Review: Contra (NES)

May 28, 2009 by Jeffrey L. Wilson
Filed under: Reviews, Run and Gun 

contra1 Review: Contra (NES)Nowadays, when folks think of Konami, their minds invariably drift to the wild and wacky adventures of one Solid Snake, as he stealthily makes mincemeat of all manner of sci-fi/supernatural/G.I. Joe-level paramilitary freaks. But if you were to hop into the Way Back Machine and touchdown in the late ’80s/early ’90s the Konami name was associated with another kickass military-themed series: Contra, one of the early (and best) entries in the run-and-gun genre.

The ’80s were filled with such anti-drug slogans as “Just Say No”, “Crack Is Wack”, and the like, but Mrs. Reagan,  and dozens of PSAs overlooked Contra’s shoot-everything-that-moves gameplay that had millions of kids strung out and looking for their “just a few minutes, ma!” fix. Bedrooms and living were just really tidy back alleys, really.

Contra’s premise is remarkably simple: two buffed soldiers named Mad Dog and Scorpion are dropped onto a small, alien-infested island that has the most bizarre climate known to man (it somehow pulls off being both tropical AND polar) to regulate in the name of the third rock.

Your arsenal of awesome consists of:

  • Standard Gun (default weapon)
  • Machine Gun (faster, more powerful version of the Standard Gun)
  • Fire Gun (swirling attack)
  • Laser Gun (rips through everything, but has a slow attack rate)
  • Rapid Fire (speeds up your attack rate)
  • Barrier (temporary invulnerability)

These weapons are acquired in the same method that you get anything else done in the game: you shoot em. Blimpy metalliac thingies bob and weave overhead with your heavy metal in tow, but somehow can’t deploy cargo despite being technological enough for wingless flight. One could argue that the blimpy metalliac thingies belong to the invaders, but when as an enemy foot soldier hit you with a Spread?

Although each gun is more than capable of mowing down the aliens and their gears of war, each individual gun can be used different in the hands of the novice or Contra pro. The Laser, for example, is shunned by newcomers as jamming on the fire button does absolutely nothing; in order to attack you have to have the patience to tap a button every few seconds. The Spread is a great screen-clearing offensive gem, but in the hands of a veteran, it allows you to “cover” a rookie (maybe the knucklehead with the Laser) or outright bad player in a shield of red dots.

As great as Contra is as a single player game, it becomes just that much better when you have a quality wingman on controller 2. See, Contra is like sex; it will either act as a bonding agent that will bring both parties closer, or it will completely and totally ruin your relationship. You’ll end up coming to odds with your partner over weapon distribution or moving too quickly/slowly, or you’ll enter a zen state where you know each others actions with nary a spoken word. Just like the grind.

So how goes Contra fare in the face of contemporary action games? It rocks. With gameplay as simple as “blowup everything you see” Contra still manages to intrigue and  one-up old school crap like Rush ‘N Attack and new school disappointments like Commando: Steel Disaster by offering pinpoint controls, attractive visuals (everything goes boom quite nicely), and insanely hummable stage music (if you don’t know the music to Stage 1, you sir, need to play this game).

I have a very rudimentary theory that suggests that you can tell the quality of an NES game by the number of fist fights it causes. Following this Einsteinian hypothesis, Contra can be considered a god-level game as I suspect that at least 73% of all ass whippings dished out in ‘88 was prompted by a player jerking another out of the much sought after Spread, which made enemies, for once, experience what is referred to is Bullet Hell.

If you haven’t played Contra in years, play it. Now. Be it alone or with a bud. On a yellowed NES or on Virtual Console. It’s action gaming perfection.


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Comments

7 Comments on Review: Contra (NES)

  1. Skeletons in the Gaming Closet: I Love Ninja Combat | 2D-X, Where old school gaming is new school. on Wed, 3rd Jun 2009 7:38 pm

    2. [...] was so grand about the throwing stars? They were, in effect, Contra’s Spread Gun. It allowed you to mow down wave after wave of minions, and effectively [...]

  2. Review: Commando Steel Disaster (DS) | 2D-X, Where old school gaming is new school. on Fri, 5th Jun 2009 12:13 pm

    3. [...] will drool over the title, but those that haven’t cut their teeth on the Metal Slugs and Contras of the world are better served with Mario Kart DS or the [...]

  3. Kelly Brown on Fri, 12th Jun 2009 10:11 pm

    4. I really like your post. Does it copyright protected?

  4. Contra Blasts Onto the Palm Pre | 2D-X, Where old school gaming is new school. on Sun, 14th Jun 2009 11:10 pm

    5. [...] mode, so it’s only fitting that the first reported gaming emulation on the WebOS platform is Contra, the NES hall-of-famer that made the cheat [...]

  5. rioastamal.net » Blog Archive » Tutorial: Bermain Game Klasik “Contra” dan “Sonic” di Ubuntu Linux on Sat, 27th Jun 2009 10:14 am

    6. [...] kepikiran kepingin nostalgia dengan game-game jaman jadul dulu waktu SD. Masih inget dengan game “Contra” dan “Sonic”. Itu adalah salah dua game yg paling saya gemari dan teman-teman sewaktu [...]

  6. 11-Year Old Hates Contra and All That Is Fun In Life | 2D-X on Tue, 28th Jul 2009 7:38 pm

    7. [...] Props to /gamer for unearthing one of the more intriguing gaming related YouTube clips that has ever graced the popular video repository. Kerry of Nerd Balloon has launched “Project D” a social experiment in which he sits down an 11-year old (raised on a steady diet of modern first-person shooters) in front of a computer emulator to play the games on which we were reared. Games like Contra. [...]

  7. Virtual Vox Pop: Which Game Should Be Next To Recieve The ReBirth Treatment? | 2D-X on Wed, 14th Oct 2009 11:19 pm

    8. [...] visuals and gameplay (and even entirely new series entries done in a 16-bit style), to the likes of Contra, Gradius, and Castlevania: The Adventure. These neo-retro titles offer sidescrolling gameplay and [...]

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