As a gamer that regularly demands innovation from forthcoming IPs, I always feel like a bit of a hypocrite falling back into the familiar gun-toting embrace of SNK Playmore's Metal Slug franchise. Here's a series of games that's hardly altered so much as a pixel since its 1996 arcade cabinet debut and has maintained a substantial fanbase precisely because of it. While the core run-n-gun mechanics have remained largely unchanged since day one, its the off-the-wall humour, colourful characters, inventive weapons, and zany bosses that have earned Metal Slug a special place in the hearts of jaded arcade-dwellers everywhere.
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