Oh, Contra how I do love thee. Many an adolesecent year was spent holed up in my room with buddies, guiding two insanely buffed warriors (carrying guns about the size of their bodies) into a massive firefight with alien intruders. Although Super C and Contra III: The Alien Wars provided a couple of memorable thrills, the overhead levels in the former, and the Mode 7 clusterfuck in the latter rendered me a perplexed and disorentated gamer. Still, my love for the first game was enough to carry my interest in the series for two decades.

So when 1Up.com put all of us gaming journalists to shame by copping the first gameplay footage of Konami’s Contra Rebirth, the Japanese WiiWare throwback to the Contras of yesteryear, I was more than a little stoked. The gameplay looks vintage 16-bit Contra complete with “rugged sprites”, Bill Rizer doing what he does best (causing explosions), and nasty, hulking monstrosities. Turning an analytical eye toward the footage reveals much, so lets take a look at some of the finer details presented in the video.

• Area 1 features the classic Contra “Stage One” music track from the original game for instant nostalgia factor. Well played, Konami. Well played.
• Weapons include Normal, the much-beloved Spread, and Homing
• Classic “Stage Cleared” tunes are in the house.
• You have to love the sequence at the beginning of Area 2 where people are fleeing a giant robot–that has his headremoved by a stiff Rizer drop kick. Nice.
• The invincibilty period that you recieve upon resurrecting from a dying blow appears to be indicated by a cool shadow effect.
• You can hang from overhead fixtures and buck at the enemy ala Alien Wars.
• And on the topic of Alien Wars, Contra Rebirth features some SNES-esque scaling FX in Area 3.
• Bill can carry two weapons at once. There doesn’t appear to be any Gunstar Heroes-like weapon blending.
• The awesome alien lair music from the last level of Contra returns.
• The final stage, which rotates for no good reason, comes off as gimmicky more than well-planned.
• 2 Player mode is conspicuous by its absence (at least in the clips shown)

From these early shots, Contra Rebirth looks like its set to be a very hot title for run-and-gun fanatics. Let’s keep our virtual fingers crossed that this gem makes its way across the Pacific for an American WiiWare release.

Jeffrey L. Wilson  (704 Posts)

Founder and Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey L. Wilson’s love of all things shiny/digital has lead to jobs penning gadget- and video game-related nerd-copy for E-Gear, Laptop, LifeStyler, Parenting, PC Magazine, Sync, Wise Bread, and WWE. Besides overseeing the editorial content at 2D-X.com, the Brooklyn College grad hosts New York City’s monthly Bits and Bytes video game media and public relations meetup. You can find him at a bar sampling foreign beers, or on Twitter doing twittery things.