Metallic Blue Nintendo DSi System - Nintendo DS - DE

Metal Slug 7 is the eighth instalment in the Metal Slug saga and is released exclusively for Nintendo's DS handheld system. The player chooses from six different heroes (Marco, Eri, Tarma, Fio, Ralf and Clark), who set out on a mission to stop the devilish (and stubborn) General Morden, who unleashes hordes of minions and machines to stop the player, allying himself with a new and even more dangerous army. As with many other games in the series, the gameplay is basically the same: the player moves their character with the D-Pad on the screen and fires their primary weapon with the Y button. The "A" button is used for throwing grenades and for the basic melee attack when the player gets close to an enemy, and the "R" button for switching primary weapons. There are also some new melee attacks that can be performed with the D-Pad and the Y button, with each attack differing depending on the character selected. In addition, four characters (Marco, Tarma, Ralf & Clark) have a special attack that can be performed by pressing "Up" on the D-Pad and pressing the "L" and "Y" buttons. Besides these new attacks, the game also makes use of the DS's dual-screen capabilities, with the main game played on the top screen and a scrollable map on the bottom screen showing the locations of freed prisoners of war and collected items. The standard power-ups are also present, such as a heavy machine gun, a rocket launcher and a laser rifle, to name just a few, as well as the ever-dangerous "Metal Slugs" scattered throughout the seven stages of the game, which range from standard tanks to jet fighters to two-wheeled tanks. There are also three difficulty levels to choose from: Beginner, Normal and Hard. A new feature is the 80-mission Combat School option, which lets the player take part in a series of special missions rewarded according to the action required in the given phase (for example, in some phases the player is rewarded for how many soldiers they destroy, while in others they are rewarded for how many prisoners of war they rescue). The better the player performs in these missions, the more points they earn and the higher their rank climbs, ranging from "Recruit" to "General of the Army".