A great shooter, the last 16-bit installment
The Contra series (which began in arcades and gained widespread fame and fortune on the NES) is notorious amongst gamers for its difficulty. You play a pair of "Rambo" inspired soldiers gunning for countless faceless enemy soldiers, robots, and H.R. Giger inspired aliens. Most children of the 80's remember the "Konami Code" to get 30 lives and make the NES game beatable.
Granted, people HAVE beaten Contra without cheats, codes or save states (via emulation), but it requires a level of memorization and lightning fast reflexes that most adults (never mind most kids) lack.
Moving on to the 16-bit era, Contra III was released on the SNES, where it took advantage of the increased graphics and sound technology as well as having more buttons.
The follow up was Contra: Hard Corps on the Genesis. The graphics are comparable to Contra III on the SNES, with slightly smaller characters, fewer colors, and less detail. However the adventure is completely new. This time around there are four selectable characters (two players must choose different characters) with different selections of weapons (the power ups conform to each player's inventory). The four characters include a man, woman, a wolfman, and a robot (who can hover a bit like Princess Toadstool in Super Mario Bros. 2).
Unlike Contra III, you cannot do the "two fisted spinning attack" with your guns.
Like Contra III, you have screen clearing bombs that you can collect (with a different, and I think cooler, special effect when they are used). Again, players die in one hit from attacks (baring special circumstances). Like Contra III, you can press a key to "stand in place" while aiming (rather than running and aiming as you normally do), and do a "slide" maneuver that can sometimes save your neck.
The "top down" battles in Contra III (which were like those in NES Super C only with rotation effects that made it a bit more confusing) are replaced with alternate sequences wherein you are riding on hover bikes or running towards the screen being chased by giant monsters (quite exciting, albeit frustrating).
The graphics, while great for the Genesis, may strike some as a bit monochromatic. Usually however a grayish or bluish level will be spruced up by the arrival of a brightly colored boss monster that fills most of the screen and is animated in segments (reminiscent of Konami's treatment of such characters in the excellent "Castlevania Bloodlines").
Like the rest of the series, these games have a high level of action, but also frustration, since everything can kill you, and the screen is often filled with enemies, and the bosses are often extremely cheap. To remedy this, since there is no "30 lives code" for the US version, I suggest a game genie for any normal person who wants to enjoy this game and yet retain their sanity! There are codes out there to give you 25, 60 lives, and a level select.
Like other games in the series, there are also "climbing" sequences in which touching the bottom or edge of the screen instantly kills you (even if there was a safe platform there just a second ago). This is unfair to players, but it is no different than earlier titles, so Contra veterans will be used to it.
There is some digitized speech, it is muffled, but understandable.
Despite the high level of challenge, this is a great game.
Graphics: 8/10 (for the Genesis)
Controls: 7/10
Sound: 6/10 (mostly explosions, which sound great)
Overall: 8/10Read full review
