Contra
In Contra, the player controls one of two armed military commandos named Bill and Lance who are sent on a mission to neutralize a terrorist organization called Red Falcon that is secretly planning an alien invasion on Earth. Details of the game’s setting varies between supplementary materials: the Japanese version establishes the game to be set in the fictional Oceania archipelago of Galuga in the futuristic year of 2633[1][2], whereas the manual for the American NES version sets the game during the present in an unnamed South American island.[3]
The main character is equipped with a rifle with an unlimited amount of ammunition. The player can also jump, move and fire in eight directions. The protagonists can move and jump simultaneously while firing. A single hit from any enemy, bullet, or other hazard will instantly kill the player character, and also discard the current weapon from the player’s disposal. There are a total of four weapons the player can retrieve from flying weapon capsules or pill-box sensors: a Machine Gun, a Laser Gun, a Fire Gun, and a Spread Gun. There also two additional supplemental power-ups: a Rapid Fire power-up which increases the player’s firing speed, as well as a Barrier that will grant the player temporary invincibility for a few seconds. All the power-ups in the arcade version are represented by Eagle-shaped letter icons with the exception of the Machine Gun and Laser.
There are two types of stages in Contra. In addition to the standard side view stages, in which the player must move towards the right (or climb upward in at least one stage) to reach the end boss, Contra also features “3D view” stages in which the player character must move towards the background in order to proceed. Each of the 3D stages are set inside the corridor of an enemy base in which the player must fight through the base’s defense system in order to reach the core of the base before the time limit. There are a total of ten stages in the arcade version of Contra but only 8 stages in the NES version.
Contra also features simultaneous two-player cooperative gameplay. Both players occupy the same screen and must coordinate their actions. One player lagging behind can cause problems for his partner, as the screen will not scroll onward, and a slow player can be fatal to his partner. The European release, Gryzor, does not feature a simultaneous multiplayer mode. Instead, the multiplayer alternates between one player or the other when either one loses a life.
One Review
Contra features perfectly responsive controls and a challenging environment to use them in, along with what may be the most famous cheat code ever to let even newbies live long enough to hone those skills.