Some games are designed to make you swear, and I don’t mean your standard, casual, friendly swearing either. I’m talking about violent ‘mothercrushers’ delivered with such fury that it makes the neighbours cat sit up and take notice. Metal Slug 3 is one of these games.

Originally released in 2000 for the Neo-Geo, Metal Slug 3 slightly alters the Metal Slug 2 blueprint. Updated for the Arcade with HD graphics and online co-op. Marco, Tarma (Peregrine Falcon Strike Force) Eri and Fio (SPARROWS) are your choice of characters.

I’ll get started with this straight away. Metal Slug 3 is rock solid, hard as nails. If you managed to battle through to level 4 and you then run out of continues, it’s game over. There’s no save game, there’s no checkpoints, no collecting £200 when you past ‘Go’, no sir, it’s straight to jail - or in this instance - Mission #1. It’s frustrating, but not off putting. No matter how many times you have to start over, Metal Slug 3 has that “just one more go” factor, and each go, you’ll get a little further. Through your own grit and determination, you’ll make Metal Slug 3 your bitch - or die (lots) trying. There is a get out clause, though. ‘Free Play’ mode gives you unlimited continues and is by far the best way - for me- to play.

Metal Slug 3 saw the debut of multiple routes for the series, and a genius debut it is too. Adding to the ‘just one more go’ theory, you have the choice of tackling missions a number of different ways. I could of course be misjudging, but some routes are definitely easier than others, or to put it the correct way, some routes are less hard than others. Man, this game is tough……Whatever path you take, you’ll always end up in the same precarious spot - right under the nose, of a big nasty boss. The bosses are huge, and take a hell of a lot of punishment before they die.

Continuing on from what you read above, the multiple routes are only a small part of some fantastic level design. Mission 2 is just gloriously entertaining. The gimmick here is zombies, if you get struck by zombie vomit - you yourself will become one. Zombie you is much slower and can’t jump as high, but what was previously your bomb/grenade attack morphs into a spurting blood attack, and it is one of the greatest weapons/attacks in video game history. To re-humanise you’ll have to swallow a pill or take some medicine, but why on earth you’d want to be human when being a zombie is so much fun, is anyone’s guess. Another mission has you turn into a Mummy, no, not the one who used to wash my pants and cook my dinner, a wrapped in bandages, filled with sand, walking, groaning Mummy. Being a Mummy isn’t anywhere near as reverence inducing fun as being a zombie. Mummy’s ‘special’ is taking off it’s head and lobbing it - in fact, it’s weaker than your default grenades. Zombie 1, Mummy 0. Other missions take place in space and underwater. Most offer you vehicles, planes, helicopters, tanks, robot suits, some are more useful than others - the plane probably taking home the trophy for best.

The general pick up and play is very good, as I’ve said, it’s hard, but movement, firing and aiming is simple. A learning curve of about 4 seconds. Visually very stylish, the animation is top notch, with maybe a little slow down whilst playing online. No such troubles offline - the amount of enemies on screen at once is impressive.

What really seals the deal is the online co-op. If the single player does all get too much, and you’re verging on suicide, don’t give up, play with a friend - it’s far easier when there are two of you. To round things up there’s various leader boards, which will satisfy any high score junkies.

Overall, I fully recommend Metal Slug 3, nothing is over-complex - it’s just exceedingly difficult. I eventually sussed out you can play on ‘easy’ and managed to finish the game with only 56 continues…….