Reviewed: December 19, 2004
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Konami

Developer
Konami TYO

Released: October 19, 2004
Genre: Shooter
Players: 2
ESRB: Mature

8
8
7
7
7.7

Supported Features:

Neo Contra brings back Bill Rizer and a mysterious Samurai who are both introduced in a blazing opening movie that lasts nearly as long as the first of the four chapters. There is an arsenal of new weaponry, killer bosses, and a whole new visual style to the addictive gameplay that puts Neo Contra in a class all by itself.

This new perspective forced the designers to abandon a few of the staples Contra fans may be used to. You can’t jump or crouch and you are no longer restricted to just eight firing directions. You can now lock your firing position with L2 and strafe the levels. In fact, you will spend about 80% of the game strafing; it’s just that useful. Just as useful as strafing is rotational fire. Holding R2 locks your character movement and allows you to rotate and fire in place like a turret, definitely useful when you find yourself surrounded by enemies.

Enemies are unique and varied and come at you from all sides, even spawning in from behind. At any given time you have access to three weapons that you can cycle with the L1/R1 buttons. These include forward fire and lock-on missile weapons that you can fire independently with the triangle and square buttons. It’s usually pretty easy to see which enemy requires which type of missile. Simply press and hold the triangle and if any lockable targets are in view a lock-on box will appear, perhaps several. Release the button to fire swarm missiles at all locked targets.

Otherwise, you will just move around laying down a steady stream of fire at the hundreds of enemies that populate the levels. Oddly enough, most enemies come at you with swords allowing you to mow them down long before they get in range to do any damage. Incoming fire moves slowly enough that you can easily dodge it. Larger objects like turrets and bosses will have specific sensitive areas that will flash when hit. Destroy all of these to kill the larger objective.

Neo Contra offers two skill modes, Easy and Normal. Easy gives you 30 lives while Normal gives you a generous five. My first trip through the game on Easy mode took me 23 continues with one boss taking nine tries. I had little hope of ever completing the game on Normal. You have no health in this game; it’s one hit and you are dead. Try again please. That means on Normal mode you have to finish each chapter without getting hit more than five times. You can “continue” and get a fresh five lives but it also restarts the current chapter.

Levels are fresh, challenging, and often quite remarkable. You’ll start off on a standard isometric playing field then you might switch to a vertical climbing segment where you are being chased by a giant lizard, or find yourself freefalling down a vertical shaft battling a gunship. You might be riding on a torpedo skimming the waves or perhaps my favorite level, running on top of the rotor blades of a helicopter as you engage a giant enemy airship.

There are plenty of boss battles and sub-boss levels. These aren’t as difficult as I would have expected from a Contra game, either that or I’m just getting better at Contra combat. Basically, you just look for the part of the boss that flashes and hit it until it blows up then find the next part that flashes, all the while avoiding the incoming fire. The bosses, including the four Contra Elite are some of the wackiest creations in video game history. No spoilers here – just play and enjoy.

Even with the higher-than-usual camera perspective the characters and the mayhem remain larger than life. Enemies fall with a satisfying splash of blood, which is comical but apparently violent enough to earn the game a Mature rating. Explosions are bright and violent with plenty of fire and smoke, and there is cumulative damage on the larger targets as you beat them down with missile fire.

The bosses are some of the most hideous and imaginative creations I have ever seen. You never know what one boss is going to look like or how many times it will morph during your fight with it. There are plenty of visual indications to note where incoming fire will land giving you just enough time to find a place of safety. The HUD is minimal and shows just enough to keep you informed without distracting from the gameplay.

The sound effects are loud and overwhelming. You have the buzzing of your primary weapons as it unleashes an endless stream of bullets and your rocket launcher sends smoking projectiles to their targets with a satisfying BOOM when they hit. There are all sorts of electronic and other environmental sounds to bring the levels to life.

The dialogue is so bad it’s good. This is pure camp and if you doubt it for a minute just imagine a boss named Animal Contra who is beagle, or perhaps a bulldog, and during the course of the conversation Bill utters the insult, “YOU DOG!” If this game were anymore tongue-in-cheek I’d be looking for some robot silhouettes in the lower corner of the screen. You’ll laugh, you’ll groan, but mainly you’ll laugh.

There is a nice score system in place that grades your performance for each chapter. I got C’s and one D on my first trip through, and was oddly compelled to keep playing until I got B’s and even managed an A. There are also plenty of unlockable levels, weapons, and other bonus goodies to keep you playing over an over and striving for that perfect 100% hit rate.

Neo Contra might not be long, but it’s designed like the old coin-op games that keep you pumping quarters into the machine to keep playing, and even after you win you still want to try again and do better, only now you don’t need quarters (other than the 120 to buy the game).

It’s likely to make a few hardcore Contra fans angry, but it might just attract a few of the more casual shooters (like me) and bring them back to Contra. I know that Neo Contra has built up my confidence enough that I am starting to toy with the idea of trying Shattered Ego…err…Soldier again if I can remember where I buried it in the backyard.

Bottom line, the game is short, but that is good because it is highly addictive and best played in short doses. It’s great with one or two players assuming you are both at the same skill level and won’t be burning through the extra lives, but most of all it’s mindless shooting fun and that’s what Contra has always been about.