Contra review by Tyson

Overall

Rental

I found Contra on the NES to be worth a rental. The games toughness can be frustrating so its worth renting or borrowing first to see if you will enjoy this game.

Gameplay

     Ohh man is Contra one tough cookie. Contra is a shooter game where you move throughout each of the games 8 stages and pretty much destory anything in your path. Storywise the game is about defeating this terroist orginization called the Red Falcon. I guess Red Falcon wants to take over the world and you must stop them.

     Each of the games 8 stages are filled with bullets and enemies. What makes the game so hard is that just one hit from any bullet or enemy will kill you. I found this one hit death makes the game veryfrustrating at times. Thankfully the game has a 30 lives code which does help combat the high difficulty.

     To help you beat the game you can collect different types of powerups. Most will affect your gun by making it shoot lasers or several bullets that spread across the screen. There is also a rare powerup that gives you temporary invicibility. The problem I had with most of these powerups is that you have to keep pressing the shoot button to keep firing your gun. Only a few powerups let you hold the button down to shoot. Also what sucks is that any time you die you will lose your powerup.

     What really makes Contra shine is playing with a friend. Certian areas of the game are easier with a friend at your side but this also opens up different challenges as well. Such as it's possible to kill your friend if you moving upwards to fast.

Control

I really didn't have much problems with the control. You can shoot forward and even in diagnal directions which is pretty neat. I found the button inputs to respond well with all the action that goes on. The big complaint that I have with the control is having to keep pressing the button to fire your gun. A turbo controller is a must for this game.

Graphics

I found Contra to make good use of the NES's graphical effects. There always seems to be multiple enemies or bullets on screen. I found the game to hold a decent framerate with everything going on as well which was also very impressive.

Sound

I found Contra to have some good theme music but other than that I wasn't really too impressed with eveyrthing else. Your gun sounds different shooting a generic bullet then does when its firing a laser which is nice but then sound effects like touching an electric field on stages 2 and 4 to be really annoying.