Recent reviews by CR4YCR4Y

Tabletop Simulator is a physics sandbox that allows users to play, create and replicate board games using 2D assets, 3D assets, and if you're bold, Lua Scripting. It is the best software at what it does, by a huge margin.

It is a passion of mine to make workshop content for this game. While I somehow keep making things that are not board games, I believe the work I've done in Tabletop Simulator exemplifies everything this program is capable of that it's competitors are not.

Below is a selection of my work to prove this point:
RC Car Soccer/Football
Skateboard Park
Foosball Table

Tabletop Simulator is a robust platform for fun experiences, and one that is dear to me.

Just imagine what would happen if Double Dragon Neon dressed up all fancy to have crumpets with the queen. Except you don't have to becuase that's essentially what this game is, and it's beautiful.

The 80s called. They wanted their game back. Again. I picked up the phone and said in the calmest voice I could “I'm not giving it to you. Please stop calling my home or I'll be forced to contact the authorities. I'm not afraid of you”

Putting the phone back on the hook I admitted to myself that the last bit was a lie. As I trembled, holding onto the wall to keep myself from toppling over, I wondered what this bygone era want from me. Why did they feel so entitled to having Double Dragon Neon? The game clearly came out in 2012.Yet, it seemed trapped in the past in all the right ways. It seemed to exist to prove that what worked in 8 bits and dusty pizzeria arcade machines still works today. But does the great gameplay of yesteryear mean that yesteryear is entitled to having it? Our millennium earned this fair and square. I needed time to think.

I laid in my bed, uneasy, shaken, crying. Fifty thousand questions and possibilities rushed through my mind. Maybe they wanted their culture back. It's a simple mistake to make, the game certainly didn't scream “2014” very loudly. Maybe it was upset that we accomplished what they couldn't. We'd made what they dreamed of but didn't have the buttons or the horsepower to accomplish, and drew too heavily from what they felt they owned. But it's ours... right

I heard a knock on my door. Trembling, I grabbed the baseball bat from under my bed and slowly walked to the front of the house. I opened the door slowly, fearfully, and saw a beast right in front of my eyes. It was six feet tall, had a rad mullet the size of a man and held a boombox so close to it's head you'd swear it grew there. It's denim jacket blew in the wind and cassette tapes jingled on it's belt. It was the 80s, and it wanted my life.

I swung at the beast as hard as I could. It's tubular mass flew off of my doorstep and onto the lawn. As it slowly limped away, I heard something come from my mouth I'd hoped I'd never hear. “Far out, bro!”. At that moment I realized that I was in far deeper than I'd ever expected I would be.

I noticed most of the reviews of this game go along the lines of “11/10 it's Metal Slug”. I'm going to quit it with this pattern and tell you exactly why you should give SNK your money to play this video game as if you'd never been into an arcade before.

For the uninitiated: Metal Slug 3 is a run and gun game that hits all of the nails on the head with the back of a rawket lawnchair that looks like a shotgun for no real reason, doesn't take itself too seriously, has powerups that can't be described using words that aren't synonymous with “fun” or “baller” and has vehicles named “Slugs”.

The responsiveness and naturalness of the controls is a big point to mention in this game. Your character controls like a dream, with jumping controls to avoid the slew of bullets coming your way being crisp and responsive, and character movement being about as immediate as your thumb, fingers, or hand(joystick 4 lyfe) is. Which is important because it's one shot and you're dead. But you get a total of about 60 lives so it's fine.

Fire direction is tied to your movement, but the game is balanced around this in a manner in which you won't miss the free aiming typically associated with modern run and guns, and will probably find it more fun in all honesty.

Speaking of fire direction, the lack of 8 firing directions like in similar games is done beautifully rather than frustratingly, as it enables you to fire upwards while walking or do things like jump or move and aim straight down while moving in midair, things you'll need to pull sometimes to make it out alive. In places where diagonal fire is even something you'd feel the need for (which are short, infrequent, and don't overstay their welcome), you're always given a heavy machine gun which is capable of fire on diagonals should you aim it upwards and downwards again while firing. These segments are incredibly satisfying to take on.

AND THEN THERE ARE SLUGS. An important part of the series, slugs are the vehicles you're able to get into which just ramp up the insanity to a whole new level. Be it a tank with an aimable machine gun and a cannon, an armored weaponized submarine, or a camel that shoots plasma balls at your enemies, These multi-hitpoint wonders just rain death if you take care of them and it's as amazing as it seems.

I've yet to mention the satisfying little details that this game crammed in to make everything just so much better than any competing games have accomplished as far as I'm aware. Little things like the cosmetic reload animations that happen when you're idle, or that eating too much food makes you fat and melee attack with a fork really complete the game.

The menus are a bit confusing with a controller, as they were designed with older game pads in mind and not xbox 360 controllers, so there will be some awkwardness when A isn't select and B isn't back if you rebind your controls (you'll really want to, I recommend X for shoot, A for jump, and right bumper for grenade), but I came here to review a game not a menu.

Overall, if you're looking for a good time that doesn't involve hand holding, I'd have to recommend this game. If you're looking for some hand holding, Easy mode is still pretty okay, so I'd still have to recommend it.