Operation C

"Lance goes on an ass kickin' session without the help of the second controller! Holy crap!"

Back around 1986, Konami created what is possibly the greatest game series of all time: Contra. The plot of Contra was simple as hell: kill every one of the little bastards that came to Earth to kill humanity. In the arcade version, you were allowed to play as two awesome bad asses, Bill as player one, and Lance as player two. This pattern remained standard for all the Contra games up until Contra: Hard Corps, when all of a sudden the games just stopped coming.

Somehow though, Lance was able to slip away in 1991 to this lesser known Gameboy game. How the hell did a game this awesome slip through the cracks of Gameboy games back when the Gameboy had very little in the awesome department besides Tetris and Super Mario Land is beyond me, but at least we still have Operation C (I have a feeling it was the mistake of calling it C instead of Contra though).

Story
After kicking numerous aliens asses with his partner Bill in Super Contra, Lance is summoned forth to go scout out a new alien base all alone while Bill goes on vacation for some reason. Despite being pissed that his buddy gets to go on vacation without him, Lance takes his anger out on the numerous alien forces that have decided to get in his way.

Not much of a story at all, but since when did the Contra storyline need to be as epic as some of that crap Shakespeare wrote? I thought as much.

Gameplay
Ahh, the core of the game. The entire concept of Contra is for you to kick ass with your unlimited ammo machine gun, while avoiding everything that moves. Despite how bad ass Lance is with his front flips every time he jumps, his unlimited ammo, the fact that he doesn't wear a shirt, or even the fact that he's doing this alone, doesn't remove the fact that anything can kill you in one hit. And with only three lives to last you from the beginning to the end of the game (extra lives can be picked up by racking' up a high score), you're going to need all the skill you can get.

New to the Contra series, for the first time ever, you have RAPID FIRE!! You no longer have to tap the B button as fast as you can to fire off enough bullets to kill stuff from all directions, now you can just hold the button in and kick everything's ass! Whoo! This might not seem like a big deal, but this is the first Contra game to use the machine gun from the start and not with a power up. Great job on this feature Konami.

As for your weapon, you can upgrade it throughout the game by shooting down floating item boxes that fly overhead most of the time. Sadly, there aren't as many weapons in this version as there are in the NES versions, but hey, there's more than enough to make you happy. Weapons include the Spread gun, the upgraded Spread gun (fires more bullets if you can get two spread guns in a row), the homing shot (like a spread gun that seeks targets out! Awesome!), and the exploding flamethrower, making a return from Super Contra. Good deal here. You really only need these three items anyways, and you still got your machine gun, so you're good to go!

On two levels of the game, you'll be put in an overhead view, much like you were in Super Contra. During these levels, you head in an upward fashion, still killing everything in sight. These levels aren't as great as the standard side scrollers, but Konami had to keep your interest somehow. Too bad the super shrapnel blast isn't in this version like it was in the arcade version of Super Contra though. Major bummer there.

Graphics
The graphics, although blurry, are just like the ones seen on your NES version of Contra! Lance looks just like he did when he was player 2 on the NES version, enemies look like enemies in multiple forms, and the backgrounds are smooth and get the job done. The overhead levels make it look like your invading wherever you are, be it a factory or the alien base. Everything is done nicely for this being a game from 1991 on the Gameboy.

Music and Sound
Take the music from Contra, tone it down a notch, and make some new Gameboy sound effects for a machine gun and stuff, and you got the music and sound for Operation C. The music is directly from Contra, which isn't a bad thing at all. Hell, it's exactly like it for every tiny detail, minus the porting issues that all console-to-gameboy games have. Oh well, at least they work out greatly. The sound effects get the job done as well, since you know the bulkier spread gun sounds sound stronger than the standard machine gun shots. And the classic Contra Victory music remains intact as well! Holy crap!

Replay the hell out of this game
Despite this game being pretty short (5 or so levels), this is a great change of pace from the ordinary Contra games on your NES/SNES/Genesis/PS2/Arcade, and its portable so you can play it wherever the hell you want to! This game answers the question that yes, Contra CAN be played on the road and is worth playing' about fifty times while you wait to get to your hotel or something. Be sure to play it on the Gameboy Advance SP though so you can see it better at night.

How much how much how much how much?!
I purchased my copy of Operation C and a Gameboy Pocket for 20 bucks due to some deal they had at the store. You may not get so lucky to score a Gameboy Pocket with your purchase, but damn this game is worth the 10-15 dollars people are asking for nowadays (why the hell are Gameboy games so expensive compared to NES games?). It's worth every penny of the cash amount, but you may be able to score it cheaper somewhere else. Good luck to you on that, I'll be playing Operation C while you search.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/01/05