On a mission...what mission can this be...to pull as much time out of you as only this kind of game can do.
As with all my reviews that i do i will take a little look at the plot. The the player controls one of two armed military commandos named Bill "Mad Dog" Rizer and Lance "Scorpion" Bean, who are sent on a mission to neutralize a terrorist group called the Red Falcon Organization that is planning to take over the Earth. Now depending on where you are from and which version of the game you have the story and its setting are a little differant. The Japanese versions sets the game in a fictional Galuga archipelago near New Zealand in the futuristic year of 2633. While the manual for the American NES version sets the game during the present in an unnamed South American island. The American storyline also changes the identity of "Red Falcon" from being the name of a terrorist organization to the name of an alien entity. so realy the story is all over the place and realy your just going to have to play your version out to get more info.
With that out of the way its time to look at the gameplay of Contra. You start the game off with a rifle with an unlimited amount of ammunition. The player can also jump, move and fire in eight directions, as well as move or jump simultaneously while firing. A single hit from any enemy, bullet, or other hazard will instantly kill the player character and discard the current weapon. In Contra there are a total of over 10 areas. There are two types of stages in Contra. In addition to the standard side view stages, Contra also features stages in which the player character is seen from behind and must move towards the background in order to proceed. Each of these "3D maze" stages are set inside the corridor of an enemy base in which the player must fight through the base's defenses in order to reach the core of the base. During the 3D maze stages, the upper screen will display a map of the base along with a time limit. Each maze stage is followed by a "3D fixed" stage set at the core of the base, in which the player must destroy a series of flashing sensors to expose an even larger sensor and destroy it.
Contra also features a two-player cooperative mode. Both players occupy the same screen and must coordinate their actions. One player lagging behind can cause problems for his partner, as the screen will not scroll onward, and a slow player can be fatal to his partner.
Now we take a look at the upgrades that are on offer to help you in the fight. There are a total of four weapons the player can retrieve from flying weapon capsules, pill-box sensors, or red guards during 3D mazes. All the power-ups in the arcade version are represented by Eagle-shaped letter icons with the exception of the Machine Gun and Laser. In the arcade version, the flying weapon capsules only appear if the player is not wielding any special weapons. The upgrades are:
Machine gun.
Laser gun.
Spread gun.
Fire gun.
Rapid fire - increase firing speed.
Barrier - temporary invincibility.
Contra first came out in the arcades on February 20, 1987 and has then been ported to the Famicom/NES, MSX2, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360 (XBLA), Nintendo DS, Virtual Console, Mobile Phone, PlayStation Network.
This is one of those games that just stick in your mind even after so much time since it first played out. Many people will remember it for differant reasons but alot will remember it for one.....
THE KONAMI CODE!!!!!