Contra III
The Contra tradition up to now was simply two big men wearing complementary primary colors run around carrying rifles as big as they are, prancing and capering about a post apocolyptic future where purple joggers and Aliens rejects run free. They taught us valuable lessons in hygiene, morals, and why we should be nice to old people. But somewhere along the line, someone decided it wasn't enough to just drop heavily armed psychos in the middle of a warzone and let the fireworks ensue: they decided to make the next game a rollicking team romp. Like Ninja Turtles, only with actual differences between characters.
Contra: The Hard Corps was another example of how good Nintendo was at business relations, because it was on Sega Genesis. It plays like a Contra 3 clone, right down to the 'we really want to try our hand at action movies' sequences. This one gets downright silly with the 'extreme' stuff, featuring two whole levels of chasing someone who looks like Cats from Zero Wing, a jet bike with goofy arms and legs, and an army of mechanized enemies who explode in half-screen fireballs.
The most noticable new feature is the ability to choose your character rather than have a copy of one guy, whose color scheme depends on what controller you're not sitting on. There's Ray, who looks like the normal Contra Guy, Sheena, a girl, some sort of werewolf thing whose name escapes me because I never used him, and Browny, their lovable wise-cracking robot sidekick with a heart of gold and a talent for getting into mischief. This sounds like the cast of a doomed UPN sitcom, doesn't it?
In the tradition of the exploding Neon at the start of III, (Hi!) this one kicks off with an armored car crashing into a centipede mech and several smaller machines before smashing into an obstacle and flinging you into the streets. Typical sidescrolling ensues, then a building gets knocked over by a flaming spider mech. Run up the side and you see a really stupid looking giant robot in the distance razing buildings with its enourmous eyeball. It sees you and takes a big gay hop at you. I died on this boss twice because I couldn't stop laughing at the little happy dance he does while razing my flesh and throwing cars. It's hard enough to take a robot that looks like a first season Power Ranger villain seriously, but when it cheerfully bounces around doing a jig, it makes me want to kneel and condemn Ricky Martin.
More rotating lift things follow, but the last one goes haywire and ends up destroying a whole row of identical cars. Isn't it amazing how the entire city populous owns an orange Dodge Neon?
First boss is a Cats impersonator named Dead Eye Joe in an exoskeleton. The whole mission (even though it's a roundabout way of putting it) was to stop the rampaging unmanned robot. Which brings up the question- if your objective was to simply beat the mech, why are the streets filled with insane insect-inspired mechanoids? In the future, will the streets always be like this? I mean in the present day the worst thing I usually run into outside are kids on those damn scooter things. They're not much to mow over when you're a headband wearing gun freak. Makes me jealous. Anyway, about the boss, after you cream him, digitized laughter grates yours ears and he puts on a little jet pack, farting away to fight another day.
The next stage, regardless of whether you choose to save Dr. Forrester or let him burn while you chase Dead Eye Joe, you'll get to play with the Contra-cycle again. If you take the 'vengenance' path like I always do, you'll learn that something new has been added- little goofy arms and legs. My theory behind that little transformation is that the Contra programmers slipped out for drinks and switched the sign on their door with the Parodius teams'. Once the Parodius programmers were safely inside, they locked the door from the outside and switched the signs back so Mr. Konami thought the Parodius team were the ones skipping out. Which, since they were working on Parodius, probably didn't matter all that much.
The alternative version of this level lets you ride the bike for about ten seconds before it blows up and you have to hang from the bottom of the Contra-Jet. Beat the flying ninja from Contra 3, then climb up on top to fight the Red Falcon's Red Baron. This would be a cool fight if not for the way the plane you're standing on constantly makes impossible 90 degree turns. Of course, your plane gets shot down anyway and ends up plowing into the scientists' parking lot. Which is strangely devoid of orange cars, if I remember rightly.
All in all, I think this is the precise moment the Contras just threw their arms up and said, "I just don't know anymore." To make things even harder to swallow, the Japanese release gave the characters a three-unit life bar, whereas the American version preferred to give us that damn 'one hit and you die' routine, which probably the single reason a Contra ever made me want to put down the controller and ram Cu-tips through my head. I hate America.
-MANNA
I have to show some Stockholm Syndrome-esque admiration for a game like Heavy Barrel. It tells the gripping story of a soldier of indeterminate country infiltrating the secret underground base of The Enemy, and does so with the in-your-face style of throwing about ninety bajillion enemy troops and vehicles at one man. Hindering you efforts further is the fact your hero looks like a 98-pound weakling suffocating under the weight of his Heavy Barrel-ed gun and blast armor. Add to this a Rambo headband and he looks kind of like a Bill Gates fantasy come true.
The spindly supersoldier is up against yet another brilliant military cadre. Battling it out with armed janitorial staff and various Power Wheels accessories with reckless abandon within their own buildings, they are either highly trained, or, more evidenced by the way they fire at walls and toss grenades in any old direction, are just renting the place and are about to move out.
As a rule, the enemies are pretty stock. In fact, the game criminally overuses the 'Heavily Armored Thing on A Rail Across the Top of the Screen.' I could accept it once or twice within a top down shooter, I admit. But to put two of these kind of bosses in a row... that's pushing it. The first boss is unsuprisingly, a giant armored party wagon with a few dozen guns and some little green guys running around it. Like most NES games, the key is to find the little corner of the screen where nothing can hit you and pummel him from there while avoiding/killing his sidekicks. Later bosses aren't as easy, in fact the flechette-chucking shoebox at the end of the third level usually gets a continue out of me.
Aside from the usual crop of guns stolen from Contra, (flamethrower, spread gun) you also can throw grenades and assemble the mythically powerful ubercannon, THE HEAVY BARREL. Unfortunately, THE HEAVY BARREL's parts, excuse me, PARTS, are more or less arbitrarily hidden in little boxes you have to unlock with the keys the red janitors leave when shot. And 99% of the boxes in the game just have pointless items that just give you points. Which I guess doesn't make them pointless so much as useless.
But once you finally, through sheer luck and coincidence assemble THE HEAVY BARREL, you find it lives up to its name. This freaking blaster shoots energy balls three times as wide as your guy. Pity they didn't use the fluffy pink bunny batteries in the super death ray, as it runs out of juice within five minutes of getting it, whether you fire it or not.
When compared to the average Contra clone, I guess Heavy Barrel isn't as gruesome as it had the potential to be. You still die in one hit, losing all your weapons, but not all your HEAVY BARREL PARTS. And for some reason, whenever I play for an extended amount of time, I always get the feeling I'm getting more continues than I deserve. I suppose that's just unresolved issues speaking.
Anyone else notice the stumpy little twerp has no feet?
