"Ultimate C? Not quite...but damned close."

When I think of Contra, I think of those nights that I stayed up playing a then revolutionary game on my old Nintendo Entertainment System. The hours I spent cursing at the screen as I died over and over again in a hail of bullets, only to have to restart the game from the beginning. My joy when I found the infamous Konami Code in a codebook off the local news rack and the actual fistfights I got into with other friends because they couldn’t keep up with me on the jumping stages. Now, years later, I have something to look forward to, new curses to utter and more fights to get into with my friends because they can’t keep up with me, forcing me to die unfairly.

If you’re a Contra fan, then you’re already going to know the premise of the story before you start the game up. Alien boss of some sort and it is up to you {and a friend if you want} to undertake the role of super soldier. You’ll blast your way through seven stages of enemies, mowing down endless soldiers and out of control bosses that will both frustrate you and keep you on your toes all in the same token. If you know anything about the series thus far, the game story will twist you around just enough to make you blink and maybe tilt your head a little as you realize just what is going on. Aside from that and the occasional game over screen, the game is only about an hour or so long once you’ve gotten a good handle on what you have to do.

To say that the game is an hour long is the truth, because once you’ve figured out the patterns, the boss characters and what weapons are worth a crap, then the game is fairly easy to run through. However, you have to take into consideration the dozens of hours you’ll spend trying to figure out just what works as a winning combination for each of the seven stages. As you progress through the game, there are plenty of hidden things that you can find depending on how well you do and how well you shoot your enemies. Patterns become apparent through trial and error, which is always important if you want to clear a stage without getting killed a hundred times in the process, leading to a much easier time when you go through the fourth or fifth time.

Firing your way through the stages, you’ll find that there are plenty of places that you can jump and enemies that come at you from all directions. Through the gathering of weapons, you can turn on the heat with a variety of weapons that range from your standard machine gun to the ever-popular flame-thrower. At the top of the screen, you’ll notice something new in the way of a hit rating, which gives you an accuracy rating at the end of every stage. The higher your accuracy, the better your grade and the better your grade, the more things that will be unlocked for you later once you’ve finished the game. Like me, you’ll probably scream your way through the first few stages before calming down and letting your hands and eyes think for you.

Control is about as tight as you can expect for a platform game and the Play Station 2 control pad does a good job with controlling your character in jumping and firing. There are instances where you might misjudge a jump or your timing might be a little off, but with enough practice, you should be able to clear all of the stages with little or no problem. Aiming can be done with the shoulder buttons, which gives you a little more control on where your bullets are going and what you’re aiming at. Enemies only require a pattern watch once and you’ll be able to avoid them without taking a hit, which is a plus over the original games that had little control to them.

Visually, Shattered Soldier has plenty of things going for it in terms of long stages, interesting enemy designs and bosses that will make you stop and stare. In all of the years that I’ve been playing Contra games, I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite as cool as a huge suicide robot that launches itself at you. Stages themselves are done in good fashion with plenty of shading and shadow effects, though you really won’t notice because the action itself is non-stop. Weapon effects and explosions are all done with Contra in mind in terms of giving you big explosions and more bang for your buck. If you’re looking for the most comprehensive visual experience in a Contra game, then you’ve found it here.

The music on the other hand really didn’t do all that much for me and I found it to be drab in comparison to some of the more hard hitting music that I have in my disc player. While the sounds are serviceable, it’s nothing that you’ll take notice of and nothing that you’ll miss when its gone, which about the standard for Contra games since the beginning of the series. The sound effects are clean and crisp, though there is hardly a comparison considering all that you hear is gunfire and explosions through ninety percent of the game. If you’re looking for voice effects, then you might not even bother because the sound presentation in that department is bare bones; no voice over effect anywhere.

Shattered Soldier isn’t a bad game by any means and it is a long time coming in terms of what we have for a new Contra game. With a different weapon system, non-stop action and plenty that you can unlock, there is enough here that will keep you busy for hours on end. The story doesn’t really exist and it isn’t told with anything more than text screens, the challenge is enough to make a seasoned veteran sweat and the visuals are top notch for the series. The downfalls that you’ll find is once you’ve gotten the patterns, you’ll breeze through it with little or no problem and the sound isn’t exactly up to what I’d call a next-generation standard. Worth a look if you’re a fan of the old games and a fan of the series in general, don’t apply if you’re looking for an easy game, cause you won’t get it here.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/17/03, Updated 03/17/03