Contra III
Contra III: The Alien Wars, also known to our overseas friends as Contra Spirits, was the complentary-colored commandos' Super Nintendo debut. In fact, it was the only time they appeared on that system. Evidently they were a little too rowdy at the Nintendo of America wrap party, busted up Yoshi pretty badly and got fired. Regardless, it had all the earmarks of both a Contra game and an early-years SNES release. The end result: A mindless killing spree of cinematic proportions.
Really, this game does its damndest to look like one of those billion-dollar action films. In the opening, a huge vortex appears over a nondescript futuristic city, dumping searing death and a huge fleshy alien head. Then, some enormous red letters scroll by. Next, we're treated to a lovely extreme closeup of one of our sweaty, chunky heroes, swearing revenge. Then the camera pans aside to show his tactical genius buddy who so helpfully adds, "Let's attack aggressively." Brilliant.
The first thing you do is rush in and blow away a sports car. It raises off the ground then erupts into a fireball, showering debris all over. And, that sets the mood for the rest of the game. Just like that cheesy commercial for insurance or stocks says, "Everything gets... BLOW'D UP!" You shoot down a red guy in his little tree house, and not only does he fall to his death, the thing explodes. Buldings collapse, tanks explode, and just when you think your ass couldn't possibly be rocked more, a B-52 with custom devil horns or something drops two atomic bombs, setting everything on fire. Keep in mind this is all in the first level. Later levels aren't quite so extreme or cool. In fact, a lot of them suck. But anyway...
This time there's no pretense of Red Falcon conquering little islands nobody cares about, or creating huge armies of purple joggers to block your path. It's just the Alien War. So everything that attacks you looks sort of like a Megaman X character drawn in normal proportions, then killed and returned from Hell. Maybe that's a tad harsh. But there are these mutant hellhounds that innocently eat the garbage by the diner, then get a huge devil face and start chasing you, slathering and insane.
The first boss is soberingly retarded. A huge rotting turtle with a beehive on its back smashes through a wall, breathing fire, puking maggots, and being a general load. Why is it that monsters on SNES games have limbs composed of badly texture-mapped spheres? This one has hamburgery legs and a Slinky neck. Plus it has an upsetting tendency to bash itself on the ground. The most dangerous part of it is really the flashing, glaringly obvious weak spot on its stomach. It always picks just the right angle to pick you off. After you beat it, it starts VIOLENTLY humping the street, which usually gives me a weird sensation in the pit of my stomach. I get the same feeling when I really sit and think about what my parents did to get me.
The second level is a prime example of the #1 Most Pimped Feature of the Super NES: Mode 7. Mode 7 is a way for the game to zoom in on and rotate a two dimensional plane. It's really a cheap half-assed substitute for the illusion of depth. The scene is a top view as you navigate a destroyed length of really lousy roadwork. Enemies will randomly appear wher eit makes the least sense; say you rotate so the edge of the road is behind you, then turn to face it again, a weird trilobite formation-flying squadron has magically flown up behind ya. Destroy all the manholes and you'll get zapped to an endless parking lot to battle something that looks like a horseshoe crab with naval mines on its feet. It uses the magic of Mode 7 to zoom towards the camera and get really pixelated, then suddenly reappear on your little guy's head. The sad thing about this battle is realizing that your character is the only visual element that's actually moving instead of being 7-ed all over the place.
(For more information on Mode 7, play F-Zero or especially, Pilotwings.)
Past that, the third stage is another sidescrolling love fest at a steel mill. Proving once again that there's really no reason to use any weapons beside the Spread and Fire guns. I remember all my friends made a big production out of hanging off the mini boss (left), when I just hang from the top rope and blast down at an angle. Some people just like to try too hard, I guess.
Boasting more dysfuntional robots than Futurama, but less than Megaman, the Steel Mill stage concludes with a battle against fraternal Terminator twins, followed by an enourmous Terminator ripoff robot called Robo-Corpse. Like the rotting Gamera from level one, it makes its entrance by busting through a wall, only this one occasionally drops some time bombs and shuts the doors again, hoping to trap you. The real treat is when you beat it, and it tries to duck behind the doors one last time and ends up severing his own head. This one actually kind of looked like my old boss. Huzzah!
Next in the medley of action-movie cliche levels, a motorcycle chase. Only, this being the future, your cycle is a hoverbike. Also features the return of the Contracopter™!This level is actually more insane than the first, because you get attacked by (in no particular order) a tank, a zeppelin, a ninja, and giant missiles. In a scene ripped straight from Project A-Ko, your little muscle guy hops from missile to missile while trying to blast the airship. Thank god this guy isn't wearing a skirt. Also, be sure to enjoy fighting the bizzarre little food processor/ motorscooter miniboss.
Then, another little Mode 7 romp, this time in the desert. The sand is possessed, so expect to be sent in all random directions. Beat all the anthills or manholes or whatever they were, and you get to fight one of those undescribable organ-pile bosses that Konami so loves. After that, it's the obligatory 'alien guts' final stage where you meet again with your old pal, Puking Alien Head. Then you battle some sort of gold bulldozer crab/clam thing, followed by the Vicious Slave Hawk, who later went on to play Bahamut in FFVII.
And, finally, the last boss, stolen from the Guardian Legend... Ugly Manhead Octupus Beast! Or something like that. The game usually ends here, unless you'e some sort of masochist who set it on HARD, in which case you have to fight another thing while hanging from the Contracopter™.
So, all in all, this is a kind of game you either play to work off stress, or develop huge amounts of it. Still, gotta love those explosions...
-MANNA
Chestburster sold separately.
BRILLIANT.
"Dude, where's my-OH MY GOD!!"