Ahh, the many times I have smashed my hands onto an arcade machine’s sides in agony as my silly little men somehow, somehow, end up getting hit by an attack in Metal Slug 3. Argued by many as THE definitive version of the long and storied series, the game is finally making its way over to the PC.
Developers SNK Playmore have started a closed beta, which you can try to get into by either sacrificing your babies praying to them in this Steam thread, following them on Twitter or stalking their Facebook page.
For those who don’t know about the game, the series is a run-and-gun side-scrolling shooter, where players control a member of either S.P.A.R.R.O.W. squad or the Peregrine Falcon Strike Force as they attempted in the past to fend off a massive coup d’état from an evil foe. With aliens. And dinosaurs.
The third game picks up some time after their human leader is considered killed in action. The reasons for why lucky number three is so celebrated are plentiful. Metal Slug 3 added branching paths, more than ample amounts of secrets—including having to learn, by chance and entirely by rote memorization, where to shoot on various parts of the screen to receive bonus items—and even more vehicles called Slugs to jump into and make use of.
It also helped that the series never took itself too seriously, happily throwing in aliens, mummies, the undead (who could infect you) and more. Or it might be its punishingly hard difficulty and stupidly long (but also awesome!) final level.
You can try to get into the closed beta or wait for its release scheduled for February on the Steam page.
