I picked up a copy of the Metal Slug Collection and I've been playing through the various games... but I can't shake this overall feeling of disappointment. I don't think I hyped this up to monster proportions prior to playing it - and I really did want to like it - but I guess it's just not a good fit or what I'm looking for. I know some people will hate the comparison but I just can't help but think Contra is superior in some ways despite the fact that franchise drives me nuts in some ways.

Can anyone share their own thoughts on this franchise or point out what they think is the best game...?

I made a thread about this four years ago.

They are fun games but I don't see too much difference in them, and the collections all have such horrid load time that none of them are too worth bothering with.
Despite that, I still say it's kind of silly at this juncture that only MS3 alone will be getting a PC port soon...

I love my oldschool run and guns, but I never liked the controls in Metal Slug. They feel sluggish (metal sluggish...har har) and I always have trouble getting out of the way of bullets and incoming attacks, as well as aiming diagonally. Worth playing, but not on the level of old-school Contra, where you can shoot and avoid bullets on a dime. I love most of the gameplay, the sense of humor, the vehicles and pretty much everything else about the games, but that control knocks it down a few pegs.

As for favorite, I have a huge bias for the first Metal Slug because I owned it on Saturn and spent a lot of time with it. After that, they are pretty indistinguishable to me.

Edit: And apparently, I said the same thing four years ago. Same pun even.

Not be a jerk about it, but I read this in pretty much every review... yet I didn't think the loading was that bad. However, you're talking to the guy who didn't mind the loading in the SNES version of Alpha 2 so...

I moved on to Metal Slug 2 which is really... weird. The opening areas are just bizarre with their ethnic flare. The second boss is really annoying but after playing this it's kind of obvious why they made X as the issues with this one are really apparent. It does get a lot better as it goes on however and there are parts that I like more than the original.

Odd question... does anyone feel that Metal Slug 2 is better than Metal Slug X once you ignore 2's framrate issues? I think I like 2 more....