Astonishingly beautiful in it's fluid animations and wonderfully exaggerated backdrops, this classic's presentation rightfully has left it's mark on everyone who played it. By the end of the game, the difficulty winds up becoming that particular bullshit you'd expect from an arcade game, but it's highly responsive controls and extremely entertaining selection of weapons and powerups are never at fault. In particular, the eponymous Metal Slug is a novel and welcome relief from the chaos, with it's three hit points and superior firepower!
The perfect little game to do a few laps in between larger titles. Going to try and, if not 1CC, as few as humanly possible..

Possibly the most fun I have playing as a character in a video game. Oh, what's that? The camera's bad? The music (especially towards the end) is repetitive? Tiny-Huge Island in general? Easy to overlook when you're chaining long jumps and careening around the various open stages with the sloppiest grace imaginable. I highly recommend going for 100%, THEN replaying to see how you can better utilize Mario's moveset to get the stars more efficiently. Trust me, your third eye'll open and you'll become like me: Doomed to replay this classic once a year forever more!

An early 3D shooter that, while a little clunky to control and very brisk in length, more than makes up for it by simply being a joy to play. Nothing quite matches the thrill of waiting nervously for the lock on to line up on your target while you're either:

A. Being shot at;
B. Flying a bit too close to the ground for comfort;
C. All of the above;

and nailing it, cheered on by the enthusiastic whoops of your copilots and big 'BINGO!' text across the screen! I really like how you use your 'score' to buy different planes, each with their own unique stats, that also double as your 'lives'. It's a clever way of being arcade-y while adding a risky bit of depth to difficult missions. Just wish there were a few more to play!

P.S. Namco once again kills it on the OST front, this time pairing some fantastic guitar licks to only the finest synth instrumentals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGR9gv1KHTQ

Not usually a fan of the sort of things this game pulls off (one hit deaths in a spike riddled obstacle course full of enemies that you have to avoid because you're also defenseless, that sort of thing), but it makes such good use out of it's level gimmicks that I didn't mind so much. The way the latter levels play with momentum and timing in particular was really fun to figure out! I probably would've liked it to have gone a bit more complex with it's ideas, but as is, it's still relatively engaging without being too obnoxious.

The writing's a bit naff though, like in that Modern Paper Mario, self aware & ironic way. Makes the titular dad seem like more of an asshole than the developers intended? It'd be a pretty cute little family story if it had landed, but alas, I kinda get why his kids kinda ran away from him...

A fun way to kill 2 hours, in the end. I wonder how the sequel's turned out...?