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⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
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Okay, now my mood is more reasonable.
I now see that my previous post was a bit pretentious and a bit silly. Let's move on from that.
Arcade 2D shooters, released in 1999 and 2000. Famous for great pixel art, a cute sense of humor, and, being arcade games, pretty difficult fast-paced gameplay. They run on the same engine but Metal Slug 3 is newer, harder and longer.
/Not my favourite boss, but it's what I found in my duckduckgo GIF search, so yeah)/
Yeah, I kinda did! They are widely considered to be classics, and I consider them as games that hold up very well, to this day. As long as you keep in mind that they were initially designed as arcade games, and they will eat your quarters. The games themselves are extremely cheap (I bought them for 50 cents each), but in terms of virtual coins, I have spent about 10 dollars on each. Do I suck at games? Maybe.
The games are extremely short: Metal Slug X is an hour long, and Metal Slug 3 is about 2 hours. I would not spend 10 real dollars on this, but for 50 cents, it's a pretty great experience. I love the attention to detail, like how enemy soldiers will laugh at you when you die, but then get terrified when you respawn right in front of their eyes. Still, I dunno, Metal Slug X felt too short, and Metal Slug 3 felt too difficult, so it's not gonna be a great score from me. There are also considerable issues with slowdown (more on that in the next section). *7/10*, good for nice and simple fun for their 1-2 hours, as long as you have unlimited virtual quarters.
This is the fun part!
So the games have PC ports, which are officially only supported on Windows. But, if you buy them from GOG, you will also get additional versions for macOS and Linux - they are marked as /"unsupported bonus content"/. I got curious about this, so I played both a native Linux version and a Windows version.
Both versions have major FPS drops during some sections. There are plenty of complaints about that on the GOG forums; I'm not the only one complainin', it's not Linux's fault, we can just chill.
Both versions are ultimately just wrappers around an emulator, but there are some major differences. The Windows version supports online leaderboards and multiplayer (using GOG Galaxy). It also features some nicer menu design, a mission select mode, and difficulty selection.
Meanwhile, the Linux version is closer to the original. /Unlike the Windows version, it supports save states/, and also it keeps the standard system for inserting credits - press Spacebar to insert a credit. I actually like the Linux version more! It simulates that sense of punishment like "ugh, have some quarters, so I can keep playing". The Windows version instead just makes you choose before the start of the game: Infinite coins, 20 coins, 10 coins or 5 coins. It's a terrible difficulty curve. Even 20 coins is not enough to easily beat the game, so you'll just get a game over and leave unsatisfied. Meanwhile, infinite coins means you don't have to even think about death. Understandable design choice, because inserting virtual coins into an emulator is a confusing mechanic, but I don't like it.
Use the Linux version! It's not bad!
