
	Platform NES Genre Action Publisher Irem Developer Irem Released 1991
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Metal Storm

Ask a long time gamer what some of the best titles to hit the NES were, and invariably Irem's classic action title Metal Storm will get mentioned. A relatively obscure title that came out towards the end of the console's lifespan, it brought brought an interesting gameplay mechanic to the table by allow players to switch which way gravity worked, making it so that the robot that they were controlling was able to run both on the ground, as well as on the ceiling. It may sound simple now, but it was a pretty nifty feature to behold back in 1991.

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The game was reasonably challenging to play, but to a degree this came from having to get used to Metal Storm's controls. When jumping, if one was to press up on the controller it would cause the gravity to reverse, and their mecha would be running along the ceiling. Jump again, and press down instead will send the little guy back to the ground again.

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This would also cause enemies to switch where they were too, making players have to keep in mind one more thing while navigating levels. Things were fine once a player adjusted to this, but even in the heat of battle, the mechanic could be a tad disorienting. It was mostly needed for clearing the levels themselves, as the feature wasn't terribly necessary on most bosses. One other thing about the game that made it needlessly difficult was the fact that dying against an end of level boss would force the player to replay the entire level over again, which is always a treat.

As far as late generation NES games go, Metal Storm looked pretty good. A lot of detail went into the mecha players were controlling, as well as the environments (going so far as to give the impression of parallax scrolling even the the console couldn't actually do this), and also the enemies looked quite good. Color schemes were still somewhat limited, but there's only so much that one can do with the NES. Given the tools that they had to work with, Irem made a very good looking game on a very aged system.

Unfortunately for Irem, this game came out very late in the NES' life at a time when most people were busy oggling the SNES, Genesis, and TurboGrafx-16. As such, Metal Storm slipped between the cracks, failing to enjoy much in the way of commercial success (reviewers were quite fond of the game, however). In the end, it will remain one of the better games to have made its way into NES library, and that's got to count for something.

roygbiv
April 21, 2011