The game (Demon Front) is very similar to Metal Slug, but there are some significant differences.
There are no grenade type weapons. Instead, what you have is that little friend who follows you around. By holding down the fire button (ala R-Type) you charge up the little guys attack and let it rip. Each of the four friends is assigned to a character, so there's no swapping. The different types of friends are, fire, water, electric, and I guess wind? (looks like boomerangs).
With the push of the C button, your friend will transform into a shield and protect you. However, it will wear down after a few hits. This comes in handy in a few spots that are really busy, when you just need to jump into the middle of things and kick ass.
Pressing the C button again will bring back your little friend.
Perhaps the biggest difference comes in the form of the power up system. Your normal gun and your helper’s attack can be permanently powered up for the duration of the game, until you stop playing. So it carries over with continues. Each time you do a close attack, (punching, ect) a meter goes up. Each time the meter gets filled, you go up a level. This makes your normal gun bigger and changes the appearance of your helper a little each time. It also increases the attack of your friend.
Also there is a blue meter that goes up with each attack from your elemental friend. I’m not sure what this does. I suspect it just acts in the same way as the other meter, but I can’t be sure.
I would have preferred a grenade type weapon, but that might have thrown off the balance of the power up system. Actually, having the system this way provides a unique incentive to power up your attacks. And it makes for some hectic game play.
Demon Front scrolls much smoother than Metal Slug. If you ever played MS, then you know what I mean. As beautiful as MS is, there is no denying that it has jerky scrolling. The silky smooth scrolling in DF, to me, gives the game better control. Also, the jumping is not as floaty as MS. I’m not saying that Metal Slug has bad control, far from it. But I think in Demon Front it’s just a little bit easier to get your sprite to do what you want.
Demon Front also allows you to sprout wings and get a really long jump in. A double tap on the jump button will make your wings come out. I’m not sure how this fits in to the story of the game, but who cares.
As for the different weapons, Demon Front has some cool stuff. Instead of a flamethrower like Metal Slug, DF gives us an Ice Thrower. Graphically, this gun is really cool (pun!). It is very well animated and encloses the target in an ice block. For all intents though, this is the same weapon as the flamethrower from MS, same range and damage.
The shotgun is also very similar to the one in MS. Not really much to say about it, only that it makes a HUGE blast when you fire it. Animated to perfection.
There is an electric gun that just sucks. With it, you shoot a big ball of electricity. Upon impact, it splits up into four smaller balls that spread out diagonally. This weapon fires slow and doesn’t seem to do much damage.
My favorite weapon in the game is the canister gun. If you’ve played the old Konami hit Super Contra at the arcades, (or MAME) then you might know what I am talking about. This gun fires a little rotating canister and splits into more, smaller, canisters upon impact. The gun is strong and visually appealing to use. All the little explosions this gun makes just look awesome.
You do have a machine gun power up that's almost identical to the one in MS, however in DF, you cannot shoot diagonally whatsoever. IN MS, you can fake it, not so in DF.
Both games allow you to shoot up, down and all around. Though as I mentioned, the machine gun has a more limited range in Demon Front.
There are no vehicles to use in Demon Front. I’m kind of surprised at this, seeing as how Demon Front borrows so much from Metal Slug. I guess they didn’t want it TOO similar.
One last thing, Deomn Front supports 4 player simultaneous play. You would need another PGM system and another cab to do it, but it's worth mentioning.
Overall, I would say the game play is spot on. And it should be, considering that Metal Slug is basically being copied here.
Which is better? Metal Slug wins out by a hair. It wins for the better weapons, vehicles, and bosses.
Both are fun as sex to play, but if I was forced to choose, MS would get the nod.
I would say DF is as good as the first Metal Slug. Slug x and 3 are better. Metal Slug 3 is still tops in this genre, in my opinion. Perfection.
Difficulty wise? I think Slug 3 is harder.Quote:
Originally posted by Click_Stick
Good shit, Jef. How would you say Demon Front compares to MS [say MSX or MS3] difficulty-wise?
Screens are from my JAMMA cab. As you can see, in some of the pics you can see the scan lines. I didn't get around to fixing them all, that's why some look cleaner than others.Quote:
Originally posted by soundwave
Was the alien 3 game on snes the same as the genesis one? I think there ma have been some differences but I really like the genesis game. Dunno if that's a run and gun game though because it had find the key unlock the door kinda gameplay (a la ZIllion).
JeffmcC, Demon Front looks interesting--did you take thos pics off the TV?
Cyber Lip :p
And Cyber Lip rocks!
