Though the level bosses are always the same, it allows for a huge amount of diversity for multiple playthroughs. At the first stage, you can choose the upper route to fight above a river, or take a lower one to dive through the ocean. Almost all of the stages have branches that take you to completely different parts of the level, and some even have branches within the branches. There are only five levels here compared to the six of the previous two games, but each is also much larger than before. The boss is an orb that zaps you with electricity and drops monoliths on top of you. In the same stage, you can rescue an ape, who wears a diaper and wreaks hell with a pair of Uzis. In this same stage, you get a weapon called the Thunder Cloud, a storm cloud which follows you around and zaps everything in your path. Some of the captured fellows you save here are actually Morden soldiers, but they’re so grateful for being saved that they’ll reward you and run away like regular POWs. You fight yetis for some reason and save a slew of frozen POWs. The second level features a zombie attack – much like the mummies from the second game, you can get turned into a zombie if they vomit on you, which means you can unleash a wave of destruction by spewing waves of bloody vomit all over the screen. If you travel under water, you’ll swim next to giant mutated eels, each inhabiting a cage displaying some feminine name, as if they were vicious pets of some sick and twisted mind. The first stage pays tropical island filled with giant grabs and some of the most beautifully animated flying insects you’re ever likely to find.

More than just soldiers (and aliens), there’s an even greater variety of weird enemies to fight. Why? For starters, there’s a huge amount of creativity in practically every level. The third Metal Slug is heralded as the apex of the series.

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