“Metal Slug Review - TotalPlayStation.com” plus 1 more |
| Metal Slug Review - TotalPlayStation.com Posted: 04 Jan 2011 02:45 PM PST This PSN port of the action arcade classic brings a mostly untouched version for those looking to relive Metal Slug in its original glory. Author: Kyle Heimbigner Published: January 4, 2011 I wasted a lot of quarters on Metal Slug at the bowling alley I lived near back when I was a kid. This was a really fun game back then that had a lot of charm, challenging gameplay, and great two player action that I brought either a friend or my brother along for. I imagine a lot of people had those same memories and with arcades dying off in the last decade and Neo-Geo games being very expensive, there were not a lot of chances to relive this classic series. Thankfully, SNK has been listening to fans for a while now and recently released Metal Slug on PSN (in 2007 there was a Metal Slug anthology for the PlayStation 2) to invite gamers back to a more simple age of gaming without having to ask your parents for more quarters. Released in 1996 by Nazca Corporation, Metal Slug is a run and gun shooter originally released as an arcade game and then for the Neo-Geo Console. The game has seen numerous ports on just about every major gaming platform and recently was re-released yet again by SNK for PSN with some slight tweaks and new features, including multiplayer. It is setup as a mostly untouched version of the original for old time fans and those who never had a chance to experience this classic. So, to get to the basics of what Metal Slug is for those uninitiated: we have already established that it is a run and gun shooter, there are plenty of those, and Metal Slug was by no means the first one. It had a certain charm and unoffensive cartoon violence that was detailed and easy to look at. The amount of explosions and other animated effects happening on screen never overwhelmed the player like a lot of games in this genre tend to do. It struck a good balance between being overwhelming and just keeping you alert. You certainly need to be alert and have fast reflexes for Metal Slug. Getting hit, even once, means your character automatically dies. The only exception to the rule is while you are in a tank which has a health bar. This sort of difficulty might be off-putting to the newer generation of gamers who are used to their regenerating health and having a lot of it. However, in the case of Metal Slug it works in its favor as it brings a nice amount of tension to the game, encouraging the player to react quickly and try to think out what they are going to do in advance, which can be challenging. You should be made aware that although there is a 4 credit limit, you have an option to emulate the Neo Geo Memory Card which will get you around it. As with other Neo Geo Station releases, Metal Slug has online multiplayer, but it doesn't work well at all. The lag makes the game unplayable, and in my experience it never let up, not even once. Hopefully SNK fixes this, but for now if you decide to take the plunge expect a non-working multiplayer experience. Given the fact that fans have been playing this game over the Internet with their friends for years now using an emulator called MAME on their PCs, it is sort of expected from SNK that they provide online functionality. I appreciate that they tried, but they didn't make sure it actually works. That leaves the game with an important and broken feature, which is not good. Do you still want to buy it? It will depend on the type of gamer you are. If you have a love for these classic Neo Geo games it is a no brainer, just bring a few friends over and have a good time. If you've never played the classic Metal Slug games before you might want to think about the type of games you like. If you are a fan of the run and gun genre, Metal Slug is still a good choice and I hope SNK brings the sequels to PSN. So long as they can fix the online multiplayer they should be good. Otherwise, give the game a pass. It's a good game that manages to not feel dated, but broken multiplayer and a steep price compared to other ported classics makes this a tough sell. If you can overlook Metal Slug's one technical flaw, and if the $9 (or $7.19 for PlayStation Plus subscribers) is not a problem for you, then you'll get enjoyment out of this classic action arcade game from 1996. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| PlayStation 3 pretty much cracked open for homebrew - Destructoid Posted: 30 Dec 2010 05:22 PM PST Yesterday, a group of PS3 hackers united under the name 'fail0verflow' presented their method of circumventing the built-in security of Sony's machine at the 27th Chaos Communication Conference, or 27C3. Today, they announced that the code will be made public for anyone to use. In a nutshell, they found a way to calculate the so-called "keys" you need to "sign" a piece of software so the console accepts it as valid code and runs it. That means when the full implementations of this are out there, you can sign any piece of homebrew, or pirate games without needing a PS Jailbreak USB dongle. For the full video of the conference session and some more insight into what this means for you, keep on reading. 27C3 PS3 Epic Fail [PSX-Scene via Joystiq] [Slides of the presentation available here] In the last generation of consoles, it was pretty clear what console you wanted if you just wanted to mod the hell out of it: the Xbox. The GameCube had its mods to let you play pirate copies if you wanted to, and so did the PlayStation 2, but when the original Xbox got cracked open, it created a flood of homebrew far beyond simply being able to play pirated games. After the initial 007: Nightfire exploit and the first modchips, the Xbox saw a booming homebrew development scene which produced the custom "dashboard," emulators, Xbox ports of Doom and Duke Nukem 3D and perhaps most importantly, the Xbox Media Center. It turned the Xbox from a games console -- with mostly mulitplatform games that looked a bit better than on the PS2 -- to a cheap solution for having a media center and all your old retro games in one box. A box that was a bit smaller than most PCs that do exactly the same thing. Whether you agree with the always-present piracy option that comes with such mods or not, the homebrew scene was fantastic during the Xbox age. You could switch from playing a game to watching a movie without getting off the couch, stream porn from your bed and turn off the console with one button on the remote, put the console in an arcade cabinet, and play your emulated games for the 15 minutes it takes before you get tired of them. It was a great time of wonder and enjoyment.
With the current generation of consoles, people started to get fully into the transition to HD. Of course, that meant there were high hopes for being able to do the same thing with an Xbox 360 or a PS3 as before, but now for the HD era. Sadly, the Xbox 360 did get its custom DVD drive firmware which lets you play pirate games, but no good way to run homebrew. If you have an older model, you can still go for a hardware solution (i.e., soldering) to run your own code, but to date it's way too much of a hassle. The Wii lets you easily mod it and run whatever you want, but it's not exactly a giant step up from the Xbox homebrew scene, if a step forward at all. As the PS3 launched, a lot of people looked toward that as the next console to potentially use as they used their modded Xboxs. It comes with a Blu-Ray player, which is nice. The default HDMI and separate optical audio outputs are also nice, as the Xbox 360 initially didn't even have an HDMI output. And you can swap out hard drives with larger laptop models instead of going for a hardware modding solution on the Xbox 360, or paying for overpriced hard drives. The PS3 seemed like the go-to console for future hacks and homebrew, especially when it became clear that the Xbox 360 just wasn't as easy to crack open as the Xbox was. But nothing practical ever came from the PS3 scene until recently. The hypervisor -- see it as a hardware security component -- proved to be a hassle to overcome. People could run Linux natively on the PS3 thanks to Sony's effort on that side, but you couldn't access both the Cell processor and the RSX videochip, which meant everything had to be coded for the Cell specifically. What was missing was a way to circumvent all of that and have complete access to every hardware component. That is, until now. Following newfound interest in the PS3 scene after Geohot's response to the lack of OtherOS in the PS3 Slim, the exploits he found as a result, and the PS Jailbreak USB dongles that hit the market shortly afterward, comes this insight into the PS3's method of signing private keys. With this new method of being able to sign your own software, in theory, you can sign your own PS3 games, homebrew, and even Blu-Ray discs to run on a retail PS3 without needing to buy a USB or hardware solution. When it comes to fruition, it means the PS3 will take its spot as the next Xbox for those of us who enjoy running homebrew -- like actually useful media centers on our consoles.
I, for one, can't wait to be able to run x264 content natively on a PS3. Lantus, who made the popular Xbox xSnes9x emulator as well as a few ports like DoomX and QuakeX, has apparently already said he's working on MPlayer for the PS3. I still haven't seen anything that worked as well as Xbox Media Center on any of this generation's consoles, so with luck, we'll have some great homebrew to look forward to in the near future. Especially with today's amount of streaming content available, it could turn your PS3 into something magical. As for the piracy that comes with any hack like this: I'm sure some more people will pick up a PS3 just for the free games. So yes, some games will be pirated a bit more than if this option didn't exist. But, you know, pirates gonna pirate, and if you want to, you already can do that on each of the three consoles. Besides, you probably all know at least one person who had a modded Xbox lying around. How much did they use it for actual games instead of homebrew? And if you had one yourself, are you looking forward to doing the same stuff with your PS3? This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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