I got the new issue of Retro Gamer magazine yesterday and there is a nice Making Of Article on the original Metal Slug in there. They also speak with one of the designers of the original game - Kazuma Kujo (see my signature for a quote from him). It does seem that the game was made by Irem staff members who were still officially working for Irem at the time.
In this video you can see the article at about 4 minutes into the video.
"There's a guy on Geometry Wars. I can't remember his Gamertag, but his score is far above anyone else in the world, and it makes me think this person doesn't have a life, doesn't work, and is completely and sickly addicted to this one game."
Wow, the Metal Slug article looks sweet! Actually I'm considering to get this very issue via eBay, but I'm out of cabbage right now. I've got already two issues of Retro Gamer which I bought over in UK and I'm more than pleased with those so far.
I always wanted to know more about the team behind Nazca/late Irem which are responsible for so many great arcade titles up to today. Their distinctive style they used for the artwork made their games immortal, i.e. the 2D sprites and effects are one of the most beautiful I know.
yes is quite a good issue actually. I am a big fan of Space Harrier so i enjoyed that article too. Apparrently Yu Suzuki was inspired by the Neverending story (I always thought so!) and also Roger Dean's artwork specifically the Yes album covers. Seems like a lot of computer-bods like those!
RetroGamer have a new cheaper subscription deal for people in the states now, so for any US people out there might be worth looking into.
"There's a guy on Geometry Wars. I can't remember his Gamertag, but his score is far above anyone else in the world, and it makes me think this person doesn't have a life, doesn't work, and is completely and sickly addicted to this one game."
Cool stuff Riko I will hunt this copy of retrogamer when Im off on Tuesday. Believe it or not its not an easy magazine to find and the copies in Wh Smiths are usually torn or full of greasy handprints. I think Asda or Morrisons stock it as well.
Now the scans are up i wanted to draw attention to this. very interesting. looks like a copy to me. He won't admit it for legal reasons? unless.... it was a copy from another tank that copied from the Bonaparte tank
"There's a guy on Geometry Wars. I can't remember his Gamertag, but his score is far above anyone else in the world, and it makes me think this person doesn't have a life, doesn't work, and is completely and sickly addicted to this one game."
RiKo wrote:
Now the scans are up i wanted to draw attention to this. very interesting. looks like a copy to me. He won't admit it for legal reasons? unless.... it was a copy from another tank that copied from the Bonaparte tank
I've noticed that too, I think there are no excuses in this case.
The Metal Slug indeed seems to be a blatant copy of the Bonaparte Tank (I've never read the manga nor watched the OVAs however). It's interesting how punctilious the Japanese are on legal or privacy affairs, even the real names of the rest of the Nazca developer team have not been revealed until today because of that.
However, the Metal Slug series always had so many hints to popular movies, games or mangas, I could list tons of details they might have taken from other media as inspirations. But I think this might be worth for another thread.
EDIT: And thanks again for uploading the scans, I really appreciated it! Edited by Murikov on 08. May 2012 20:15
Murikov wrote :- It's interesting how punctilious the Japanese are on legal or privacy affairs, even the real names of the rest of the Nazca developer team have not been revealed until today because of that.
In Retro Gamer magazine they often give this as a reason why they cant get that many Japanese developers to talk about their old games. Apparently if the developer has moved a different company they feel they cant talk about games they made with their previous company. They do seem to be getting more Japanese features which is good, though i have unsubscribed for the time being because i hardly read any video games mags at the moment and i have a backlog to get through!
And thanks again for uploading the scans, I really appreciated it!
you're welcome Murikov i am in a scanning-mood at the moment, i actually hate doing it usually because my scanner takes about 3 minutes a page, only works on a very old laptop (which is slow) and none of the magazine pages ever fit directly into the scanner. grrrr.
"There's a guy on Geometry Wars. I can't remember his Gamertag, but his score is far above anyone else in the world, and it makes me think this person doesn't have a life, doesn't work, and is completely and sickly addicted to this one game."
By my eye, the Metal Slug is clearly a rip off of the Bonaparte one... A brilliant man borrows, and genius steals. It isn't surprising, to me at least, Nazca's decision to go 2-D was not because of admiration for the style, but for hardware limitations and going with what they knew. SNK was really standing out in '96-'98 for sticking with 2-D when most games in the arcade were 3-D. It did amaze me how the animators (who we still don't know?!) achieved Disney quality visuals while doing it so rushed!
I have this same problem with Westone, the maker of the Wonderboy series. WBML doesn't have any credits, nor does The Dragon's Trap (not 100% sure on that one). I recently found a Wiki page for Westone, although it isn't very informational and I don't know how accurate the existing info is. I sure would like to shake the hands of the WMBL and DT staffs, as well as the MS staff. Edited by Tobalman on 11. May 2012 23:36
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