Contra

"I bet MEGAMUR's gonna' call it a classic...."

My story is this. Years ago, around 1992 or so, I got my first taste of this wonderful thing known as the Super Nintendo, and a very interesting game called Contra III: The Alien Wars at a toy store. It was cool. It had lots of shooting. It had lots of explosions. It had lots of freaky aliens. My young mind raced with each play of the irresistible Contra III.

Time passed and I received good ol' Contra III finally, to play at my home for as long as I wanted. Still, I began to ponder...''If this is the third game in the series, where are the other two?'' My search for Contra and Super C began.

Of course, I'm a forgetful person, and I can't remember when or why I received the original Contra, but I did. Of course, I don't think I liked it all that much at first. It was missing alot of those explosions and freaky aliens that I loved so much from Contra III, and it was way hard.

But, my gameplay skills improved, and the game grew on me....

The story is this. You are either Sergeant Bill Ko (code name ''Mad Dog'', a.k.a, the blue guy) or Lance (code name ''Scorpion'', a.k.a., the red guy), two of Earth's Special Forces elite. You are an expert commando, and only experts may apply for this mission....

The year was 1957. A meteorite crashed into Earth's Amazon basin, near the lost Mayan civilization. Scientists dismissed it as a trivial cosmic occurrence, and it was ignored....

That was thirty years ago.

Now, reports are leaking out to your military of villagers spotting hideous armies of hostile alien mutants near that crash site. These aliens, led by Red Falcon, are bent on nothing less than the usual: global domination. Someone's gonna' have to go down there and teach them a lesson.

Fearing that a full-on assault would stir up too much commotion, it is decided that two commandos will be secretly slipped into the area to wipe out the alien intruders. You're one of them.

Now, this isn't going to be easy. Red Falcon is no E.T. He'd only phone home to tell a friend of his to come kill you. E.T. wouldn't do that, would he? It's just you, your gun, and them. Good luck.

What is it?- Well, I've told you what the storyline is...but, that still doesn't clear up everything about the game.

Contra is a pulse-pounding, sweat-soaked blastathon, where an itchy trigger finger, quick reflexes, and a sharp eye are all you need to survive.

The action takes place in two viewpoints. Most of the game is 2D side-scrolling, while a couple of stages use a ''3D'', 3rd-person, over-the-shoulder view.

You run and jump all around, shooting stuff with your rifle (which never runs out of ammo), collecting power-ups to increase your chances of survival, dodging enemy fire, and finally destroying the boss at the end of each level to proceed. It's all pretty basic.

Just be careful. Touch anything deadly JUST ONCE, and you lose a life. You'll reappear close to where you died if this happens. Lose all of your lives, and you can continue, which lets you restart the beginning of last level you were on. You can continue up to three times. After that, it's all over. You can lengthen your journey by blasting enemies, which gives you points, which eventually nets you extra lives.

You can also gain power-ups by shooting down capsules (kind of football-shaped UFO things), and pill box sensors (grey square things attached to walls with a glowing falcon symbol on the side of them). Upon destroying them, they'll release a falcon icon, which when walked over, grants you a power-up which can increase your firepower, makes you temporarily invulnerable to enemy fire, or destroys all on-screen enemies and their shots! Pretty cool, huh?

Statistics-

Contra features a 1-player mode, as well as a 2-player simultaneous cooperative mode.

Contra is eight stages long.

Contra has multiple viewpoints: 2D side-scrolling, and 3D, over-the-shoulder.

Contra features several power-ups, such as Rapid Fire (R), Machinegun (M), Spread Gun (S), Fire Gun (F), Laser (L), Barrier (B), and Bomb (no letter).

Contra has no save function or password, but features limited continues.

Contra is not designed for the Nintendo Zapper or other peripherals.

Now, here comes the actual review!

Graphics- Not too bad, really. It's not gorgeous, but it's far from ugly. The main characters have no definable features (they're faceless, pretty much), but animate rather nicely, and are detailed reasonably well. They even recoil a bit when they fire their weapon (nothing much, but I found it interesting)!

The enemies consist mostly of humanoid soldier guys with backpacks. Just being able to tell that they wear backpacks is a sign of high detail in an NES game. They, too, animate surprisingly well. All of the enemies explode when killed. It's not gory or anything, and the explosions are nothing special.

The bosses are a bit different than the basic enemies. They don't usually showcase good animation, but that's usually due to their large size. Some aren't really that interesting to look at. They just look like cannons or other machinery, nothing great. Others are pretty gruesome. It's a nice mix (although I think I'd like all gross bosses better).

The backgrounds are pretty good, sporting nice details here and there, like large waterfalls, broken pipes, and palm trees. They even have a rather nice semi-3D look to them. The levels start out as jungle environments, then get more mechanical, then end up looking very alien.... Still, there's no fantastic effects like parallax scrolling or even very much animation, but they're not bad.

One of my biggest complaints about the graphics are the projectiles fired by some of the enemy troops, as well as by your basic rifle. They're so freaking small! They're about 3x3 pixels in size, which is approximately about the size of the head of a pin! Okay, maybe not that small, but still very tiny. I mean, sure, you don't usually see bullets being fired from a gun, but give me a break! This is a game! You've got to see 'em coming, or you can't dodge them! I've been killed so many times by mysterious circumstances, only to find that a bullet about the size of a bread crumb hit me in the leg. Oh, well.

Sound- The sound effects are appropriate, to some degree. The little ''twoing!'' sound that you hear when you hit tougher enemies seems right, considering how most of them are made of metal. The machinegun sounds cool too, as well as some of the explosions. Other effects, though, are kind of weird, like the fire gun. But, the sounds seem to correspond with the actions they are designated for unusually well.

The music is quite good. It's very memorable, and has the ability to get stuck in your head rather easily. It's not always appropriate, though. Good as it may be, it doesn't seem tense enough at times for a fast-paced game like this. Yet, other times, it works just right.

Play Control- Extremely simple controls. A to jump, B to shoot, directionals to move and aim. It's that easy. You can even fire in eight directions! Very responsive. Still, being able to remain stationary and aim (a feature available in later Contra titles) would've helped.

Challenge- Good grief, this is hard! It's not Contra: Hard Corps hard or even Contra III on the hard difficulty setting hard, but still quite difficult (betcha' thought I was gonna' say ''hard'' again, didn't ya'?). Bullets come at you at all sides. Enemies pour out in endless numbers. Everything seems to be happening so fast. The ''one-hit kill'' thing isn't quite working in your favor, either. Some parts of the game seem downright impossible to beat, but, with a tireless thumb (or a turbo controller) and great reflexes, victory can be achieved. Heck, if I can beat this game without dying (it happened once), anybody can.

Still, this isn't a game that you get, then beat it in a couple months...this is the kind of game you get, then MAYBE beat in a couple of years. The enemies get smarter and tougher as the game progresses, and even some traps await. You can easily become overwhelmed in this game.

Just be prepared to see that ''Game Over'' screen ALOT!

You might also want to stop by a hints and codes section of this site for this game....

Replay Value- While there's no secrets to find, new game modes to play, or varying difficulty settings, you'll keep coming back to Contra, either because you just really like it or YOU KEEP TRYING TO BEAT IT, BUT YOU CAN'T, SO YOU'RE GOING TO KEEP TRYING OVER AND OVER!! Either way....

So, to sum it all up....

Graphics- Good amounts of detail on characters and backgrounds, nice animation, but hard-to-see projectiles.

Sound- Oddly appropriate sound effects, but the same doesn't always go for the music, although it is memorable.

Play Control- Simple and responsive.

Challenge- Very high difficulty factor. You'll be sweatin' your way through this one!

Replay Value- Play it again just for the heck of it, or because you can't complete it!

Other Gripes- Gripes about Contra? None, except that I wish my controllers worked better so I could play it more efficiently!

Overall- Contra is a classic that started a long line of great games...until 1998 when ''C: The Contra Adventure'' was released and killed the series...but, still! Contra's great fun, but it all depends on what kind of game player you are. Like RPGs? Don't give a second look at Contra. Like to blow up crap and challenge your reflexes? Look no further, my friend. Love it or hate it, it's Contra, and it'll always hold a place in gamers' hearts...unless you like RPGs....

Rent or Buy?- Definitely give Contra a rental first. I didn't like it when I first tried it, and you might not either. So, try before you buy.

Other Suggestions- If you liked Contra, I suggest trying Super C for the NES, or Contra III: The Alien Wars (highly recommended) for the Super NES. There's nothing quite like a Contra game.

I really hope Contra isn't dead. It's been one of my favorite game series for years. I don't want to see it go. I guess I'll just have to wait and hope for it to return....

That's my two cents.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/14/01, Updated 04/14/01