"Purely old-school, even the bad stuff."

Contra seems to have a nice line of fandom. I, myself, have never played a Contra game. This is actually my first and I can already tell you this is old-school. It even brings the bad things about old-school games back.

Graphics: 8/10

Great graphics. Everything is 3D even though it's a side-scroller. The only grunts are that it is sometimes hard to see incoming projectiles, etc. The textures are also sort of square and texturless, but you'll be too busy to really notice.

Slowdowns? What slowdowns? This game has yet to slow down for me, and believe me, there is A LOT of action going on in this game.

Story: 6/10

I almost feel like I must have to be a fan to understand this story. It's something about you killing a comrade and being put into a cryogenic state for the crime sentence. Aliens attack and you're released to go fight them because you beat them before.

Have you ever seen the movie Demolition Man? Well it's like that. You even have the brunette, female comrade.

Overall, I won't say much about the story because I believe it unfolds as you play the levels, but I feel left out on the story here. It seems to be a very interesting world, however.

Gameplay: 7/10

One word: hectic. This game has so many things going on at once, it almost seems impossible at times. It's a side-scroller that pits you into many different situations. For example, you can hang from the ceiling sometimes and move forwards like that, sometimes you get a motorcycle, even a snowboard. Of course, you don't have much choice but to keep going forwards, so levels are basically straight forwards.

The challenge comes when trying to figure out the level. On normal you have three lives per one credit and you have three credits. Once these are all out you must start over. This is very much like the arcade, which is actually bad. The levels take a good 5-15 tries just to figure out how to beat it and maybe another 5 to beat it. Each level takes some experimenting to get through, as everything is on a pattern that you have to learn, especially the bosses.

Ah, the bosses. There are a lot of bosses, in just one level. They range from extra hard to ridiculously easy. This is usually the main part that takes time to figuring out.

You have three weapons: Machine Gun, Flamethrower, and a Grenade Launcher. Each weapon can be charged up to perform it's special attack. The machine gun shoots out a pod that spins around for a second shooting shots in every direction; the flamethrower shoots a straight, powerful shot that can blast through several enemies; and the grenade launcher shoots out a barrage of homing missiles. As you run around the levels you can aim in and direction.

All in all, the gameplay is hectic and hard but very fun at times. Play with a friend and you enjoy beating the levels easier, but it has a lot of teamwork needed.

Control: 8/10

The control is very hectic, but done any other way and the game would lose its charm. As you know, you can aim in any direction, using L2 to hold your aim in one position and R2 to stay in place while aiming. Getting the right aim is tricky and things can get so confused it's hard to use the control correctly.

Sound: 8/10

Music: 3/5

You got your heavy metal music here. You can't really hear it over the gun shots and monster cries, but it's not all bad.

SFX: 5/5

Very good. Just play the game and you'll see, it's really all you can hear!

Replay: Moderate

I have yet to find out how to use the save/load system. It seems that all it does is save your score rather than what level you are on. I keep having to go back and do all the levels over again. Once you beat a level once, you've basically seen everything, having to beat it again is just bad. It's fun to play with a friend, however.

Difficulty: Hard

With the lack of a save system (at least from what I've seen) and the difficulty of the levels, you'll find yourself dying a lot. Not to mention it takes one hit to take away one of your lives.

Overall: 7/10 (7.4/10 rounded down)

Contra seems to be a great game, unfortunately it brings some of the ''old-school baddies'' along with it. No save feature (please prove me wrong if you can) and repetitive gameplay. If your in the mood for a nice, old-school side-scrolling shooter or just a Contra fan, this is probably a must. Get a friend and it's a lot more fun.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/24/02, Updated 11/24/02