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-Konami (2006) -Played on a Motorola Slvr Summary The alien forces of Blood Falcon have returned to wreak havoc in you pants. My Thoughts
This mobile version of Contra has only two stages. The game says it has three, but it’s only actually two plus the boss of stage two. I was initially excited when I first set foot back into the familiar stage one jungle, shooting the crap out of enemy soldiers. After the jungle wall was destroyed, I was inside the somewhat forward-scrolling base of metal rooms. The game paused after I reached the end of the base and loaded up the boss. The boss was no match for my years of Contra playing and was dead in no time. And that was it. Game over, man. The ending should have read, “Congratulations on spending seven bucks on a game you beat in five minutes. Love, Konami.” I was angered (still am) at how Konami could possibly release a game with only two stages. The high-end version of Gradius was the full game, so why couldn’t Contra be?
The controls took a little getting used to. I'm used to awkward control layouts on a phone so I didn't have many problems adjusting for this, but others that are not used to playing games like this on a phone will find the controls tedious to figure out. There were too many instances when the pressed action didn't match on-screen action. My character would sometimes jump when I was pressing fire, or run right when I pressed down. Yet even with the choppy controls the game was very easy. This was by far the easiest Contra I have ever played. There is a menu option where you can enter a code, but I didn’t know it and couldn’t figure out how the classic Konami code was modified for a phone. I didn’t care enough to keep the game around to find out because if I can beat the game in five minutes right after downloading it, what the hell would I need a thirty extra lives code for? Once again we have another beloved classic hacked and slashed for the phone to what amounts to just a piece of the original game. The graphics and sound are there, but mobile Contra is nothing but a shattered memory of a classic and great game.
-Shawn
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Contra (Mobile)
The
Contra series has always been one the most difficult and hardcore of the
side-scrolling run-’n-gun genre of games. The series has appeared on numerous platforms
to mostly high degrees of success (those 3D PS One game don’t really count
remember). As is the case with all older games, it was only a mater of time
before the original appeared on the mobile format giving gamers the chance to
blast away the army of Blood Falcon while on the go. However, like other classic
side-scrollers that have been placed on a phone, the game has been stripped of
most of the actual game.
I guess I
should be thankful that four of the weapons made it into the final game with
spread, machine gun, laser and fireball. The enemies are the same red and purple
cannon fodder soldiers we all loved to kill. All the enemy shots were easy to
see and the visuals were adjusted a bit to help the game look and fit properly on a
mobile screen.
Score: