460Andy GarciaMetal Slug Mobile Impact is the second title in the legendary series for mobile phones. A franchise known for non-stop action and wacky humor, its shoot‘em up style has always been top notch. This new adventure sees Marco, one of the Peregrine Falcons, deep inside enemy territory where he must find and disable an enemy control room that will unleash a feared Super Rocket. If he fails, the world will be destroyed. Seven levels are filled with combat, saving POW’s, using power-up weapons and yes, commandeering the Metal Slug. The weapons available are the standard-issued knife, pistol and grenades. Extra weapons to pick up are a heavy machine gun, a flamethrower and a rocket launcher. Other power ups are food and fuel that act as additional health for your soldier or when driving the Slug tank. The game play maintains the run and gun feel that is customary to this shooter. Enemies will rush at you or shoot from afar using their own fortified weapons and will be situated in the most precarious of places. Helicopters will also swoop in and act as mini or end-level bosses. Controls are fairly standard for Marco with the keypad. He can jump, crouch, fire ahead or above with ease. Controlling the Metal Slug is a different story. It will move forward, backward and jump, but will not crouch to avoid fire like in other versions. This makes it very susceptible to damage. Its primary weapon is a machine gun that rotates in 180 degrees between left or right. This is rotated with two buttons on the keypad and has five positions (Perpendicular and Diagonal.) The problem here, besides the fact that it’s already open to being damaged easily, is that rotating the gun is not very intuitive. You’re already moving the tank to avoid fire and then having to target the machine gun one position at a time to combat enemies all around you, is time consuming and confusing. They should have stayed with Marco’s control scheme. There were plenty of times when I was stuck trying to target the gun on one enemy while I was getting nailed from all other directions. Sure, you’re given some extra lives to complete the game (Five on Easy and Three on Hard), but you’ll burn most, if not all, with the tank. And once they are all gone, if you choose to continue, you will start at the last level with only one life. That’s it. Essentially, it’s better to begin all over again. (This does keep you from finishing the game in half an hour though.) The game has a rich visual style similar to other versions. Explosions, burning enemies and destroyable environments are all depicted well and characters/items looks nearly identical. Start up music is done well but it’s a little weak on sound effects. Only explosions and a jingle when items are picked up are heard and these seem canned. Metal Slug Mobile Impact embodies a number of features that made this franchise very popular with gamers. It’s big on bullets and has bountiful enemies. The two versions we played were practically identical, except for some slowdown on the Motorola. There are a few issues with the Metal Slug tank and it pains me to say that as much as I like it, it was probably better off left out. (But then of course I’d be complaining if it was.) In the end, it’s still a decent game that fans of the series should enjoy playing.