Game of the Day - Metal Saver

Metal Saver is a weird maze-shooter that combines a few genres in order to bring home the fun.  You choose between a dude and a chick and fight your way thru single screen sized levels of platforms, elevators and conveyor belts - blasting bugs, sea life and other crap of all shapes and sizes as you go.

You have three buttons that function slightly different depending on the character you choose.  One for attack, one for alternate (stronger) attack, and one to jump.  The guy starts with punch and kick as his attacks, the chick has a gun and can drop bombs (on a 5 second delay).  The bombs are important because many of the enemies are too short to be hit by the gunfire (you can't crouch).  All these things can be powered-up...  The punches, kicks and artillery all become stronger (flamethrower, anyone?).  In fact, there are power-ups and bonus thingies everywhere - and I do mean everywhere.  Especially when you finish a stage.  When you do, gazillions of bonuses and power-ups are tossed all over the screen and it is your job to get as many as you can before time is up and you progress to the next stage.

The rounds also have a time limit.  Exceed it and a giant metal hand comes down from above trying to grab you and carry you off (kill you).  You can still play/finish the round if you are able to avoid the big, fat hand.

As I mentioned before, there is also a puzzle element as the stages become more complex as you go.  Conveyor belts, elevators and other mechs dictate how you have to traverse the screen.  All while blasting the baddies.  And speaking of baddies, there are stages with bosses - at the end of each "world" - about every 5 stages.  The bosses can be difficult and usually have sidekicks.  The first boss is a giant spider that spews forth babies that attack you - she also spins webs at you.  Get caught in a web and it takes some work to shake it off.

In order to honor another genre (fighting), they have added some special moves.  You can do occasional super moves and certain combos... some make your attacks stronger and some function as blocks.  I'd tell you more about the combos but (a) it's more fun to figure out yourself and (b) I don't know how I invoked half of them.

So Metal Saver is a Maze/Platform/Shooter/Fighter.  Odd but definitely fun.  As far as what the name "Metal Saver" means... Hell if I know.