SNK Neogeo Consumer Corporation Inc., the US branch of the latest incarnation of SNK, was at this year's Electronics Entertainment Expo in force. The newest additions to the Metal Slug and King of Fighters series, as well as a number of compilations of older titles, were on display. (We have covered King of Fighters: Maximum Impact in our earlier E3 coverage.) Surprisingly, they had little to say about the upcoming arcade titles for Sammy's Atomiswave hardware.

After Metal Slug 3 was rejected by Sony time and time again, it hasfound a home on the Xbox. Sony's loss is Microsoft's gain, as Metal Slug 3 and SNK vs. Capcom: Chaos are coming exclusively to the Xbox. Sony is apparently less hard on compilations, however, as Metal Slug 4 and 5, the next two games in the series, are going to be sold together on both the PS2 and the Xbox.

Likewise, some difficulties with licensing the older 2D fighters for the PlayStation 2 has led to all of the King of Fighters to be released in two-game compilations (the next being KoF 2002 and 2003), coming out for both the PS2 and Xbox. These games are being released basically without any additions; instead, they're intended to be true to the arcade originals.

Pictured from left to right are SNK vs. Capcom Chaos, King of Fighters 2003, and Metal Slug Advance..

While it's nice to see the SNK arcade games of recent years making it to the consoles, it should be obvious that old-school 2D games have long had a home on the Game Boy Advance. SNK has come to realize this, as Metal Slug Advance was on display, in very early form, at this year's E3. Starring a pair of as-of-yet unnamed heroes (original ones, not returning cast from previous Metal Slug games), there's a Horrible Menace Threatening The World As We Know It, and they need to go take it out, by hopping from platform to platform, going from left to right, shooting everything else that moves.

Metal Slug Advance was in extremely early form, so the gameplay was still barely working. Hit detection was off and even the framerate was pretty poor. Such is to be expected from games that early, and several features were pretty nifty. The characters will be large, designed to pop on the GBA screen, and the traditional Metal Slug difficulty is going to be ramped down a bit, as the reserve of lives will be replaced with a life bar. There's still a lot to be done, but Metal Slug Advance is worth getting excited about.

While SNK's offerings were fairly conservative, slanted more towards compilations of older games, it's good to see an SNK of America once again releasing any games on current hardware. Hopefully, they stay equally as successful when releasing the upcoming original games, as well.