Metal Slug 8 (Lord Moogoo)

= Overview = Metal Slug 8 is the newest installment in the Metal Slug franchise, and is published by SNK Playmore and TenCent. This game retains a lot of old mechanics from previous games, but has included some major changes, such as the presence of an upgrade store where you could spend your coins to upgrade your character before the next mission. Missions have also been revamped to different timeline locations, somewhat akin to Metal Slug 7/XX

Contents

 * Story


 * Playable characters
 * Returning Weapons
 * New Weapons

Story
Just after Metal Slug 7/XX had ended, General Morden and his forces were being pursued by the regular army, after his last disastrous failure with his future rebel soldiers and the fall of the Kraken. Fortunately for him, his rebel soldiers manage to create enough diversion and he makes his hasty getaway in a submarine, and speeds off into the ocean. However, the rebel army has been crippled due to their constant failures to stop the regular army and the P.F. Squadron.

The world, much to the happiness to the regular army was relatively peaceful. Sometimes, there were a few rebel army pockets of resistance, but without Morden in sight, were quickly quenched. For roughly 3 years, the world stayed like this. However, the regular army knew that Morden was hiding somewhere and was probably planning something malicious with his troops.

Deep in the European Forests, somewhere in modern day Poland was Morden's temporary base of operations. Morden was busy reshuffling his war cabinet.

His rebel army has been devastated by the constant major defeats from the Regular Army. His martian comrades had broken their alliance due to finding his leadership incompetent. With his reputation tarnished, General Morden launches a desperate offensive akin to the “Battle of the Bulge” to strike hard at the Regular Army. He has recruited Abigail, a promising soldier to the Lieutenant General, much to Allen O Neil’s distaste. She makes promise that the rebel army will rise up again.

The rebel army, once the biggest threat to the world is falling dangerously close to civil war and disarray.

The regular army and P.F. Squadron quickly receive information of an impending rebel soldier offensive in Europe and quickly head there to dispatch.

It seems like the true final mission - The heartland of the Rebel Army was about to fall !

Mission 1 involves the squad in crushing the final offensive by the rebels. The battle was tough, and a bitter Morden gets into a large mech suit amongst the flaming wreckage of the rebel base to battle it out. He begins to laugh - It all came to this. So be it ! And he gets into his signature Hi-Do. As rebel rockets and spaceships escape into space, Morden attempts to kill the heroes for the last time.

All is lost for the rebel army, for without any alien assistance or weapons from the Amadeus syndicate, along with constant defections and decay, they are overwhelmed by a collective alliance of Regular soldiers. The Hi-Do Morden pilots is eventually destroyed, and Morden panics, running to an escape rocket. Most of the rebel army fragments have either surrendered or escaped, while small pockets of resistance are spread in other areas around the world.

When Morden attempts to evacuate the site into his space rocket, Abigail decides that Morden is unfit to lead the rebel army and takes off to the rebel space base on the Moon without him, in a blatant act of betrayal. Roughly half of the rebels side with Abigail but the other half refuse to leave Morden, calling it high treason.

As a stray rocket is about to hit Morden, Allen O Neil quickly appears and tanks the shot for Morden. He is blasted away. As the smoke clears, it is unknown what happened to him. Morden is quickly cornered by the regular army and this time, there was nowhere to run and no-one to save him again.

Deep in space, a computer in the rebel army’s space station suddenly receives a signal from Earth. On it, a familiar logo with the letter A begins to boot up. The computer whirs and begins to buzz electricity. Then, none other than Amadeus himself appears on the screen. While his physical body was destroyed, he managed to transmit his AI onto the final computer in Metal Slug 4. The rebel soldiers tried to shut the machine off, but the machines were infected by the dormant White Baby Virus. When Abigail and her commanders arrive at the base, they encounter the Amadeus computer. They quickly make an alliance, confident a change in commander would revitalize the rebel army.

Amadeus has been working on a new plan. Amongst the new weapons and war machines of death, he found the wreckage of the portal from Metal Slug 7 and infused it with the White Baby Virus. This brand new portal of doom has linked with several different alternate universes with other versions of the Rebel Armies from all kinds of different timelines !

Suddenly, cracks begin to appear in the Earth, much to the Regular Armies shock. Suddenly, a huge influx of rebel soldiers from all kinds of timelines began to come out. Some had samurai swords, others were cybernetic robots with chainsaws, and even nuclear warhead equipped machines began to crawl out !

But they have had to originate from one point. It seemed to emanate deep underground from some kind of superfortress. It looked like a palace was being constructed. Maybe this was where the army was appearing !

Marco and the team rushed back to HQ if they could find out what the massive appearance of soldiers were. This was not like anything that had seen - All kinds of soldiers and war machines had begun springing up. They quickly found their base sabotaged by none other than the Amadeus Syndicate, where a small army of theirs managed to escape to space, too and begin building a giant space cannon that could wipe out cities and infect countless machines with the virus.

With the help of the Rebel Army, Amadeus entrusted that Abigail would command her forces to seize the 6 energy cores in each timeline to power the space satellite. If it was completed, the entire world would lose their will to fight and surrender to the rebel army. Abigail cunningly agrees, but would seize the moment to use the satellite without Amadeus syndicate and would promptly execute him and his followers after the plan was completed.

Marco, Eri, Tarma and Fio, along with the other main characters quickly dispatch with the regular army to stop the satellite being completed. The player has free reign to choose which of the six worlds they tackle. A new feature, the upgrade store had opened. By scoring enough points, players were able to upgrade their hitpoints and weapon capabilities. With Morden in prison, he feels incredibly betrayed by his own troops. However, he hatches the plot to cooperate with the regular army… till the right time comes for his mighty return. While the regular army refused to allow Morden to assist, Marco knew that Morden would know where the rebel space base was and allowed him to assist.

Missions 2 to 7 would be the following timelines :

Ancient Japan - Ancient Warlords and Samurai Rebels

Mutant Dystopia - The rebel army mutating by radioactive wastes from a nuclear war

The Medieval Age - Rebel soldiers in knight uniforms, along with wizards !

Soviet Russia - A cold dictatorship

Ancient Rome - A new rebel empire, armed with dangerous warriors !

Tropical Jungle - An island situated on Borneo in another universe

After the successful shutting of each timeline, the regular army would be one step closer to foiling Abigail’s and Amadeus’s plan. However, for each timelines shut, they too would be one step closer to finishing their ultimate weapon.

Mission 8 - The Grand Amadeus Palace

After the successful defeat of all the timeline rifts, Amadeus activates his secret base, deep underground to surface. Turns out that for years, a massive Amadeus aligned army had built a massive palace, under instructions by Amadeus from his space computer. Now, the rebel army has joined them.

Mission 9 - Rebel Space Base

With the destruction of Amadeus’s palace, the rebel and Amadeus syndicate escape into space onto the rebel space base to plan their next move. However, the regular army are quick to end their escape and begin appearing en masse on the base for a final offensive.

Abigail appears, heavily armored and battles the P.F. Squadron on the rebel base, but is defeated. She attempts to hijack Amadeus's computer to gain the upper hand afterwards but Amadeus was one step ahead and shot a powerful bolt of electricity that stunned her. Amadeus and his loyal soldiers see no use of the rebel army anymore and escape to their ultimate space cannon.

Amidst all the chaos, Morden escapes the regular army and attempts to seize the rebel army back under his control. The Amadeus syndicate has reached full capacity and is planning to destroy the Earth completely. They will create a new artificial world of perfection. Now, once again, the rebel army, now split into two warring factions and the regular army must cooperate once more to take down Amadeus who has gone full rogue.

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Final Mission - Amadeus Intergalactic Cannon of Death

Tons of metal duplicates of our heroes, Abigail and Morden have been produced to stop them. Amadeus pilots a 5 part mechaton machine of death. The best and most powerful creations ever seen in a Metal Slug game appear, along with the most tough and deadly soldiers ever !

He has attained powers equivalent to a God and nearly erases the entire Earth. However, he is defeated. While he wished for a world full of robot creations, something his robotic children would have loved, Amadeus is unable to continue his war. But maybe, there may be a utopia. But it will have to be one of his soldiers who complete that task.

His loyal soldiers begin to defect to both the regular and rebel armies. Some, however, stay in the wreckage and are killed, and others still actively plan on carrying out Amadeus’s mission.

When the cannon is falling apart, Morden receives a message that his supporters have found a massive superweapon in Amadeus’s destroyed palace and are sending it to him, much to Morden’s delight. He pilots a massive mech and attempts to destroy the heroes in space. However, he too is defeated. He escapes with a loyal battalion of fanatics but the exploding cannon propels their ship away from Earth into space. As the cannon station is exploding, the superweapon is pulled into the machine, destroying both of them. Morden and his forces escape into a ship, but are blasted off into space, away from Earth.

They land up, conveniently on the martian homeland, much to the anger of the martians. Morden screams and attempts to run away from the martians. However, someone wearing a mask appears to have allied with the martians. Taking off the mask, it seems that the Ptolemaic Army has established a unified base with the martians.

Abigail had escaped back to the earth to seize control of the rebel army. Now, a civil war exists between two factions of the rebel army : Morden vs Abigail. While the rebel army was crushed, they were able to conduct stealth attacks throughout the world thanks to the new tech seized by the retreating rebel battalions. The regular army continues to battle the rebel army, but things are looking bright for the future. Perhaps the war is ending ?

Or is it just the start of the beginning ?

Whatever it may be, the Regular Army actively pursues peace but also is on high alert for any future attacks, whether it be the rebels, aliens or other forces.

Playable characters

 * Marco Rossi (Starting Character) : Strong and versatile, along with being a very balanced pick does twice the damage with his stock pistol.

Returning Weapons

 * Heavy Machine Gun  [H] - Efficient bullet spray weapon
 * Double Machine Gun [2H] - Extremely potent bullet spray weapon
 * Rocket Launcher [R] - Fires powerful exploding rockets
 * Shotgun [S] - Extreme Damage in a single burst
 * Drop Shot [D] - Fires bouncy, elastic exploding balls
 * Flame Shot [F] - Fires burning balls of fire that scorch enemies
 * Enemy Chaser [C] - Homing missiles that lock onto targets
 * Laser Gun [L] - Fires powerful laser sparks
 * Iron Lizard [I] - Fires exploding iron lizards
 * Super Grenade [G] - Fires powerful strong grenades
 * Zantetsu Sword [Z] - Extremely strong sword
 * Thunder Shot [T] - Fires electrical beams

New Weapons !

 * Comet Cannon [CO] - Fires space rocks that burst into rock fragments that bound off walls
 * Nuke Bazooka [N] - Fires heavy handed nukes that have large explosions and poisons enemy troops
 * Shock Wire [SHO] - Uses a short ranged energy whip that stuns enemies that releases ground sparks.
 * Shield [Shield Icon] - Equips a resilient shield that deflects enemy shots, but falls after enough damage.
 * Plasma Boomerangs [P] - Fires hot energy boomerangs that curve and can hit enemies twice !
 * Freeze Ray [F] - Fires a superchilled ray that slows enemies and can freeze some surfaces.
 * Gravity Gun [GG] - Fires anti-gravity pulses that throw enemies up into the air and throws them back down !
 * Shark Hunter [SH] - Fires robot torpedo sharks that eat enemies and ejects poop (10 points)