The Play List: Metal Storm
| Game (Year) | Metal Storm (1990) |
| Platform | NES |
| Developer | Tamtex |
| Publisher | Irem |
| Time to beat | An hour or two |
| Cheats | Infinite lives, savestates in the boss rush |
| Fun Factor | Clever and a little cute |
I recently beat Metal Storm, a little run and gun platformer on the NES.
You’re in a cute little mech, you run to the right. You shoot robots. There’s a cool gravity flip mechanic. What more could you need?
I had a lot of fun with the game - and about the right amount of frustration. You die in one hit, but most enemies go down pretty quck as well, so combat feels more about agility and reaction time than anything else. I often felt like the weapon powerups made little difference, and tended to stick to the generic “bigger shot” powerup - except in one later stage where I figured out you could push the energy shield powerup slightly through a wall and I used it as a melee attack.
A couple of the stages have cool vertical screen-wrap mechanics that got me thinking pretty hard about where I’d land after a leap, and a few had stage hazards that would turn on and off or change orientation when flipping the gravity. The later bosses and stages can be very quick to kill you right after you spawn in, so I turned on infinite lives and saved myself the frustration of traversing the levels over and over.
Your little mech animates very well and has a lot of character. Big time Little Guy. None of the other animations in the game really stand out very much. The way the backgrounds scroll can be a bit confusing at times, and while they don’t really evoke much of a sense of place they are interesting enough.
The sound and music are fine. The first level theme is good, but none of the other music really struck me one way or the other. The sound design is generally good, with the player-death explosion being especially good (this is for the best since you’ll probably hear it plenty).
I found the ending to be hilariously grim:
Congratulations, you're immortal! Fight forever! |
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Overall, a good time. I recommend it!