Metal Slug ARCADE

Metal Slug is Nazca Corporation’s 1996 run-and-gun arcade game, released for SNK’s Neo Geo MVS coin-op hardware. Playing as a Peregrine Falcon Squad soldier, you fight through five hand-animated missions, hijacking tanks and other vehicles along the way and rescuing captured POWs for extra points and ammo drops.

Its dense, exaggerated pixel-art sprite work — designed by a small team that included several artists who would go on to define the series’ visual identity — set a benchmark for 2D animation that the many sequels which followed continued to build on. It remains one of the most recognizable run-and-gun titles to come out of the arcade era.