Contra: Shattered Soldier

"Much can be said about Contra: shattered soldier, But it all depends on who’s saying it."

Much can be said about Contra: shattered soldier, But it all depends on who’s saying it. Contra only offers good solid game-play if you’re into that genre, or the contra series. The lack of 3-D game-play and voice acting really hurts, especially when it has to compete with more empowered games such as: Grand theft auto: Vice city, Gran turismo 3 or Metal gear solid 2: Sons of liberty. The game isn’t all that bad to call it bad, but most, but not all, probably will.

Game-play: Okay-6.2/10
Contra is the first side-scrolling game that I’ve played for Playstation 2. The first half hour of playing it was bliss and the lack of mobility didn’t matter at all. When you complete the game and go and play for fun you realize that “yawn” there’s nothing solid that Contra offers but extra levels and movies to encourage you to replay it and that requires you to play on the hardest difficulty mode, achieve really good rankings and not die once (that’s for the so called funny movie, not everything) which is supposedly the best unlockable thing in the game, man why wont they give invincibility. The extra levels may sound like fun, but the levels you unlock are way too short and the movies are a complete waste of time. You can either act Bill or the girl; there are 5 levels (2 unlockable) and some reading to do when it’s movie time. The game is a rapid non-stop shooting madness (in a good way) that is the main part that drew my attention. The game offers many mini-bosses, weird aliens, and amazing machine robots. You must make your way through the stages armed with nothing but a gun that has multiple attacks, and those attacks have each a special power up that makes life easier. For instance that flame-thrower powers up and blasts out a super-power shot that is the most deadly weapon in the game, the other two are up to you to figure out. The best thing about this game is that nothing in this game is what it should be. Like the first boss has a turtle head then when you blow it off he turns around to reveal his ugly side, again that’s for you to find out. The basic movement through the environments is pretty descent but isn’t really perfect. The fact that one hit kills you and you get a skimpy amount of lives and continues, especially on the hard difficulty makes practice a necessity, thank god they gave it as a mode. Contra has 2-player hook up, but that doesn’t mean it gets any easier. You may think it does but the bosses and enemies get beefed up making it in reality much harder. Every level in Contra has something new to offer you. You start out walking then thrown into snowboarding then you must climb (first level). Contra is a CD so the game itself is considerably short, in fact you could probably beat this game in less time that it takes you to beat off *jokes*

Graphics: Great 7.1/10
The whole positive side to this game is the graphics. All colours are wonderfully done, graphically there applied well enough for the game. It’s not my job to point but I would have coloured stuff different. The characters are a bit fuzzy and not enough detail to see their faces was done. The foreground and backgrounds are done perfectly, finally there’s something that I actually liked in this game. The part about the colours that took the cake is how well the level design is done, a wide variety of colours no one used more then another giving you a nice well coloured game. The graphics are not the best I’ve ever seen, but I was satisfied. When you get a game made by Konami you get the reassurance that the graphics are well done and this game was no exception, well maybe a little there not anything special, everything looks like it’s supposed to, nothing looks weird or demented. Explosions look like explosions, snow looks like snow you get the picture.

Sound: Awesome-8.0/10
Rock and roll/techno music is what every level in Contra has to offer and I like that type of music. The sound effects are decent, everything sounds like it should and that’s great but I would have liked to seen them take the extra step and have made voice acting. One more thing since when does a sniper rifles sound like your launching a potato gun.

Story: Horrible-2.0
Bill must sop this bad alien, didn’t bother to learn his name blood falcon I think that’s it. He’s come back and threatening the human race. Wow, nice story. There’s more story if you actually read the stuff in the game but I couldn’t be bothered, I hate reading when all other games have talking. That’s not saying that the rest of the story is good, I’ve been told.

Rent or Buy: I recommend rent-5.8/10
The amount of time that it takes to beat everything in the game, you mide-as-well rent it. If you decide to go ahead and buy it you better be a hardcore fan of the series and like side scrolling games because it is that and that alone that will get you to buy this game.

Replay ability: Not a lot-4.2/10
So you beat the game. If you didn’t get a good enough ranking then you can play again to get a higher ranking and unlock more stuff. Basically achieving a better overall score is the only way to unlock new things and what they ask of you is pretty tough regarding what you get for achieving it. There are no hidden areas (im not talking about the unlockable levels) and not a single new upgrade you can win, man. The only thing that I can salvage form this one time around game is that you will replay it because you will die a lot, but it’s not actual replaying it in my books if your doing it to beat the game in the first place.

Bang for your buck: Waste of money-5.1/10
Day you bought the game-WOW
1 week later-if you haven’t sold it away or stopped playing it altogether by now someone needs to show you a catalogue of better PS2 games. It’s really the shortness of the game that’s takes away from what your getting for your money.

Difficulty: Hard-5.6/10
The constant dieing from the one hit kills, kills this game. Everything is amplified in difficulty because in fact everything can and probably will, if your not careful, kill you. *I don’t give a game a low score because its hard its just because its so hard that its frustrating, ya know.

Overall: Bad-5.5/10 or 6/10 Gamefaqs wise
Contra is a game that I think came out way too soon. If they would have waited and improved on the story and extras they would have came out with a better game. Instead they have this mediocre fire frenzy that makes little to no sense. I don’t know how people can like this game, no offence to anyone.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/20/03