Games to Buy: December: Week 3

I am going to name this report turn-back Tuesday because there are a number of retro games being released. So, I have some good news and bad news. The good news is these classic games are awesome, the bad news is you will have to have a PSP to play them. Ah, the PSP, it’s like the ugly daughter of a billionaire. You don’t want to take her out, but if you do you get to drive the Mercedes.

As a boycott all the videos will be from the original games.

Metal Slug

The ultimate in slide scrolling shooters, if you haven’t played this on an emulator go do so now. This is one of those games you can play over and over forever. It’s you, the lone wolf with an arsenal of weapons from machine guns, to flamethrowers to tanks, against a horde of bad guys. This game is fast paced with great graphics and music and it is hard as well.

Art of Fighting

This title shows its age a bit more than other Neo Geo games. It’s really like a mix between Street Fighter and Final Fight in the way the characters move along with the backgrounds. Having the ability to move back and forward added an interesting dynamic to the game. One thing I personally thought this game suffered from was the cheap combos some characters could use, but honestly if you are good you can overcome them.

Fatal Fury

SNK, that is pretty much all you need to know. This is yet another great fighter from the Neo Geo that is more geared to counters than most other fighters. There are a lot of great fighters in Fatal Fury and learning all their combos is the key to winning, but with almost all fighters from SNK there are some shoe in characters that will just own you with a few moves. The graphics and sound isn’t as high end as other Neo Geo titles, but the moves were pretty fluid for the time. As for the music, not personally my favorite soundtrack, but they did a decent job.

Samurai Shodown

Another awesome fighter from the Neo Geo. Samurai Shodown is all about the art of the weapon and it allows players to pick a character based on their play-style. If you love to attack from far you can pick a character with a longer sword or a ranged attack like that damn bird that owns me. Like in Art of Fighting you can move forward and backward as well as side to side in order to better setup your attack. Graphic wise it is a little cleaning and clearer than Fatal Fury and the soundtrack is more slated to the time period. Samurai Shodown is one of the best weapon fighters of all time.

The King of Fighters ’94

Rounding out the Neo Geo flashback is King of Fighters where here you pick teams of three and represent your country in team based fighting. The King of Fighters takes characters from various SNK game including pre-NEO GEO ones and allows you to battle it out. The gameplay is the same as Fatal Fury or Art of Fighting as far as controls and combos. However the Team Battle System is what makes KOF so cool.

PSP or Emulator….

Look, sure you could go and get a ton of emulators that could play these games. In fact you could even mod your PSP in order to play these very games emulated, but you wouldn’t want to do that would you? I didn’t think so, see you next time.

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