Like its arcade forebears, despite repeated bottom paddling (or due to my deviant nature perhaps because of this), I still find myself wanting to virtually "insert coin" to continue. Enemies are nicely animated sometimes coming from the background to the foreground (or vice-versa) in scaling sprite stylee and all very colourful and lethal to the touch. Unlike Gradius Rebirth the game is presented in a "pillarbox" format, so widescreen owners won't need to change aspects manually (yay), though the bars on the sides are black rather than grey (boo).Įnemies consist of the usual assortment of alien critters and turrets as well as people in weird jumpsuits, giant robots, giant rockets, weird spacesuited samurai fireball throwing aliens hanging from rockets, giant space centipedes - you know, typical Contra baddies. I should also mention that the game is in 480p, but like Gradius ReBirth it's a 4:3 aspect ratio title. Classic Controller and Gamecube controller are also supported for those who like that sort of thing. There also appears to be a "Fix" button, but I have no clue what that does and it's not part of the default Wii Remote layout at all. Oddly enough I kind of liked using the motion control, though in time I may remap the function to the A button. The default is Wii Remote on its side with a swing to do the weapon swap and 1 and 2 buttons firing and jumping, respectively. Controls are completely customisable from the option menu. Including the default "Normal" gun there are three others providing variation in your arsenal. A new addition is the ability to change weapons with one in reserve. Jumping results in the familiar backflip manoeuvre and pressing down and jump on a platform causes you to descend to the one below. The controls in the game are the same in terms of being able to hold the fire button and use your d-pad to change firing angle or pressing down to lie prone for shooting enemies in the kneecaps or hitting those low-to-the-ground enemies. The effect is pleasing and anyone who has played any Contra game immediately knows what to do: run and shoot everything! Nice looking 2D sprites - though as in Gradius ReBirth many of these are textures on 3D rendered characters made to look like 2D sprites. Start the game and you're looking at what could be Contra III in the arcades or Contra IV on the SNES/MD. Skipping past that you see an opening screen that looks like that on an SNES or Mega Drive game with three choices in English: 1 Player Start, 2 Player Start and Options. Starting it up you're treated to a lengthy intro movie from the point of view of Bill, our hero, who apparently wakes up with some robot on a space ship. Contra ReBirth is true to that arcade heritage, though thankfully no further tokens are required after the initial 1000 Nintendo point investment, and it's a good thing too because even on the easy setting this game is repeatedly kicking my ass! Despite being punishingly difficult (to me, anyway) there was something compelling about it that caused me to drop numerous tokens into the arcade cabinets withstanding the frustration over easy and repeated deaths. I cannot say I ever played the latter, but the former I remember well. Remember Contra? After Green Beret (Rush 'N' Attack to Americans) it was the definitive run-and-gun game from Konami which saw two games in the arcade and ports and sequels on home consoles.
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