1978. Imagine this ex-pugilist quietly sitting at the bar of his own coffee shop somewhere in Osaka, planning his next move as entrepreneur. The Shin Nihon Kikaku, an electrical systems company he aquired few years before, was the best fit for working together his construction company. But Eikichi Kawasaki, in his early 30s at that time, had another plan for it. And a very bold one.

The Japan in the 70s was invaded by first videogames and companies like Sega, Taito, Namco and Nintendo at the time were just producers of electro-mechanical arcade games testing a new market. Eikichi wanted to join the bandwagon of these pioneers and, in order to do that, he decided to turn its electric company to the 'Shin Nihon Kikaku Corporation' and started producing videogames.

And undoubtly it payed: after publishing a number of games, culminating with a masterpiece shooter called Vanguard (1981), now considered the grandfather of modern shoot em'ups, Eikichi decided to take just the first letters of the company name, opening a new branch in California and spread its games in the USA and the world: our beloved 'SNK CORP.', the unshakable paladin of arcade videogames, was born.

SNK Corporation strategy was producing quality arcade games and earning from licensing them for arcade use and - later - for home consoles ports. One of the finest examples of this strategy was the top-down shooter Ikari Warriors (1986): the success of the arcade version helped the ports to the many home computers and consoles to rack even more success.

During the North American video game crash of 1983 SNK opted for a short change of plans, opening the 'SNK Home Entertainment' and starting distributing products for the only home console that wasn't affected by the crisis: Nintendo. But just after the release of the Super NES, SNK came back to its original 'arcade-first' strategy, leaving to selected third parties the home console licenses and portings.

SNK tried to even evolve the arcade market with innovative hardware: in 1990 produced the Neo-Geo MVS, a modular arcade cabinet capable of playing multiple interchangeable games, and it was a huge hit. At the same time - and quite surprisingly - it launched the Neo-Geo AES too, a similiar system capable to run a game at the time using cartriges thought for the home market.

SNK was coming true the dream of every 80s kid: having a true arcade game at home with zero porting compromises: compared to other consoles at the time, the Neo-Geo AES had much better graphics and sound... but at a very high price.

This is the break point of SNK success.

While the company move toward the home market is very understandable, probably driven by the menacing growing quality of home console games and ports, it hasn't been enough: the high price tag of these home arcades ($399 for the console only and $200 for each game) made them quite unappealing and gave to home consoles enough time to expand and eat the arcade market, slowly leading SNK to its bankruptcy of 2000.

It's during this very last grasp of our Arcade Hero company that Metal Slug (1996) was born: an iconic, colorful and chaotic platform-shooter that today, ironically, is the true mascotte of an entire age of arcade videogames for many gamers.

And to this very game I dedicate my 70th article and game of Wright Magazine, with this humble ZX Spectrum fictional conversion. Thank you SNK.

Plot!

Jump, fire and win the war! I'm sure you know what to do, soldier!

Use LEFT/RIGHT for walking, DOWN for crouching and the B BUTTON for jumping. Use UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT for aiming at any direction and the A BUTTON for firing with your main weapon. Use the (newly introduced) C BUTTON for throwing a grenade. Jump over a vehicle for driving it and hit DOWN+B for leaving it. Good luck!

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