It amuses me that the author seems to think offering a flash/mod service for people who don't want to or can't modify their carts is abhorrent and yet still knowingly acquires, owns, and modifies an illegally distributed and/or resold cartridge.
>This kind of "glitch" was formative for a lot of slow motion in films.
I like that, that's a fantastic idea. Are you referring to something in particular?
I remember this effect from childhood gaming, back when you could not really distinguish bug from feature. And I'm sure developers let that distinction slide as well. The slowdown is such a natural fit in an adrenaline filled state.
Absolutely fantastic post. I loved this game and completely understand the motivation behind improving MS2 FPS rate, it always looked superior to MSX.
My one question is whether the slow down was present on the arcade machines ? I just dont remember the slow down in the arcade ( only on my emulators ).
The arcade hardware (MVS) and home hardware (AES) on the Neo Geo have the exact same specs. And in the linked article the author is applying the fix to an MVS cartridge (which can be used in an AES system with an adapter).
The Metal Slug series, especially MS2, has still now some of the best 2D animations in any video game ever.
There is so much painstaking frame-by-frame detail in everything, with tons of different effects depending on the status of enemies (frozen, zombified, etc.) and the weapons you use on them (e.g. flamethrower, electricity, etc.)
> "tons of different effects depending on the status of enemies (frozen, zombified, etc.)"
Maybe you're thinking of Metal Slug 3? Don't think Metal Slug 2 had zombies, though to be fair they all look visually similar so it's hard to tell them apart.
Out of curiosity, I've got a Neo Geo Pocket Color, with 'Metal Slug 1st Mission', is there any remote similarities in the hardware between the arcade machines and the pocket console out of interest.
Like I'm wondering if they could possibly use some of the code from the arcade machines, but maybe not?
Both 16-bit machines, but vastly different CPUS. Motorola 68K vs a Toshiba of some sort. They bot have Zilogs for sound though, so maybe SNK used some code sharing there?
End of the day, SNK wisely chose to create unique experiences based on their arcade games for the system, but it was ultimately crushed by the Gameboy Color and Pokemon.
There is an official emulated version available on the PS3 PSN store. It was developed by a supremely talented small Japanese company called M2. In the game, they included an option to overclock the CPU and it makes a big difference. My favourite way to play the game.
M2 was also responsible for the 3D Sega classics on 3DS which are incredible.
>How did the error pass QA? It would seem like something d be spotted...
I don't think the devs were happy with the final product either. They released Metal Slug X soon after which is just a tweaked version of MS2 with much less slowdown, more enemies, more weapons and some small changes to the art and music.
It's also a bit more difficult while being more "fair" overall IMO.
The article says that X is more than a tweaked version in when it comes to the engine/slowdown - "the reason MSX is so much faster is because they’d actually re-written the engine rather than just fixing MS2"
While I'm sure there was some engine work since the desert and train levels are actually playable now, much of the art is just palette swapped, the level terrain is mostly identical and there's still a lot of slowdown overall (at least for the Neo Geo version).
> How did the error pass QA? It would seem like something d be spotted
Tight schedule, limited budget. This wasn't a huge-production project like today's AAA titles.
Obviously they noticed it was framedropping, maybe they figured they couldn't do anything about that in the time they had, and missed that they were actually dropping one frame too many.
