetables. LOL.
  Even more timid woodland fishes harnessed as implements of death, these winged piranhas pop out of tanks custom-built for dangerous airborne fish to pop out of.
  The first boss you face is a gargantuan hermitcrab dragging an entire tank instead of some giant sea-snail's hollowed out ass. It chases you along a wooden bridge, smashing the path behind you as it launches assorted bombs from its cannons.
Mission 2
  Oh no, zombies!!! Mission 2 is crawling with them, accompanied by B-movie rock music and lots of splattering glop. All of the zombies attack with their pus, which will transform your character into a zombie until hit with pus a second time (which fully kills you). The different zombies are roughly the same except for the soldier zombies (far left) who explode on you.
These slightly bigger zombies are far more powerful than the rest.
  Every zombie distributes pus in a different way. Most just puke it out and throw it at you, but the fat zombies and zombified scientists are the most appetizing. The former blast pus from their rib cages, whereas the latter whip out their own intestines and squeeze the pus out with their hands. And in public!
  Marco, Eri, Tarma, and Fio in zombie form. As a zombie you are quite slow and cannot use special weapons, but only other zombies can kill you, and your ability to throw grenades will be replaced with the ability to vomit up a torrent of blood that kills nearly everything on-screen!!!
Zombie Fio is really cute with the glasses and that little hat. I wish I had a Zombie. I would name it ZOMBOR.
  Oh no, yetis! You'll find these in an optional ice cave area. They can teleport in and their breath will transform you into a helpless snowman. Once you've been transformed, they'lle try to smash you!
  At the end of mission 2, you'll discover a strange, glowing meteor that appears to be the source of the zombies. Six giant aliens known as the Monoeyes will materialize and attack with energy bullets, flying faster and faster in a ring above the meteor. When all six are destroyed, the meteor becomes a dome-shaped machine that drops monoliths on you.
Mission 3
  This mission has you fighting only the same old human enemies until you reach a pit of molten metal where you'll face the third boss, Jupiter King! Its left arm opens to reveal a missle launcher, it can pull huge missles out of the door in its stomach, and its deadly eye lazers are very difficult to avoid.
Mission 4
  After a desert battle against the usual soldiers, your path will begin to split. One possible route takes you through the underground barracks of these arabian soldiers. They, too, are your typical humans who run around and do stuff and die. They have amusing man-powered tanks and suicide bombers, though.
  Taking another pathway, you'll arrive at an old temple overgrown with bizarre vegetation. Clouds of innocent-looking seeds drift on the wind, and tall, withered pods dot the landscape, sometimes bursting to release a seed or two. You'll quickly learn that the ruins are infested with carnivorous mobile plants that lash out on their long necks to grab prey from a distance. They sometimes transform into the seedpods when killed, and touching a seed transforms you instantly into a squirming mass of vines that immediately dies.
  A third possible course in the desert will take you to a series of underground tunnels lined with glowing fungus and crawling with maggots. When approached, these maggots destroy themselves in a spurt of acid. The tunnels are also home to flying scarabs (see below) and giant crabs (see mission 1)
  These giant super-maggots can take a great deal of damage before dying. Floating globules of acid break off from their corrossive tentacle-tongues, and dozens of maggots emerge from their bodies when killed..
Giant snails creep along the floors and ceilings of the tunnels, puking gouts of acid.
  Oh no, mummies! Taking yet another hidden pathway in stage 4 pisses off a ton of dead pharaohs and their dogs, all of whom can breathe a purple dust that transforms your character into a mummy themselves. Green-tinted mummies can release deadly flying scarabs, and other mummies roll bombs at you. You'll also have to watch out for bats (which drop acid on you)
  Marco, Eri, Tarma, and Fio as mummies. It's exactly like being zombified, except you only have your normal grenades and you can crouch (into an amusing pile of bandages, at that)
  "Sol Dae Rokker", the boss of the fourth mission, is an impressive stone head with a variety of attacks. It can fire tiny red blasts from the gem between its eyes, unleash ghostly exploding wolves from the orbs on its sides and fire a big blast from its mouth that transforms your character into a bunch of gold coins.
Mission 5
  MARTIANS! After a long and grueling battle against the pseudo-nazis, their leader is revealed to be an alien imposter who'll kidnap whichever character you're currently playing and escape in a flying saucer. With space invaders threatening all of humanity, our heroes and their naziesque opponents join forces for the common good and launch a pursuit into the depths of space! You'll blast your way through a variety of spaceships on your way to the mothership, where hordes of angry martians await. Their guns fire strange, floating globs of energy.
  These brain-powered robots take a lot of shots to destroy, and attack with rings of energy that you can only avoid by hopping through.
  The small red robots swarm along the walls and attack by self-destructing, whereas the giant versions walk over you and drop bouncing green spheres from their undersides.
  As you near the end of the alien hive, you'll find yourself under attack by evil, green-skinned clones of your captured comrade! When the clones are destroyed, they drop tiny eggs that melt away. You'll pick them up as items, but they give no points. Rescuing your friend initially kills the clones, but they'lle immediately rise as zombies...armed with the lethal blood cannon you may have utilized in mission 2!
  The final boss and leader of the martian forces, "Rootmarks!" Yes...its name is Rootmarks. In the middle of stage 2 you'll battle its stationary form, which attempts to fry you with immense spheres of electricity. The second form attacks as you fall from the exploding mothership, initiating a long and grueling mid-air battle!
Mutants (Metal Slug 2)
  Oh no, C.H.U.D.S! Mutants are the only enemy type from previous games not appearing in Metal Slug 3, but the smaller eye robots in MS3 are basically the same thing. Both enemies crawl on walls and ceilings and explode on you in exactly the same manner. Cool either way. Mutants can be found in the sewers of Metal Slug 2 and the improved version, Metal Slug X.

 

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