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#150 – Contra Force

A misguided error.
Future so bullet-filled, you gotta wear shades.
Yeah, I’ll pass on the corridor of death, thanks.

PLAYERS: 1-2 simultaneous

PUBLISHER: Konami

DEVELOPER: Konami

GENRE: Action

RELEASE DATE: September 1992

Contra by way of some mediocre shooter that’s not Contra. Seriously, what happened? The basic formula of Contra – run and shoot – should, in theory, be easy to repeat, but this game certainly feels “forced” (every inch of that pun intended). It’s cool that you can pick from four different homeboys, but I wish they didn’t look like, er, not your traditional Contra protagonist. Each character plays the same, so I suppose it doesn’t matter. Since all you do is shoot guys and avoid obstacles, why does the game feel bland? No power-ups, your guns aren’t that good, and the game is way, way, way (way?… way) harder than the first one. I didn’t get a chance to “brah” it up on two-player, but the game doesn’t feel as expansive as the first, so I’m not sure adding another player to these close levels would be that worthwhile. Can you imagine trying to get two people through the spike smashers? I feel “impaled” just thinking about it. Still, Contra games are meant to be played with another person and since I failed to do that, why am I writing this review? Because it comes after the first Contra and I take my games like I take my meat: in alphabetical order (why does alpaca always come first? It’s so tough and stringy).

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7 replies on “#150 – Contra Force”

I’d have to agree with the reviewer on this. I can beat Contra, but I never even came close to completing this piece of garbage. I just pretend it doesn’t exist, that was I can sleep at night.

Sleepyweasel

I beat Contra back to back the other night using the 30 guy code. I couldn’t beat the first stage of this game.

From what I’ve heard, it’s a bit of a “Super Mario 2” situation: a reconfigured game, slammed into a different series.

I’ve played this game so much that I’ve kinda become an expert at it 😛
There are power ups, actually.. If you get two briefcases and press ‘select’, you get a different type of gun; three briefcases gives another type of gun, four briefcases enable you to fire 3 shots instead of 2, and five briefcases make your character immune to bullets when jumping. Then there is this “Aw fudge” moment shown above- you can simply shoot those four spike smashers and walk freely through that area 😀 Also, its worth mentioning that each character has different weapon combinations (apart from the default weapon), running speed, and jumping ability, so you can choose the guy that suits your requirement the best. Then you can also call in back-up from the command screen for tough situations.
In my opinion, where they really screwed up was the overall difficulty (8+1 lives are too less to last 5 levels in a game like this), and the painful slowdowns, rendering it just an average game overall.
There is a hack of this game called “Contra 6” that can also be found online, that has the slowdown bug fixed, and also gives 17 lives to each of your characters at random points of time. So that version is worth checking out, if anyone is interested.

No problem 🙂 Actually the NES was never officialy released in my country (India), so we had to settle for (and play again and again) the 90-100 or so games that were pirated in; we never had the chance to play games like Mega Man, Caltlevania, Ninja Gaiden, or even Legend of Zelda!! and thus the knowledge in less popular titles like Contra Force, WCW, International Cricket, Snow Brothers etc. 😛

Idk if its easier in single player or two player…. You get cover fire, but if your partner isnt as skilled at moving as you are it really can weigh down on you. The game didnt totally suck, I could see the subtle differences in the characters. It was aight…..

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