Metal Slug (3D)

Metal Slug (メタルスラッグ, Metaru Suraggu), also called Metal Slug 3D to distinguish it from the original Metal Slug, is a run and gun video game for the Sony PlayStation 2. It was developed and published by SNK Playmore and was released in Japan on June 29, 2006. It has yet to be announced for release in other territories. It is the first game of the series to be presented in 3D.

The game had no definite title when it was first unveiled in Tokyo Game Show back in 2004. In Electronic Entertainment Expo of 2005, SNK Playmore has revealed the game to be called "Metal Slug: Evolution". However, this was later changed to just being "Metal Slug".

Story
The year is 2030. General Morden's troops of destruction are all but wiped out by the Peregrine Falcons. He seemed to pose little threat to the world until intell reported the emergence of possible Morden activity in the mountains. Skeptic about the report, Marco and Tarma board a helicopter to investigate. During the game's story, the Peregrine Falcons's headquarters is raided by Morden's revived troops, which is possible due to a generous sponsorship by the multi-millionaire industry, "Oguma Enterprises". Separated from his team, Marco has to regroup with his forces, take down Morden, and discover Oguma's true motives.

The four classic characters, Marco, Fio, Tarma, and Eri, are in the game, as well as their nemesis Donald Morden and Allen O'Neil. New faces include Oguma, who is the president of the technologically leading company named "Oguma Enterprises" (his name is spelled "Oguma", but pronounced "Ogma").

Gameplay
For the first time in the series, characters are given lifebars and can survive multiple hits. Characters are super-deformed 3D models that interact with a vast environment. A Lock-on option has been also added to help players target their enemies. Players can carry more than five different types of weapons and three different grenade types at once. On the initial playthrough, Marco is the only character playable at the start. The other three characters are unlocked after completing certain missions; players can choose to begin the story with their character of choice on their second run. There is a total of 11 stages to complete with slight variations made depending on which character the player has chosen.

As the player achieves the highest rank, the S rank, on each of the 12 levels, they will receive medals which will increase the characters' combat abilities. The combat ability is broken down into four different categories; Pellet/Power/Hit Rate/Machine. There are four levels for these combat abilities. The higher the level, the more effective their skill becomes.


 * Pellet determines the "splash" damage caused by the character's weapon. As the skill grows, the damage radius of their weapon will also increase.
 * Power determines the amount of damage caused by the character's weapon. As the skill grows, the total damage done by their weapon will also increase.
 * Hit Rate determines the accuracy of the character's weapon. As the skill grows, the overall accuracy of ranged weapons used by the character against enemies will increase.
 * Machine determines the vehicle handling. As the skill grows, characters will be able to handle their vehicles more easily.

Marco starts off with full Hit Rate skill. Tarma starts off with full Machine skill. Eri starts off with full Pellet skill. Fio starts off with full Power skill.

Aside from combat abilities, there also are four upgrade that the player can purchase using the skill point' gathered by playing the game. Playing the game on harder modes give the players more skill points, which translates into faster upgrades. The upgrades are; Lock Range/Life Up/Luck/Rapid Bomb. Each of these upgrades cost 2000 skill points.


 * Lock Range increases the distance in which you will be able to use the auto-target function to lock on the enemies.
 * Life Up increases the character's health by one hitpoint.
 * Luck makes enemy weapons less accurate against the player's character.
 * Rapid Bomb decreases the rate-of-throw for grenade-type weapons that your characters use.

Metal Slug 3D has criticism for not utilizing the PlayStation's full hardware capacities, looking very rough compared to other shooters. The game does not use cel-shading. The Japanese version contains a menu that is written mostly in English, as well as English voice acting. Japanese subtitles and dialogues are present for non-English speakers.

Garage
In the Garage, players will be able to access various sections, including Soldiers, Main Weapon, Sub Weapon, Slug Customize, Laboratory.


 * Soldiers section will let you switch between characters to be played on the next mission.
 * Main Weapon displays the current primary weapon you have in inventory as well as the ammunition available for them.
 * Sub Weapon serves the same purpose as the Main Weapon section but with grenade-type weaponry.
 * Slug Customize lets you customize your Super Vehicle-001 with various parts that you have built in the Laboratory.
 * Laboratory lets you build custom parts for your Slug Tank, which then can be used at the Slug Customize section to refit your vehicle.

Custom SV parts
There are five different categories in which you can modify your Tank Slug in; Core, Caterpillar, Cannon, Vulcan, and Armor.


 * Core is the chassis of your Super Vehicle. Each chassis is able to support different types of equipment.
 * Normal Core is the standard chassis of your Slug.
 * Powered Core allows you to mount various Cannon parts otherwise unusable with other two cores.
 * Gunner Core is the chassis required to unlock the Slug Gunner.


 * Caterpillar is the tread equipped on your vehicle.
 * Normal Caterpillar are the standard treads of your Slug.
 * Speed Master are slightly faster than the standard treads.
 * Agile Caterpillar is slightly faster than the Speed Master.
 * Hovering Type is not as fast as caterpillars, but offers better stability.
 * Splitter is not as fast as other caterpillars, but does more damage to things that you run over with it.
 * Gunner Legs are the treads required to unlock the Slug Gunner. It is also the fastest among the caterpillars.


 * Cannon is your vehicle's primary weapon, limited in ammunition.
 * Slug Cannon is the standard main gun of your vehicle. It has an arc trajectory, meaning that it is useful as a "splash-damage" weapon but not precision weapon.
 * Flamethrower spews out a short stream of fire that deals great damage to anything in its way.
 * Homing Missile tracks in on target, and after approaching the target explodes and releases a number of smaller cluster missiles that swarm over nearby target(s).
 * Pile Bunker is a huge, sharp ramming tool that will not only damage anything directly in front of it, but out to a certain range because of the shockwave generated from it. It seems to impale anything that touches the weapon itself.
 * Rail Gun is a long cannon that can be used as a "sniper" weapon for your vehicle. Although not very powerful, it has great range and respectable rate-of-fire.
 * Large Missile is the long-range quadruple rocket launcher mounted on one of the enemies, namely the M-14 Bradley fire-support vehicle. When fired, it will launch four big, unguided (unless one locks-on) rockets in succession. While each rockets do not inflict a lot of damage, the combined firepower of all four rockets hitting their target is devastating.
 * Parachute Bomb fires a long-range mortar useful for enemies that are hiding behind cover, but is useless in environments where there are objects that might block the projectile overhead. (for example; ceilings and overpass signs)
 * Gunner Cannon is the cannon required to unlock the Slug Gunner. It is also the most powerful cannon that the player can equip on the vehicle, although its utility is greatly hampered by the fact that the turret does not rotate to track the target and the shell has very flat trajectory.


 * Vulcan is the secondary weapon of your vehicle. They do not cause much damage as the primary weapon, but they do have unlimited ammunition.
 * Normal Vulcan is the standard gun of your vehicle. It is relatively accurate and has the ability to engage aircraft, but can only move its barrels vertically and not horizontally, thus not being suited for engaging multiple enemies at once.
 * Wide-range Vulcan is the exact opposite of the standard Vulcan. Its barrels can only move horizontally but not vertically, making it suitable for engaging multiple ground enemies but not for engaging enemies at an elevation or aircraft.
 * Multirange Vulcan can traverse its barrels in all directions, making it excellent for utilizing "circle of death" tactics on a wide, open field.
 * Gatling Gun has same characteristics of the standard gun when it comes to target tracking, but it fires more munitions in a wider area, making it perfect for engaging and destroying a number of foes at once.
 * Napalm is a pair of mortars that fires off balls of Napalm in an arc trajectory. It is very powerful, but the travel time of the projectile is slow, and decreases significantly as the target is further away. The area-effect of this weapon is, however, quite impressive.
 * Gunner Arms is the gun required to unlock the Slug Gunner. When mounted on a normal Slug, it is basically a pair of Pile Bunkers with unlimited ammunition. When combined with all other parts necessary to unlock the Slug Gunner, the weapon turns into a Vulcan and a Pile Bunker.


 * Armor determines the type of protection that your vehicle gets. Excluding the basic armor, all armors are add-ons to the basic armor. The add-on armors will only protect the vehicle from certain type of projectiles, and the basic armor will be responsible for "dishing-in" the damage received from all other projectiles that are not responsibility of the add-on armor. When the basic armor is gone, your vehicle will explode. As for the add-on armor, it can take certain amount of hits before being rendered completely useless, leaving the vehicle unprotected after that.
 * Normal Armor is the basic armor of your vehicle. It offers basic protection against all types of projectiles.
 * Fire Resist Armor has limited ability to prevent the vehicle from being damaged by incendiary weapons.
 * Sloping Armor has limited ability to protect the vehicle from being damaged by projectile weapons.
 * Reactive Armor offers limited protection against all forms of explosive-based weapons, including rockets, missiles, grenades, bombs, anti-tank shells, and so on.
 * Tempered Shield offers limited frontal protection only against all forms of projectiles, because it is the shield of the Melty Honey enemy.
 * Physical Armor protects the vehicle from being damaged by energy weapons.

Side Arms
Unless stated, all weapons have the ability to automatically track in on their target using the track button (R1) on the joypad. Side arms consist of the following:
 * Combat Knife as melee weapon for Marco and Tarma.
 * Tonfar as melee weapon for Fio and Eri.
 * Handgun as the standard ranged weapon. Does very little damage and has short range, but unlimited ammo.
 * Heavy Machine Gun is a machine-pistol firing rifle-caliber munitions, and has medium range and high accuracy.
 * Double Machine Gun consists of two machine-pistol firing pistol-caliber munitions. While the firepower of each gun is decreased by a fraction, the combined firepower of the two guns make them slightly more powerful than the Heavy Machine Gun.
 * Rocket Launcher fires an unguided rocket at the target. Although the rockets travel slowly, they are quite powerful for their availability. Aiming is done manually.
 * Super Grenade is basically a grenade launcher mounted on a rifle. (the rifle is never used, however) Although the travel time is slow, the grenade does devastating amount of damage. Aiming is done manually.
 * Enemy Chaser launches homing missiles. Although weak, it has quite fast rate-of-fire.
 * Flame Shot shoots a continuous stream of flame. Deals fair amount of damage, but has very short range and runs out of ammunition in a hurry.
 * Iron Lizard fires a remote vehicle filled with explosive gas. The vehicle is unguided, but can climb up some terrain and walls.
 * Laser Gun fires a continuous beam of highly concentrated light that does tremendous amount of damage over a tiny area. Runs out of ammunition very quickly. Aiming is done manually.
 * Shotgun fires pellet rounds that are very powerful in close range.
 * Sniper Rifle does fair amount of damage and has an extreme projectile range. A scope is provided. Aiming is done manually.

Grenades
Grenades are thrown by hand. Although their range is short, they offer better firepower than most side arms. Grenades consist of the following:
 * Grenade is a regular stick grenade, better known as the Stielhandgranate.
 * Fire Bomb is a Molotov Cocktail effective against infantry.
 * Stone is only effective against infantry in MS3D, unlike other arcade Metal Slug games where stones were highly effective against all forms of targets.
 * Smoke Bomb can conceal the player, as well as the enemy, for a short duration. When used by the player, the enemy will stop shooting until the smoke clears and get better view.
 * Monolith is basically a beacon for the gigantic stone tablets used by the Monoeye Artifact during the second level of Metal Slug 3. When thrown, a harmless beam of light will shoot down from the sky, and in less than a second a huge stone tablet will drop down on where the beam was pointed at, causing extreme amount of damage that is unparalleled by any other weapons in the game. The stone tablet does not damage the player, however, and it is safe to run into middle of it. The player will never run out of them.

Unlockables

 * Monolith grenade is unlockable upon completing the game once.
 * Slug Gunner is unlockable by obtaining all the parts and assembling it, which are mentioned in the Custom Super Vehicle parts section above.