Play Metal Storm Online

Summary

Metal Storm turns the NES into a gravity‑defying playground. By hitting Up and Jump together you instantly flip the M‑308 Gunner between floor and ceiling, and every corridor, enemy pattern and hazard is built around that single trick, forcing you to constantly rethink position and timing.

The arsenal is deliberately sparse: a Power Beam, a Shield and a temporary "Gravity Fireball" that protects you during a flip, and you can only carry one at a time. After beating the six‑stage run and the final boss rush, Expert Mode rewrites the whole experience – power‑ups vanish, enemy layouts shift, and bosses gain new, brutal patterns, turning the game into a pure test of memorization and flawless execution.

Technically, the cartridge is a marvel. Tamtex used a custom mapper to fake parallax scrolling, giving the illusion of depth that the NES normally can’t produce, while the M‑308 Gunner and multi‑part bosses boast fluid animation that rivals arcade mecha titles.

The sound effects, especially the iconic flip cue, are praised, but the looping soundtrack often draws criticism for its repetitiveness. Released just as the 16‑bit era was dawning, Metal Storm sold poorly despite a full‑page Nintendo Power spread.

Decades later the game is hailed as a hidden gem; IGN calls it a "tour de force" and CBR names it the best late‑NES title. A 2019 Retro‑Bit/Limited Run Games re‑release, complete with an M‑308 figurine, has turned the once‑obscure cartridge into a coveted collector’s item.

Storyline

In the year 2501 humanity has spread across the Solar System, but a defense outpost on Pluto houses a robotic laser cannon meant to shield Earth from alien threats. The cannon goes rogue, turning on its creators and wiping out planets, with Neptune its latest victim, while every attempt to trigger its self‑destruct fails. Players assume control of the M‑308 Gunner, the most advanced combat mech, and must storm the Pluto base to manually activate the self‑destruct before the weapon can annihilate Earth. After defeating the final boss, Earth’s leaders grant the M‑308 Gunner immortality and assign it the ongoing duty of protecting mankind from future dangers. This is the core storyline of Metal Storm on the NES.