Description

Contra – a classic, a legend, and a synonym to all extremely difficult videogames. Yet it is the extreme difficulty, addictive gameplay and the atmosphere of 1980’s action movies, that makes this gem so special. You take the role of one of the two available characters, US commandos, Bill Rize and Lance Bean, who were deployed to the Galuga archipelago near New Zealand, where they supposed to neutralize a growing threat posed by the so called Red Falcon, a terrorist organization that wants to seize the world control by teaming up with aliens that supposedly crash-landed there on a meteorite. Interesting is, that up to two players can play simultaneously in hot seat co-op—a feature rather uncommon and rare, in the times of Contra’s release—one controls Bill (blue bandana) and the other controls Lance (red bandana). The game consists of seven stages in total, the player begins on the tropical shore swarming with Red Falcon soldiers and sentry guns, from where they proceed to the first base entrance, guarded by a soldier and two cannons. Upon entering the base, the perspective changes to a pseudo-3D, where the ability to move in two additional directions (back and forth) is added, and where the player has to fight Red Falcon guards and disable base sensors in order to advance through its corridors into the base core, where the first boss is to be dealt with. After that, throughout the third stage, the perspective changes back to—this time vertical—side scrolling, as the player ascends around a streaming waterfall leading to the second base entrance, where the perspective switches once more to the pseudo-3D. Here the last boss standing between the player and the alien queen that’s been helping Red Falcon s to be found and neutralized. From the second base, stage six leads the characters through a hangar bay and—surprisingly—some kind of a snowfield to the queen’s nest. Though at spawn and respawn defaultly equipped with a semi-automatic rifle only, throughout the game, players get to use four other weapons which can be aquired by shooting green-glowing Red Falcon hatches. In addition to that, several powerups like rapid semi-automatic fire or personal defence force-field are available by shooting rugby-ball shaped bubbles, every now and then flying across the screen. Each player has three lives in total, with the ability to buy nine more lives by inserting additional coins. However, should the player lose even those, the game ends and has to be replayed from the beginning. After all those years since its release, Contra gained a status of a legend, a gem amongst the side-scrolling shooters, and it is one of the prerequisites of every serious gamer, a must.