Genre: Classic Shooter (Side Scroller) Number of Players: 1-2
It really feels like Microsoft just sits there mocks gamers with the low quality of some XBLA games. And if Microsoft's having a giggle at the public for buying them, Konami must be regularly hospitalized with the endless belly laughs it's having at our expense. Throwing any old back catalog garbage onto Live and calling it a 'retro classic' is, at best, misleading. Clearly not everyone's got the concept of 'classic' gaming nailed down.
Some people claim the early Contra games are '80s arcade treasures, and that's cool. At the time they were certainly popular, and, if you were around at the time, these brutally tough side-scrolling shooters were generally warmly received. But gamers have the tendency to confuse the issue of classic gaming with the plain old nostalgia value surrounding certain titles. Classic gaming in the truest sense of the term should transcend the era it was made in. It should be as a great game today as it was when it came out. Super Contra is simply not even close to fulfilling that criteria, yet here it is, joining the growing pile of undeserving titles to be squeezed out of Konami onto Live Arcade.
Super Contra is a direct follow-up to the 1987 arcade shooter Contra and once again features the same ‘tough as nails’ war veterans, Bill Rizer and Lance Bean. And just like last time out, they're busy countering some sort of invasion somewhere in deep South America, in 2634, against their former comrades. The story doesn’t really matter. All that matters here is that this is a cookie cutter side scrolling shooter from the 80’s that has a learning curve steeper than the streets of San Fransisco. Seriously, today’s gamers will be blown away since there’s no tutorial or ‘soft’ first level.
If you thought the original Contra was a bit tough, then this will have you crying before the first of five levels is over with. The biggest new addition is the side-scrolling levels now feature slopes, making progress through even the first section of the first level hazardous if you’re not careful.
In other areas, the game switches into top-down isometric Commandos style levels where you face even tougher tasks. It's still the same game in many ways. You still face off against insane numbers of enemies and giant military hardware, but rather than having to worry about what's above you, you have to think about enemies coming at you from all around - and that's as tough a test as you can get with the default weapon. Imagine Smash TV without any power-ups. That's Super Contra. Good luck to all the kids raised on today’s shooters.
The key to your progress is making sure you're armed to the hilt. Without the best weapons you might as well give up because the odds are stacked against you. Grabbing these essential power-ups involves shooting floating icons that appear only briefly on the screen and bounce around before disappearing. Some, like the laser gun, are powerful, but not all that useful in high pressure scenarios, while others just beef up the standard gun you start off with. The most valuable (and necessary) weapon out of these power-ups is the ‘spread’ gun. This powerful gun gives you a fighting chance against the endless enemies by covering the screen with 45 degrees of death for the baddies. Even with this magnificent weapon, the game is exhausting.
Trial and Error is the key here. You’re gonna die a lot, but the goal before you enter the grave should be to learn why you died and how to avoid it next time. Over head turrets are a great example of this. Memorize where they are and learn to react to them quickly. If you don’t, it’s lights out. With so much packed into every level, it's a real challenge to make any progress. And being a Konami/Digital Eclipse port, they haven't bothered to implement a level-select, or allow many continues to just bulldoze your way through the game. If you fail, it's back to the start, bro. It's brutal, but faithful to how people used to have to play it. However, that's not a particularly good thing if you just want to practice or get through the game and move on. You can, of course, modify the difficulty level down a notch and bump up the lives, but then you're disqualified from the online leader board and don't earn any achievement points. Considering that’s 50% of the reason some people play a game, it’s pointless to even have the option.
The enhanced graphics must have been ‘enhanced’ for the Saturn. Sure, the explosions look a bit better, but apart from that it's just the usual gloss applied to the sprites and smoothed backdrops that come off so half hearted, that it actually lowers the game’s value. Since it's a vertically aligned arcade game, the entire screen takes up about 30% of a 16:9 screen, making the whole process of shoveling these titles onto Xbox Live Arcade an even more thoughtless process. The bland screen filler to accommodate this screen ratio just cheapens the game even more.
Konami has included the usual Xbox Live online co-op options, and with so many of the 200 achievement points geared towards online co-op play, it's clearly a title they consider best played with a friend. It certainly makes matters a lot more straightforward, but don't assume it'll be much easier. It's still a crazy tough game.
Super Contra might appeal to the extreme hardcore retro cats out there with the patience of a Catholic Priest and skills of FATAL1TY. It's certainly a challenge, and if that sounds like you, go for it. But if you're a casual gamer and run when the going gets tough, then chances are you'll agree that the sequel is just too old, too hard, and too badly ported to bother with. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and give the demo a test run. Or if you have 400 ms points burning a hole in your virtual pocket, ignore me and set your points free.
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