NES box art for MetalMech: Man & Machine, the cover of NEStalgia episode 450

450 · MetalMech: Man & Machine

▶ Game info

GenreAction

ReleasedMarch 1991

SeasonSeason 7

DeveloperSculptured Software

PublisherJaleco

October 16, 2026 · 42 min · transcript available

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Sculptured Software, a Salt Lake City studio that would go on to make the Super Star Wars games and the SNES port of Doom, built this for Jaleco. It reached Japan first as Metal Flame: Psybuster. You pilot a giant mech, and when the mech can't go somewhere you hop out as a very small man. We have seen that trick before, and it was better in Blaster Master.

The machine and the man

Eject through the menu. Getting out of the mech means pausing and picking Eject, the only menu item that does anything. After a while we found the faster way, Select plus A, but getting back in is just Select, so nobody would guess it.
Stomping beats shooting. The turret is a nice touch, with a little indicator for the eight directions, but enemies sit too low or fly where it can't hit them. Squashing them is easier, and squashing feels great.
The little guy is no better. Out of the mech, Tony is a glass cannon who moves like he's on a grid. The mech never refills its health between stages either, so a tank that can take a beating still wears down.

Looking for a key

Each stage is not a run to the right. You hunt for a key, often tucked behind something destructible, and we only learned that by reaching the end of level one with nothing to open. We wanted the key to be the reason to leave the mech. Mostly it's an escape room for a machine built to smash things. Big mech-sized doors in the first level lead nowhere, which made us wonder if a Blaster Master style interior section got cut.

Story by scenery

There are no cutscenes, but the stages tell it anyway: city, sewers, Atlantis, an alien city underground, then the queen's mothership. The last level swaps to a jetpack with Solar Jetman style momentum, and the alien queen looks like a dragon, headbanging while you stand still. The ending reads "victory for now." The credits sit behind a menu item labeled only "Metal Mech," and the dashboard is full of beams and icons that appear to do nothing.

Odds and ends

Three people are credited, which is a good reason to go easy on the game. There are no sequels. The rights moved from Acclaim to Throwback Entertainment to Piko Interactive, and the Evercade is how you can play it on official hardware today. We also spent a while arguing whether the mech has two legs, three or four. It is a tripod.

The bottom line

Skip it. Nobody voted it onto the Essential Games List. The mech is cool to look at and the stomp is satisfying, but there is not much to do once you are in it, the little man is not fun to play, and the menu eject is a puzzle nobody asked for. Blaster Master is already on the list and covers the same idea far better, so go play that instead.

Written from our conversation in this episode.

Opening hook
It can save mankind, but beware, this machine has a mind of its own

I. Setup & Premise

The pitch: a stolen alien war machine and one guy in a jumpsuit
- Aliens led by an Alien Queen have taken over Earth. The US Army gets hold of one of their walking machines.
- You are Tony. You drive the mech through six levels and go kill the Queen.
- That is the whole story. There is no mid-game plot, no characters, no cutscenes past the intro.
Developed by Sculptured Software, published by Jaleco
- Sculptured Software was a Salt Lake City studio, incorporated in 1985, later swallowed by Acclaim and eventually shut down in 2002.
- Same studio that later did the Super Star Wars games and the SNES ports of Doom and Mortal Kombat. This is very early work from them.
Japan got it first as Metal Flame Psybuster, December 14, 1990.
- It was announced in the US as Mechanoids: Man & Machine before becoming MetalMech.

II. What Makes It Stand Out

The eject button is the whole game
- You start inside a three-legged mech that looks unmistakably like ED-209 from RoboCop.
- At any point you can pop Tony out of the hatch and run around on foot.
- The mech is tougher but it is also huge, cannot climb ladders, and cannot pick anything up.
The one change from Blaster Master that ruins everything
- In Blaster Master, Sophia sits safely while Jason is out walking around.
- Here the mech keeps taking damage while you are outside it. So the tool you depend on is quietly rotting while you do the errand that requires leaving it.
- Tony's health refills at the start of each level. The mech's does not. It just gets worse all game.
The maps are enormous
- One MetalMech level would be two or three levels in a better-paced game.
- That sounds like a compliment until you remember you are looking for one key hidden inside one shootable object.
Exactly one boss
- Five levels have no boss at all. You find the key, you walk to the exit, that is it.
- The Alien Queen at the end of level six is the only boss fight in the entire game.
High Score Board
- The game has essentially one line of dialogue, and it is Tony shouting "LET'S DO IT MECH!!!" at his own vehicle in the intro.
- Better still: TCRF notes the Japanese intro cutscene has no text at all. That line appears to be an American addition. Somebody at Jaleco USA looked at a silent cartoon of a man climbing into a robot and decided what it needed was for him to yell that.

III. Gameplay Structure

Six levels, and they get weird fast
- The City, The Towers, The Sewers, Atlantis, The Alien City, The Alien Queen's Mothership. (GameFAQs)
- Yes, Atlantis. Level four of a robot game about aliens is the lost city of Atlantis, and it is never explained.
The loop: find the key, find the exit
- Every level except the last hides one key inside a piece of scenery you have to shoot: a newspaper box, a security camera, a piece of paper taped to a sewer wall, a pillar, a computer part.
- Only Tony can actually pick the key up. The mech can crack the container open but cannot grab anything.
- Level three even lampshades it with an in-game hint about the writing on the wall, which is as close as this game gets to a puzzle.
Basic controls
- D-pad: move, duck, climb, and aim the cannon, which swings from straight up around to a downward angle.
- A: jump. B: fire, hold for auto-fire.
- Select: hop back into the mech, or cycle special weapons.
- Select plus A: quick eject. Select plus B: smart bomb.
- Start: the cockpit menu. (GameFAQs)
The cockpit menu is a strange little room
- Three options: eject, view the credits, and turn the music off.
- Eject is buried in a pause menu even though there is a perfectly good button shortcut for it.

IV. Unique Gameplay Elements

The power-ups are a trap
- Picking up a special weapon makes the mech absorb less damage and recover less health from pickups. The upgrade actively downgrades you.
- Worth sitting on for a minute. This is a game where the correct strategy is to walk past most of the treasure.
You can strand yourself from your own mech
- Tony can only climb back in if he is standing on the same floor the mech is on.
- Park badly and the mech is now a very large paperweight you have to finish the level without.
Enemies respawn constantly, and there is no score
- Kill something, walk five steps, it is back. Fighting is almost always the wrong choice.
- There is no scoring system in the game at all, so there is not even a bragging-rights reason to shoot anything.
Individual levels have one-off gimmicks nobody warns you about
- The Towers: a machine on a bridge emits a signal that shuts the mech down completely until you eject and go destroy it.
- The Sewers: an energy barrier that only drops when a rat walks through it.
- Atlantis: you need a hidden waterproofing item before entering the water or you die instantly, plus teleporters that dump you in a random one of two areas.
The last level is a different game
- Level six drops the mech entirely. Tony gets a jet pack, movement like section z, and a wave gun.

V. History, Development, and the Two Versions

A very small credited team
- Designed by Joe Hitchens, programmed by Ken Grant, art by Lorin Nelson and Hitchens, music by Paul Webb.
- Six credited people total on MobyGames. This was a small job, and it plays like one.

VI. Music and Presentation

Paul Webb wrote it on a sampler
- Webb composed on an Ensoniq EPS keyboard and the results were converted into Ken Moore's NES sound driver.
- He later worked on Super Star Wars, so this is early-career work from someone who got good.
There is barely any music in the game
- What is there is a few short rock tracks. The Video Game Music Preservation Foundation rates them as sounding genuinely good for 1990 and then notes there simply are not many of them.
- Given that the pause menu includes a dedicated option to turn the music off, somebody involved had opinions about how often you would be hearing it.
The visual identity is borrowed wholesale
- The mech is an ED-209 (from Robocop) with the serial numbers filed off.
- The one thing the game does have is variety in setting. City, tower interiors, sewers, undersea ruins, alien biology. It is not a boring-looking game.

VII. Pop Culture

The reverse-import story is the genuinely interesting part
- This is the reverse. A Salt Lake City work-for-hire shop built a Famicom game that Japanese kids played before American kids did.

VIII. Sequels, Spinoffs, and Comparison Games

There is no sequel
The rights went on a long journey anyway
- Sculptured Software went to Acclaim, and the game's ownership eventually landed with Throwback Entertainment and then Piko Interactive.
- It resurfaced in 2023 on the Evercade in Piko Interactive Collection 3 and on the Atari Gamestation Pro.

IX. Essential Games List Vote

Enormous maps, a single hidden key per level, respawning enemies, no score, one boss in six levels. There is very little to do and a lot of ground to cover doing it.
- Supporting: if the point is to understand the man-and-machine idea, Blaster Master is right there and it is one of the best games on the system.

Click a timestamp to play from there. Landing a little off?

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

Metal Mech, Man and Machine. It can save mankind, but beware, this machine has a mind of its own. Metal Mech, Man and Machine.

And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. You know, it doesn't really work to have the three of us here. Lately, it's been only two. So I was thinking one of us could be the man and one of us could be the machine. But I guess maybe one of us could also be the Metal Mech? I could just be like the ground that you guys stand on. We'll just walk all over you? Yeah. Metal Mech, Man and Machine.

I'll say the title again to get away from beating up Sean. We don't want to beat up Sean this early in the episode. No. We have a whole episode to do that. True, true. Here we have, you know, an interesting plot line of stolen alien war tech that we're now using to try to fight back against the aliens. But I also feel like I've seen this mech before and not from like a previous existing Metal Mech IP. This looks like a direct ripoff of the mech from Robocop. Almost. Yeah. I do see that more. I was thinking of the AT-STs. Sure. I mean, that could work, too. But I really think it's almost like one one with the Robocop. Now that you say that, I definitely see the Robocop mech.

Which is just like, I guess, like, what happened here? Were they pitching? We already got a Robocop game on the NES and I believe we're getting another one. So, like, were they pitching a Robocop game and then when they got rejected, they were like, well, we're still using the assets. It's legally distinct Robocop. Robocop doesn't use that mech. That's true. That's the enemy. Maybe they were pitching like a, you know, a spy versus spy situation where one person got to play as the opposition. Yeah. Or also, I guess, in this game's lore, the main character did steal the tech from the enemy. So, I guess that would fit Robocop.

And I suppose, like, it would be interesting to get like a first level where you play as like finding this piece of machinery and like, you know, stealing it from the aliens. Like, it is just kind of like lame that it just like it happens in the manual and then you just start off with the machine. Because I guess to that, I would just say, why not just have the setup be that like the military has a brand new technology that's like not quite ready yet. But like, we're going to use it anyway. And that, you know, that explains it. It just feels like, I don't know, like, this is alien tech. It feels like it was built for this guy.

Yeah. You're thinking in like, you know, game story design 10 years, 15 years into the future. That's a little too much. And if it was the year 2025, like it is in the game, ooh, imagine one year ago.

You know, aliens, giant robots, like all that stuff sounds pretty futuristic for 1991 to jump all the way to 2025. But we're still just calling people regular names. The protagonist name is Tony. Come on. So we haven't, we haven't come up with any futuristic names. And we're just like, I suppose that's fine. That's probably the most realistic part of this whole thing is that we're still calling people Tony today. I mean, we are, but it would be more, it would be more realistic if his name was like Aiden or Brayden.

That's true. Well, I mean, yeah, cause are there, how old is this character? Because I feel like there are Tonys in their thirties, but there are no Tonys in their twenties. And that's a fact. That's a fact. Because they're called Anthony's now instead? Or like, have we dropped the Tony nickname? People stopped naming their kids Tony after 1995.

I know that I went through like a time where like, you know, I would join a classroom that would have like nine other mics in it. And now I can't find another Michael. So I think that is a real problem. Well, what happened to the other mics that you grew up with? No, they're still here, but we are going to leave the earth someday, Joe. I don't know how to break this to you, but like one day the, all the mics will leave. Have you met a Bob recently? Uh, but I don't think they want to go as Bob. Well, sure, sure, sure. But some people are actually named Bob like on their birth certificate. Oh, that sucks. I'm sorry. I kind of like Bob. I wish there were more Bobs. You like Bob. Bobs are usually pretty nice. What about Bob? They all come back around.

You know, I have a niece who's like best friends named Vivian and like Eustace or something. Eustace. Eustace is, yeah. No, it's this three little girls that sound like the golden girls and it cracks me up every time my brother talks about my four year old niece and her three, you know, seven year old friends. Yeah. And this game metal mech man and machine, you do play as both man and machine in the sense of, uh, from the blaster master approach where, uh, part of the game is played in the machine. And then eventually you'll need to hop out of the machine and be the little guy, uh, to do things that the mech can't do in the level in order to, uh, progress properly.

And, uh, I'm sure we'll spend the rest of the episode talking about whether or not that works. But just to give a little bit more of an overview, this was developed by sculptured software. Um, I thought it was sculpture software, but there is a D at the end of that. So sculptured software, um, event, uh, formed in 1985, uh, based out of Salt Lake city. You know, this is the cutting edge information that most people want. This means I did the research. Uh, but they are, this is like one of the first works from them.

Eventually they'd be responsible for those super star Wars games on the super Nintendo. I don't know if you guys ever saw those, but they're pretty cool games. Um, and they also did the, the difficult, right? Yes, they are difficult. Yeah. And they also did the super Nintendo port of doom. Uh, which is also like a pretty neat thing. Yeah. It's neat. Yeah. Exactly. It's neat that it exists. Right. Uh, and Japan got this game first as metal flame. Psy buster.

And we can debate whether that's a better name, but I also think it's interesting. Japanese translation to metal neck man. Yeah. Right. Metal metal flame. Psy buster is the English translation of the Japanese title. But I think what's more interesting is that means that this American company published their game first in Japan. Well, you know, everything, everything was bigger in Japan at that time.

Yeah. But it just, it's like, why not just like simul release it? Right. And I'm making it in the States. It feels kind of weird. I understand it was published by Jaleco, but like, I can't think of too many instances where that happens, where you're like, yeah, like we're an American company and we're going to release it over on the Famicom first. See if it, see if it does well.

That is a good point. Yeah. Is it kind of like how, isn't there like a Matt Damon movie that was really big in China and never came here? Wow. I'm, I, it's ringing a bell, but I also, I just feel like you could have said anything about Matt Damon and I'd be like, yes, it's ringing a bell. Um, he is a person on earth. He is. Uh, metal flame side buster. Is that better than metal mech man and machine? I think so. Yeah. I just like the idea of a metal flame. See, they have a different, they have a different vibe to me.

Like the, the, the, just the phrase side buster, it just feels more like, feels like you're going to be more agile. You're going to be more like a, like a ninja or you're going to be sneaky or something. Then metal, metal mech man and machine feels like really industrial to me. I do wonder though, if maybe just the, you know, I think at the time buster was kind of, uh, an insult. Um, so maybe they just didn't want to do that. And it was announced as mechanoids man and machine, uh, before becoming metal mech. So absolutely the worst of the three. Yeah. Mechanoids. It's going to be like little robotic gremlins or something running around. A little mechanoid.

So yeah, the, the eject button is basically the, uh, the neat trick of the game. And unfortunately we've seen this trick before with blaster master, but you start out in, um, in the mech and at any point you can pop Tony out of the hatch and run around on foot. The mech is obviously and rightfully tougher, but, uh, like significantly tougher. Like this thing can take a lot of freaking damage. I would even had trouble keeping track of like, what is my health? Like, is it on screen? How many more hits can I take? He just takes a, a freaking beating. And the problem is he also takes a beating when you're out of the mech. Yeah. That was not a feature in blaster master.

I mean, give them credit for realism that like, it doesn't just because you get out of it doesn't make it not a target. Um, it's kind of like, I guess getting your car stolen in grand theft auto or something. But, um, I was not expecting that. I also wasn't expecting the thing that you were going to have to do all the time to only be accessible whilst menu diving. Um, you do have to go to a menu to get out of the vehicle. Yeah. Especially because it's the only thing in the menu that does anything of meaning. Well, unless you want to view the credits. There's the credits of the two people. And there's like three people in the credits. There's that you can turn the music that usually gets clipped anyway off. Yeah. You can't hear the music anyway.

And if you're going to have three people in your credits and you really want to put it on there where people can just have it on the screen, the whole game, just have it at the bottom of the screen. Have a heads up display with the three people that made the game at the entire time. I just think it's the strangest placement for credits I've ever seen. Like put them on the main menu. Sure. Especially when there's only that many people, you probably fit them on, but you usually you could have like, you know, start, continue, and then like options. And then where, inside options.

Right. Yeah. But like to have it in the mech is like a very interesting placement because it's like, at any given moment, is there like some kind of piracy test where like you have to be able to check the credits of the game in order to like, is there ever an Easter egg in this game that requires checking the credits? You're, you're, it's like a Kojima game. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well also it doesn't say credits. It just says metal mech. That's the button. That's so I'm like, Oh cool. I'll do something with the metal mech. It just plays the credits.

Yeah. I guess that means to view the people that made the metal mech, but it should. Like, why would you think that? Right. You shouldn't think that. And to Sean's original point, the weirdest part is, is that, uh, eject is the button that matters here and you have to go into the menu every time to do it when they very clearly could have just made it like select to choose between getting in and out of the mech. You know, it's really weird. I'm, you know, as we usually do, uh, I'm watching a video of a guy play the game while we talk.

And I just, I'm watching him get out of the mech without having to go to the menu. I don't know how he's doing it. I thought I just saw that too. And I was like, Oh no, we are talking right now about how you can't do this. Oh my gosh. I'm looking at the manual to confirm you can do it. You ready? Oh my God. But no, it's, it's harder than it seems. It's not just select it's select and the a button. Select a. Okay. Select and the a button. And now here's why you wouldn't think to do that because to return Tony back to the mech. You just press select.

So you wouldn't think like, Oh, there's probably some secret button string. I have, this is why we need Sam. We need somebody to read the manuals before this, but I still think our argument is, is warranted. It's a really weird way to do it. Um, I think it was just a decision, uh, you know, based entirely on conjecture to, it was just like, no, I made, I made this asset. I made the heads up to not heads up display. Like the, uh, the image of all of the bells and whistles on the dashboard of the mech. And I need that to be in the game.

And it was just the two of them. Um, so there wasn't really anybody saying that's a stupid idea in the room. So that's why it's there. And then, um, we were talking about how when you're out of the mech, it still takes damage. But the interesting part about that, uh, even if it is like a little realistic is that, you know, in between levels, uh, Tony's health refills at the start of each level. But metal mech is that what we're, is metal mech the name of this machine?

Like, should I be calling him metal mech? Is that his like full name? I think it's just machine. Like, I think the man and machine, it's kind of like, uh, you know, Bill and Ted. And his name's just man? Oh, you think he's man? Or I think metal mech is the machine. I'm saying if the machine is just machine, then is the guy's name just man? Yeah. I couldn't tell you. Tony man. Oh yeah. Tony man. It's actually Tony Martin. But, um, here's, here's the conjecture. Let's say it's metal mech. Right. And, uh, so he, he does not get his health replenished between stages. Uh, so you are just constantly taking a beating on this machine, but the back of the box hinted at like that the mech has some mind of its own.

Is that like a missing feature here? Should that have been something interesting where like when you're out of the mech, it's still like follows behind and tries to like, you know, like auto shoot things or like do something else while you're out of the machine. It doesn't, it just stays there. But like, should it have done that? I think it's an allusion to just the fact that there's like a different mode of, of movement when you're in the Mac.

Like it, like you kind of moving is not a, uh, like a super intuitive at first thing. Like you're almost, you almost move them like a car. Like you put them into drive and then you can control the, uh, like the sort of turret on him. Uh, it, it, it gets a little getting used to, uh, but I think that's the only thing. Like the fact that it's a little less intuitive to control is just them saying it has a mind of its own. It's funny, Sean, cause I was just thinking that Tony doesn't really drive that car. He wears it.

What? And the metal mech, you know, like as weird as it is to control, it's also a little weird to shoot, uh, with the mech because while it has like the eight way, uh, and, and it actually has a great little, um, design on it to show which direction it's shooting in. So I like that, that it's not just some kind of projectile that just shoots randomly. You can actually see the little turret move around in a circular motion, but it, it always

feels like they designed every enemy around like the worst possible spot for the metal to shoot like that. Yeah. Everything is either like too low or like flies in a pattern that isn't great for the mech. So you just are constantly missing. And this is a game where like, basically it doesn't pay to like stick around and fight enemies. You just want to like kill what you can, but keep moving forward.

I think it's there to incentivize like stomping because stomping is a valid way to destroy enemies, but you can't walk over them and have a count as a stomp. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. I think that like the, it just encouraged me what for better or worse. It just, I like, it was way easier for me to just crush people than to try and, because you also have to be in order to aim down.

I mean, I feel like I, you have to be moving. So like you can't even really line yourself up and aim. You're always moving. And that makes it like impossible to actually like target anything. Technically you can be not moving and aim down, but you have to kind of move into it first. It doesn't, it does not reset your turret position until I think either you press a, maybe select or like, I think select is your like zero, like that's how you like your zero. Yeah. You're targeting.

Um, otherwise it just keeps pointing in the last direction you were pointing, but it's not great. And while you're moving with the mech throughout the levels to kind of whether or not to avoid the enemies or take them on, uh, these maps and stages are pretty big. And so I, as I was moving through the first stage, I did feel like there was a moment where I was like, wait, is it looping? Like, am I supposed to be looking for something?

Uh, that wasn't the case, but even worse was when I got to the end of the stage and found out that this isn't one of those, just go to the right, uh, side scrolling games where once you get to the end of the level, it's the end of the level or that there's some kind of boss. No, you're looking for a key, uh, at some that was hidden somewhere in the stage. And that's how you get to the end of the level. And I've, I've got to feel like I'm not alone on that either. That, uh, you, you know, did anybody get the key naturally the first time before getting to the end of the stage and being like, oh, I was supposed to have something.

Yes. I just happened to have the pickup. I didn't know what the pickup did. Um, and then I got to the end. So I was like, okay, yeah, I had the same thought. Like, I guess this is just go to the right level two. I was very confused then learned that, um, yeah, it's a key based game.

Um, and it, you have, it's usually just hidden behind some random destructible piece of the environment, which is cool. Um, like the whole destructible pieces of the environment thing is cool, but hiding a key item, uh, just sort of like arbitrarily thrown behind something like that is strange. Yeah. And I thought that like the key thing would be the, the, the thing that encourages you to get out of the mech.

Yes. Like that's what would make the key thing make sense for this. Cause otherwise it's like, I'm in this giant mech. I don't want to be like doing an escape room. I want to be pushing through and smashing everything. I want the goal in this mech to be like, how can I power my, my way through to the end of this level? Not like searching for something.

But I, I do appreciate the idea of like, okay, but this, this will give you like reasons to interact with both forms of gameplay where you're in the max smashing through things and you get out and you're weaker, but now you're a little more agile. You can fit in small spaces and find things, but I don't know that they really, um, capitalized

on that. At the very beginning, at least like, it just felt like, um, I, and yeah, you, there is a feeling of power that comes with walking around in the Mac, but walking around as a Tony man, you, you just, it feels a lot more fluid. And I know that that's by design. Like they want the mech to feel like a heavy piece of like armament, but, uh, it's just more intuitive as a basic, like, how do I control a video game? Okay. This is it.

Um, so you can actually be a bit more, uh, like actually effective as the little guy, just a bit of a glass cannon. Yeah. And they do make that like first key a little bit, uh, you know, maybe not as obvious as they could, or, you know, in, in general in the game, just like hiding them in any particular, cause there's other things that you can destroy that lead to like power ups or, or nothing.

Um, but they, at least they made it like an obvious underground segment where it's like, huh, I can't reach that with the mech. So I should get out and explore, uh, as Tony just to see like what's down there. Like the, it does have a curiosity, uh, point to it. And I, I think, you know, maybe that's what just a copy more of blaster master. That's kind of what this game needed was more of like a, oh, and then this is the part where like you enter the building and now you're Tony and you have to do like a different kind of gameplay, uh, you know, in these inside, inside these buildings, this way there's more there than just the, it's all happening on this one screen.

But that is the entirety of all of these levels is just, uh, you know, getting by carrying the mech along with you for the ride, getting out to find the appropriate key and then clearing the stage. There aren't like boss fights at the end of these levels or, um, or any like noticeable changes where it's like, oh, now the mech transforms into some kind of, uh, you know, boat and you have to ride lava and, you know, it's like, it's just the game is the game, uh, for the first, uh, five stages. And then it completely changes into a different game for the final level. And, and I didn't get to the final level, but I did watch a video of it. And when I got to it in the video I was watching, I was like, well, now where was this?

I wanted more of that. And that could have been what, what it was when like Tony got into the buildings or whatever. That is like a more blaster master thing too, because that was the going into buildings. Like there were so many, like when you mentioned that, I just, it just reminded me of like,

especially on like level one, how many mech sized normal looking doors there were. And I'm like, is there a way for me to go in these places? Like this looks like a portal to somewhere and it really wasn't. Um, but yeah, it just seems like a, and I don't, I'm not saying that like copying everything about blaster master is what they should have done. That's a really good game. So it's not, it's not the worst place to steal from.

Do you think that they like ran out of time on this game or something like that? Like they wanted to do more of that. And then there's still some remnants in these, in these big door looking things and stuff that they just didn't include because it is a weird choice to just have the last like eight minutes of the game be like a totally different gameplay style. And the doors are just so much bigger than Tony that it's like, it's either like they're terrible designers and their scale of the world is just way off. Or Tony got like, you know, um, uh, he got, uh, put miniature spell, spell casted on him or something. And so now he's like incredibly impossibly tiny. And it's just a man shaped mech or man. Yeah. It's just like, yeah, exactly.

It's I'm not sure like what's happening there, but I do want to say, uh, you know, in most cases, both games, you just get like the plot through the manual or whatever. And then there's nothing happening in the game in this one. That is true. But I did like with the, like the setting of it all, like the stages that it was telling an interesting story. Uh, if you were just paying, like, there's no like in between cut scenes of the, you know, you just jump from one level to the next, but like you start in, in the city where presumably the aliens have taken over. Then you get down to the sewers from the sewers, it leads you down to the lost city of Atlantis.

And then from Atlantis, like you discover that there's an alien city underground as well. And that leads you to the alien Queens mothership. So it's like, it's all very interesting commentary about like, you know, the aliens maybe were the Atlantis people. So were the aliens? Yeah. We're like, we're like, it's, um, it's a, uh, disclosure day style thing where it's like, you know, Hey, half of us are actually aliens. Listen. And Steven Spielberg really believes that.

I don't know. He wouldn't say that as a fact. I couldn't tell if it was just part of the marketing tour or something, but he was getting like very, uh, he was doing a lot of podcasts and was talking a lot about that, that like, you know, he's been seeing a lot of evidence for lizard people. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, are you out of your mind? You can't be saying that stuff. People respect you.

Everybody believes in lizard people is lizard people these days, Mike. Yeah. That's true. It's actually naive to think that there aren't lizard people. Wait till people find out about the seal people. The seal people. Yeah. Those are just people that are into seal. No, no, no. An artist. Yeah. Great. Nicely done. No people who are weird and into sealed video game. Why do you sound so mad about that? I just didn't expect him to take it there. So it's like, yeah, seal fans. They're the weirdest. Yeah. They're the aliens. Just gotta listen to kiss from a rose every once in a while. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you.

You know, oh, now you do more damage, but you take more damage. And so that's why they're being, like, recommended to not acquire them. Because it's just not worth it. Got it. Yeah. Especially because you are such a tank in this, in this match. You know, to the point where, like, you know, I do think it becomes, it becomes a flaw in the game where I don't want, I'm just so much of a tank that I, one, don't want power-ups, and two, like, don't even really know or care what's going on. Like, there's not a lot of enemies where I'm like, oh, I remember this enemy that attacks this way, and I got to think about it this way.

It's just go forward and shoot and smush things. And, like, it does feel, I mean, it feels really cool at first, but it's like, I did feel like, and granted, I didn't get super, super far in this game. But I did feel like after a while, I was like, am I doing anything? Like, I'm just kind of walking, smashing everything. And, like, it didn't feel, it felt challenging to get out of the mech. It did not feel challenging to be in the mech. And I don't know, it just, like, it just kind of felt like a, like a blended soup of,

of gameplay to me where I was like, yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess this guy's smaller and shooting in this direction, and that one's hopping. I guess I'll do the same thing to both of them and smush them. Like, well, the smushing, though, is a great feeling. Like, it is a great feeling to jump on an enemy and just squash it. One hit KO. Yeah. So we were talking about that final level being different and everything. And it is just that now Tony's on a jetpack inside the mothership. So I guess there's also some, like, zero grab thing going on or whatever. But he's looking for the only boss in the game, the alien queen.

And you can say what you will about, like, the control of the jetpack and everything. It's pretty, pretty standard stuff. It reminded me of, like, Solar Jet Man a little bit with the controls of, like, there is some throttle too much in this direction. And you are, you know, you're, like, momentum is pushing you that way. So you got to be careful about how you steer Tony. But when you got to the alien queen, which I did not do in the game, I watched a Let's Play, the alien queen does not look like an alien to me. It looked like a dragon.

I thought that was strange. Well, what if dragons are aliens and that's part of the reptilians? Oh, my gosh. See? This was part of the Disclosure Day research. I'm not sure how nostalgia could have climbed so high in, like, the world order and still not know about the, uh, the reptites. Well, this is actually, we're, we're paid off by the seal people to keep pushing the idea of the reptile people. I've never heard of the seal people, Mike. I know, they don't exist. You're exactly right. And if you want your paycheck, you'll continue to spin that narrative.

And I'm just watching the end of the game here and I, I'm not sure I follow with what's going on, but the, the alien queen is like headbanging to the left and right of you while you just stand in place. And it, it feels like you lost if you look at it that way, but then it just goes to the same credits that you could have always watched. Well, in a way, like, you know, aliens will may be so different from us that they, like, they could just be super arrogant, you know? Yeah. It says victory for now.

Yeah. You got to play the game four more times to get the real ending. Maybe one more wasted thing here. Um, the, when you're in the mech, there's like all of that stuff going on in the ship. Like all these like red beams are moving up and down and there's this green beam moving up and down and there's all these icons. I don't think any of them do shit. I don't think it means anything about what's happening in the game. I thought at first that one of those was going to be some kind of like skew morphic, like,

uh, health bar for your mech. Um, almost like checking your heartbeat in resident evil or something. But it, to me, it didn't look like anything changed. I definitely got hit at least like 30 times between moments that I checked again. I think it was just like, Oh, they thought they really did a good job designing it.

Guy was very proud of it. Said, yeah, this is where the credits go. That's my head cannon. Yep. Uh, and yeah, as we know, it's a very small credited team. Uh, but that's just like how these games were made back then. So like, I guess you, you know, when you really think about what video games are made with today and the fact that like basically three guys, three or four guys worked on this game, it's pretty, pretty impressive stuff. Actually. Maybe we should, maybe we should slow our roll here on the show and stop making this such a 1991 so far, we've been treating it like a dumpster fire, but maybe we need to just like step back for a minute and remind ourselves that there are humans behind these games.

I don't know. I really don't know like how you can say something like that and like have a team of three or two, uh, giving them credit for this when Todd Howard made like the last 10 that does the games by himself. Yeah. That's actually, you're right. Like I cannot believe that like Todd Howard made Skyrim and I'm trying to give these guys a break. Now, do you think Todd also works on the ports of Skyrim, like to fridges, to Samsung fridges and stuff? Like, is that, is that part of his? I'm pretty sure. Are there other. Wrote all of that. Yeah. Do they have other people there? Yeah. I'm not sure.

Yeah. With all the Microsoft layoffs, probably not. Maybe some of his friends, maybe some of his girlfriends are, I worked there. Yeah. They might have like an intern on, on like the, you know, Elder Scrolls online.

Right. Who's, who's, yeah. Who's porting it to, who's porting Elder Scrolls Skyrim to TI-89 calculators? Is there one? There isn't. Um, there is a lot of fun stuff on the TI-89 though. I got into that world. Um, I played, I played Doom on an 84.

That's what I was going to ask you. Like, you know, do you remember when you first got that graphing calculator in high school and people were starting to tell you like, oh, you can play Grand Theft Auto on this? And like, I never did. But like, I also never like questioned it. I wasn't like, are they playing Grand Theft Auto? Like, I just said like, oh, that's something funny to say. I guess I've never seen Grand Theft Auto, but I did install Doom and it was pretty bad. But yeah. I used to have a Mario game, but it clearly wasn't Mario, you know, but it was called Mario. It was like a dot that jumps.

Mm-hmm. It was all better than algebra. I'll tell you that. All those games were a lot better than doing math. I agree. Donkey Kong Jr. Math was on there. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Great game. Would you be surprised to hear that there are no sequels to Metal Mac Man and Machine? Are we sure they didn't just use a different name like the Mechzoids or whatever?

I'm positive. Okay. When Sculptured Software was sold to Acclaim, apparently the game's ownership didn't come with it. It wound up at Throwback Entertainment and then Pyco Interactive. It's kind of amazing that an IP this small can be traced like this. But the reason why it was traced like this is because Pyco Interactive released a collection of games on the Evercade. Are you guys familiar with this? This is like something that still gets released. It's kind of.

Check it out. Google it right now. It's like they release arcade games on the Evercade console that are like arcade perfect ports and they sell these things and they cost a lot of money.

Huh. Yeah, I'm looking. It's a. But it's like, you know, it's like probably better. Yeah, it's better than like buying a Neo Geo and doing it that way. Like it's probably cheaper than that. But it's interesting to find out that like that is how you can play legit at least Metal Mech Man and Machine today on official hardware. You can do it via the Evercade. I thought you were going to go even deeper and say that it was it's like part of the estate of like some 80 year old dude that died recently. And it's just like in somebody's family. It's only a matter of time until we get the public domain Metal Mech Man and Machine horror film. Just like it was only a matter of time until we got to the essential games list.

Joe. One thing we didn't talk about or we sorted it. But like I want to I want to touch on a little more is the you know, they tried to make it feel like when you get out of the mech, you're more agile and you're you know, you have and they did. It does feel like you you're more mobile. You can do things slightly differently.

Like but agile is a weird word to use there because it does feel like I'm playing Donkey Kong, you know, like it's like, yeah, you can move around more. You can move. But like it. It doesn't feel good to play this little guy. It's like it feels like you're on a grid and you're still moving. So it's not even that much less rigid than playing as the mech. You just have like you're just smaller so you can move around better.

And I think that that is also like that takes away from like the feeling of the juxtaposition between the mech and the machine and the man where like I don't really ever want to get out of this mech. And when I'm in the mech, I do sort of get, you know, get tired of the gameplay, too, because it just doesn't change it up enough or give me give me too much to do with the mech. And adding that on to the list of qualms that we've already had in the episode, I definitely cannot vote this essential.

You know, I think the coolest thing about this game is, I don't know, the design of the mech, which they ripped off from Robocop, apparently. So not essential. Sean. Yeah, I think the design of like both modes of play here, it's kind of a double edged sword. The I appreciate that they like made the mech feel so different and you kind of have to approach it differently. I don't think they could execute very well on that. This is not Blaster Master.

I appreciated the sort of Rampage style and destructible environments, but it's definitely not Rampage. Like some of them are just kind of weird and obviously just there to be that.

Also, the level design in general is just weird. There's a comically long elevator ride that you go on and it's like level two or something. And I'm just like, where am I supposed to? What are we supposed to do here? I'm just going to go to the top and work my way down. And it was just it was just very funny. I guess I did what they wanted me to do, but I couldn't get over how funny that was. It doesn't feel as good as what they're obviously basing the game on.

And yeah, there's just a level of jank throughout that I can't really get behind. So I'm also voting this essential. All the things you guys said, but I would also just argue that like if the selling point of this game was the man and machine idea, which clearly it is if it's in the fucking title, Blaster Master is already on the essential games list. It's well covered both back then and today. So the only problem I have with this game's existence is that it will trick people who like really enjoyed Blaster Master and are looking for like, hey, can I find any more Blaster Master like games? And somebody might suggest the Metal Mech Man and Machine next. And that would completely kill all their momentum.

At least now we live in a timeline where there are many Blaster Master like I think they came out on Switch first. There was Blaster Master Zero. There's like a trilogy of those games now. So for people itching for more Blaster Master content, there finally is something because this definitely isn't it.

And you know, just to wrap up the show, I guess I'm kind of surprised that like I'm not saying that this is it for Blaster Master like games on the NES or just in general. But like I can't think of too many games where you're like piloting a, you know, like a large mech and then getting out of it and doing free roam stuff. Even in 3D space, like I can't think of too many where like the mech is part of you consistently. Like can you guys think of anything? That's a good question. Titanfall? Yeah, Titanfall for sure.

Mech Assault. Like there was a mech sort of early Xbox era, but you never got out of the mech. The toy box in Kingdom Hearts 3? God damn it. Kingdom Hearts is just always the answer.

There's probably some sort of gimmick level in a platformer. Like, I don't know, maybe Jak and Daxter or something like that. I have to imagine that that would be my guess. And then there's like other games where it would be like weird if you got out of the car, right? Like if you're playing like Daytona USA and you can just get out of the car for whatever, like what would you do? Why would you get out of the car? It's dangerous. You're in the middle of a race. You just start running.

Yeah, right. You could get out of the car and drive or two. You can? Wait, am I misremembering that? No, no. I'm just saying like, is that because you like accept missions from outside the car and then you go back in the car? Like what's the... Now that I said that, I actually don't know if I made that up. Yeah. No, I actually don't know because the Driver series is another one of those, you know, laps for me. And I definitely want to check it out because I've heard good things specifically about Driver 3, the one where the 3 is the E. Driver 3 R. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. How fucking cool is that?

You can get out of the car in Driver 2. Thank God. I have one question about Metal Mech. Sure. Does he have... Does the mech have two legs, three legs, or four legs? And look closely at an animation of him moving before you answer. No, it's got to be two. Because I cannot figure it out. Okay. It looks like two, but you can see the front legs. Look at the front legs. You can see a leg behind it when he's walking. I see three. But then I was like, oh, do both of them have four... Is it four-legged and we're just seeing... Are there two in the back, two, but then it's just the perspective we can't see them? Or are there just two in the front, one in the back?

But it's the way that the walk animation has it where you can clearly see... And I'm trying to freeze frame it here to describe it. But you can clearly see two... Some articulation or something. Yeah. Like two feet go forward and then there's a... Yes. Yeah. You just blew my mind. There's three. It's a tripod. The real problem is that this is easily solved by just going to the box art where you can see all three feet, but that's not... Oh, hopefully I haven't looked at that.

All right. So it's not related to RoboCop at all. That's the best part of this whole thing is that because it's on three feet, it feels alien. Like, you know, only aliens would come up with three feet. Any human would design a four foot. Or two. Right. Bipedal. Mechs. They exist. They're called Gundams. They exist. Thank you.

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