When he’s not working on his university newspaper he is busy eating candy and blogging about videogames on cooler than a badass 8-bit shoot’em up 2D side scroller from the ’80s? How about a badass 8-bit shoot’em up 2D side scroller that also goes vertical and throws a couple pseudo 3D dungeons into the mix? It’s not quite worth its sticker price new.Īlex Hayter is a student and journalist living in Waterloo, Ontario.
Contra 4‘s punishing difficulty level may set it apart from contemporary peers, but it makes the game a rewarding combination of distinction and reminiscence. By that comparison, it’s still not a bad game it just might not be what everyone wants to play in 2007.īottom line: An entertaining or frustrating experience, depending on the player. It’s a cockle-warming reminder of what made games great in those days: rewarded perseverance, gratifying power-ups and terrifying boss-battles.īut I like to think that today’s action gamer prizes narrative, immersion, depth and innovation. But there’s no multiplayer support in the older games.įor people with rose-colored glasses, Contra 4 is a satisfying side-scroll down memory lane.
And yes, thank God, you can still punch in the Konami Code and get 30 lives. Getting far enough in the game will give you access to some rather delicious unlockables, including the first Contra games, Contra and Super C, versions ported from the NES. The DS’ screens are both a blessing and a curse they function well in multiplayer mode if each player tries to occupy a screen to himself, but it’s often difficult to notice bullets or bad guys coming at you when they pass through the horizontal divider. Each level has a distinct personality and is frequently broken up with interludes of mini-bosses or changes of direction (for example, moving upward as opposed to sideways). When you’re not busy trying to focus on massacring the chump hordes, the environments in Contra 4 offer an appealing view. When you can run through an entire level, killing every enemy without dying yourself, you feel like Rambo. Play the game long enough, and you’ll start to really enjoy the action.
In real life, I’ve actually found myself eyeing street corners suspiciously for the presence of commandos lying prone atop sandbags … it’s those sneaky bastards that get me every time in the game. Some people are going to love this binary of challenge/reward gameplay, but others, like me, are just going to get fed up very easily. But on your second attempt, your muscle memory clicks in, and you systematically find ways of avoiding its signature attacks. Contra 4 is a cycle of death: The first time you face a boss, you have a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving. I found myself wanting to be satiated by the game’s old-school ways, but try as I might, I just didn’t get much out of it. The toughness is softened with the help of an ad-hoc multiplayer buddy, but the amount of bullets passing by on your DS’ screens can make it even tougher to avoid enemy fire.
In the same way that the Guitar Hero and Ninja Gaiden series have ramped up their difficulty to follow players’ development, Contra 4 represents an even tougher challenge than its original namesake. And then there’s the start menu, glowing ambivalently in your face as you shamefully return to “Easy” mode for the umpteenth time. Getting past the first level without seeing a “Gamer Over” screen is an ordeal in itself. My lives barely last more than 10 seconds at a time. In this respect, it can be addictive and ultimately rewarding, if you’ve got the endurance for it. You begin each level over from the start no quicksaves here! The only way most people will be able to beat the game is by memorizing all the levels, just like the first game. Dying every time you get shot? Why, that must make Contra the most true-to-life shooter ever made.Īnd just like in life, dying in Contra 4 sucks. When most of a game’s enemies can withstand more damage than you can, it’s a surprising and frustrating experience. The science of Contra works on a simple equation: You get shot, you die. Not because of any violent content, but because of its difficulty it will make them cry.
If you have kids, or know any, don’t let them play this game. Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Contra 4 is a very tough game. Fortunately, this type of misleading branding is commonplace in the videogame lexis.
It keeps the Virtual Consoles and Xbox Live Arcades of the world stocked with a library full of material.Īnd in 2007, 20 years after the original was released, Konami bring us Contra 4, which is actually the 13th Contra game. It brings us Mario every couple years for a hop around Mushroom Land. Nostalgia is perhaps the biggest moneymaker in videogames.