Contra

"Witness the birth of a genre"

Some may argue over what started what genre. People will accredit Super Mario Bros. for breathing life into the platformer, even though platforming has been around since the Atari days. People will accredit Metal Gear for beginning the stealth action genre, even though it too had been around for quite some time. But when it comes to Run and Gun, there is only one definitive answer: Contra.

Released in arcades in 1987, Contra was quite unlike anything seen before. While shooting in platform games were nothing new, it was mostly used as a defensive measure to compensate for an otherwise poor range of your character's movements. Like all popular arcade games of the 80s, it quickly received a dumbed-down NES port in 1988, exposing many people to the franchise for the first time.

GRAPHICS

Graphically, Contra looks like the usual fare for mid-life NES games. My one complaint is that the bullets fired from (most) guns are small white dots that are kind of hard to see sometimes, leading to many many deaths.

GAMEPLAY

Contra plays exactly how you would want it to. You can fire diagonally as well as up and sideways, while pressing down makes your character sprawl down, letting you fire low to the ground. 2-Player is always an option with Contra games, letting two players play simultaneously. In a bizarre move, the American version was made harder than the Japanese version, killing your character with only one hit instead of three. Basically, the game runs like this: You drop into either a side-scrolling or behind-the-back level, and shoot anything that moves. The side-scrolling levels play nearly flawlessly (except for aforementioned bullets), while the behind-the-back shooting levels can be a pain in the ass most of the time, since the warped pseudo-3D environment can be fairly confusing at times. Thankfully, there are only two of these of the 8 levels available. Yes, Contra's difficulty level is what sets the bar for hardcore gamers. This game is hard. Very hard. Without a second player, you're very likely to meet your end fairly quickly if you're not using the famous Konami Code. In addition to enemy characters, there are all sorts of surprise defenses littered around the levels, like turrets and flamethrowers, seemingly placed in the most opportune positions, pretty much guaranteeing death if you don't know what to expect beyond the edges of the screen. You'll need a few play thus (or a partner) in order to start standing a chance. Thankfully, you can adjust your direction in mid-jump. While this seems elementary for most platformers, you'll soon come to realize how valuable such a thing is. Getting through a stage with a minimal loss of lives takes skill, patience, and a great deal of luck.

Bosses for Contra are something else. While the stage may dole you cheap death after cheap death, bosses are usually pretty straightforward, and any deaths you incur are usually just due to negligence. Most of them are pretty challenging, too.

Weapon power-ups are also available, ranging from the always useful spread gun that fires five bullets in a spreading fan in front of you, to useless and unreliable weapons like the slow flame gun and the laser, which makes any beam you fire vanish if you press the fire button again. These are delivered by shootable flying pods which periodically fly across the screen, or by a shootable wall mounting.

CONTROLS

A fires, B jumps, the D-Pad moves you around, and pressing down lets you dodge some bullets and fire low. The controls are intuitive and precise- perfect for a game so demanding as Contra.

SOUND

Yeah, so you won't get any CD-quality sound from an NES cart. Really, with 8-bit music, there's only two extremes: Sound that is clear and free from distortion, and then there is sound that is tinny, drowned out, and just a pain to listen to. Thankfully, Contra's sound is the former. The BGMs are kinda catchy, too.

MULTIPLAYER

Ah, 2-player. The way Contra was meant to be played. This mode pretty much IS Contra. Playing solo just can't compare, as not only can you formulate more complex strategies, but you may actually stand more than a chance of beating the game in one sitting.

LASTABILITY

Contra, as I've said before, is plenty hard, so if you really really really want to finish the game, you'll be replaying levels for quite a long time, even if there are only 8.

OVERALL

Great action, incredible bosses, good multiplayer gameplay, and great control scheme, though it comes at the price of a very steep difficulty and slews of cheap deaths. While Super C would improve on many of the original Contra's flaws, it ramped up the difficulty considerably, too. So if I had to choose between Contra and Super C, I'd have to go with Super C. That's not to say that the original Contra isn't worth picking up- hey, I think it's a definite keeper. But all the (minor) flaws I've mentioned will really test your patience if you're not a hardcore gamer.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/03/07

Game Release: Contra (US, February 1988)