Bullets fly and circuits try in heavy-duty cyborg techno-slaughter. You control Metal Head, the ultimate cyborg warrior, patrolling the charred urban destruction of the great war. And a murderous mecha-force is gunning for you! INCREDIBLE 3-D textured polygon graphics engulf Metal Head in searing firefights as cyber troops, hover craft and ground attack vehicles annihilate the planet! You are the ultimate tech-destroyer - with chain guns, missiles, radar tracking and Heads-up Display! Head-banging heavy-metal music amps you up for pure warfare! 24 megs of cyber-combat rock through war torn urban streets, bombed out farmland, scorched forests and bullet-riddled 'burbs!
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This is the second 32X game I've played as the system had such a limited library in it's short life span. I may decide to try some of the many ports on it to see the difference at some point but otherwise there isn't really much else to try. It's a shame really because though pretty rough in a lot of areas Metal Head does show glimmers of promise for what the 32X could do.
Released in February 1995 this game is at the time of writing 29 years old. I played this on original hardware with a third party 6 button controller. The controller is kind of needed for the variety of options this has to my surprise in controlling your mech (You can play it on a 3 button as well). The mech you pilot is referred to as a 'Metal Head' though the role you play is part of the World Federation Police taking down terrorists. There is more of a plot but it's utterly drab in how it comes across. There is an intro sequence with the background story and in between missions you have a digitised head of your commander talking to you about your objectives to push the plot along. The audio quality for the dialog is just awful, like they have the microphone in their mouth when speaking but the worst aspect of this is the digitised head animations. Look at this (0.41 seconds in). It's like trying to make a real life Terrance & Phillip from South Park. I'll be honest I found it hilarious but for a game that mostly takes it's terrorist, war, military police themes so seriously it's kind of laughable.
More positively though the visuals are actually pretty solid. Very early 3D and feels almost like it could be a launch PS1 game. You move your Metal Head through city environments and sometimes industrial warehouse / underground bases. You fight a variety of drones, tanks and mechs on these 3D battlefields. The buildings are all 3D models with a flat image in the horizon to hide the draw distance but with the slightly muddy rough visual style it all blends together surprisingly well. Much like the digitised talking heads though when the mechs are destroyed falling into their base polygons onto the floor shatters the illusion and the frame rate does tend to chug along a bit at times. These small caveats asides though I was pretty impressed overall with it's visuals.
Gameplay wise as mentioned above it's recommended for the 6 button controller. It uses a couple of buttons to look 90 degrees left or right, change weapons, strafe, fire, run as well as change perspective. It's got a pretty robust set of options for the time and a variety of views including two first person variations and two third person variations. Actually firing weapons at anything though just feels awful. Weapons lack punch regardless of which one you use from chain guns to rocket launchers. They may as well be spud guns. Aiming is equally poor due to the juddering frame rate and sometimes it's uncertain if you are even hitting the enemies in question lacking impact or having pitiful explosions. For each mission you beat you earn points that you can use in between to either upgrade or buy new weapons however this resets each time and isn't permanent. You can tell this is a grift as the merchant calls you a 'chump' each time. He can see us coming a mile away apparently.
So did I have fun playing this? In small bursts kinda? Would I recommend this? No, unless you want to experience a retro piece of gaming history on a failed console experiment. The 32X had a ton of potential that people are still showing to this day and Metal Head does show this but realistically, it's not a very good game.
Also standard for me, I need to comment that I love the cover art. I wish the game looked like that actually playing it.
+ Visuals show the 32X's potential.
+ Robust control and views.
+ Digitised heads are hilarious...
- ...but also the spoken audio and digitised heads are awful.
- Story is boring.
- Missions are stale.
- Weapons lack impact or punch.
Released in February 1995 this game is at the time of writing 29 years old. I played this on original hardware with a third party 6 button controller. The controller is kind of needed for the variety of options this has to my surprise in controlling your mech (You can play it on a 3 button as well). The mech you pilot is referred to as a 'Metal Head' though the role you play is part of the World Federation Police taking down terrorists. There is more of a plot but it's utterly drab in how it comes across. There is an intro sequence with the background story and in between missions you have a digitised head of your commander talking to you about your objectives to push the plot along. The audio quality for the dialog is just awful, like they have the microphone in their mouth when speaking but the worst aspect of this is the digitised head animations. Look at this (0.41 seconds in). It's like trying to make a real life Terrance & Phillip from South Park. I'll be honest I found it hilarious but for a game that mostly takes it's terrorist, war, military police themes so seriously it's kind of laughable.
More positively though the visuals are actually pretty solid. Very early 3D and feels almost like it could be a launch PS1 game. You move your Metal Head through city environments and sometimes industrial warehouse / underground bases. You fight a variety of drones, tanks and mechs on these 3D battlefields. The buildings are all 3D models with a flat image in the horizon to hide the draw distance but with the slightly muddy rough visual style it all blends together surprisingly well. Much like the digitised talking heads though when the mechs are destroyed falling into their base polygons onto the floor shatters the illusion and the frame rate does tend to chug along a bit at times. These small caveats asides though I was pretty impressed overall with it's visuals.
Gameplay wise as mentioned above it's recommended for the 6 button controller. It uses a couple of buttons to look 90 degrees left or right, change weapons, strafe, fire, run as well as change perspective. It's got a pretty robust set of options for the time and a variety of views including two first person variations and two third person variations. Actually firing weapons at anything though just feels awful. Weapons lack punch regardless of which one you use from chain guns to rocket launchers. They may as well be spud guns. Aiming is equally poor due to the juddering frame rate and sometimes it's uncertain if you are even hitting the enemies in question lacking impact or having pitiful explosions. For each mission you beat you earn points that you can use in between to either upgrade or buy new weapons however this resets each time and isn't permanent. You can tell this is a grift as the merchant calls you a 'chump' each time. He can see us coming a mile away apparently.
So did I have fun playing this? In small bursts kinda? Would I recommend this? No, unless you want to experience a retro piece of gaming history on a failed console experiment. The 32X had a ton of potential that people are still showing to this day and Metal Head does show this but realistically, it's not a very good game.
Also standard for me, I need to comment that I love the cover art. I wish the game looked like that actually playing it.
+ Visuals show the 32X's potential.
+ Robust control and views.
+ Digitised heads are hilarious...
- ...but also the spoken audio and digitised heads are awful.
- Story is boring.
- Missions are stale.
- Weapons lack impact or punch.
Like a very low-spec Armored Core; kinda fun and charming, while showcasing both the 32X and the 6-button controller. You do missions in arena-structured areas, get points based on performance, spend them on upgrades, rinse and repeat for 6 worlds. It's not an elegant or smooth-running game but it never impeded the experience, it felt congruous with the primitive, infantile tech of the 32X and the bulky tanks - which only made it more funny when enemies died by splitting into low-gravity limbs and slowly falling to the ground.
I wish the ending weren't so anticlimactic though, you can't just give me a 'rescue the president' shtick, throw me a barebones final boss, then cut to credits with no resolution. They have some balls to sequel-hook this in the post-credits scene too, some real delusional sorcery here
Makes me wanna play Star Fox 2 now, which will probably sour my opinion on this when that game runs infinitely smoother and has actual combat mechanics
I wish the ending weren't so anticlimactic though, you can't just give me a 'rescue the president' shtick, throw me a barebones final boss, then cut to credits with no resolution. They have some balls to sequel-hook this in the post-credits scene too, some real delusional sorcery here
Makes me wanna play Star Fox 2 now, which will probably sour my opinion on this when that game runs infinitely smoother and has actual combat mechanics
I wanted to be MechWarrior so bad...