The fourth game in SNK's much-lauded series (following on from 1, 2 and X), it was a bold move from the start when the developers pushed ahead into the new millennium with a 2D hand-drawn platform shooter. Metal Slug 3 is neither a short nor a complex game, but a massively detailed epic in the classic arcade style - a vision of what the coin-op's silver age could have looked like had it come along ten years later. But now Metal Slug 3's arrived we've found the sturdy middle ground 'twixt hard and fast gameplay and involved console devotion. True enough, that's a significant part of its charm and an aspect that broadens the 360's horizons in a way that would be difficult to achieve with commercial, off-the-shelf releases.

I hadn't noticed how much Xbox Live Arcade was populated by short, uneventful, casual games.