{"id":20196,"date":"2020-06-19T00:01:01","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T00:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=20196"},"modified":"2020-05-29T09:18:53","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T09:18:53","slug":"the-games-of-the-contra-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/19\/the-games-of-the-contra-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"The Games of the Contra Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The last classic collection I got on sale recently was the Contra Collection.\u00a0 I\u2019m not a big fan of Contra either, but I do like it a lot better than Castlevania.\u00a0 I was never very good at Contra, though.\u00a0 I do remember it being very popular when I was a kid in the 8- and 16-bit days.\u00a0 Most people I know either had it on the NES, or rented it a lot.\u00a0 It may not be the first run and gun game, but it is one of the first that perfected and popularized the genre.\u00a0 I even remember one time reading a newspaper comic strip back then where two kids were running home to play NES games, and one of the kids said \u201cLet\u2019s play Contra!\u201d\u00a0 So anyway, let\u2019s take a look at the Contra Collection!<\/p>\n

Just like the other Konami collections, this one lets you play the Japanese versions of most of the games, as well as view a scanned artbook.\u00a0 Even though there is a lot of games to choose from here, technically there are only five main games on this collection, just different versions of them.\u00a0 But we\u2019ll go through them all now.<\/p>\n

Contra<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m really glad they put both the arcade and NES versions on this collection, so you can compare them.\u00a0 Aside from a big graphics cut, the NES version is surprisingly close to the arcade.\u00a0 I do remember playing the arcade game a lot, but I really started seeing it in arcades even more after the NES version was released, because it was so popular.\u00a0 Only problem is that in this collection, you can only continue in the arcade game three times, no matter how many credits you put in.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember it being like that in the original arcade, but maybe it was.\u00a0 It was a long time ago!\u00a0 Only problem is that I\u2019ll never be able to beat it because of that!\u00a0 The NES version is probably the one that most people remember.\u00a0 It\u2019s not the first game that used the Konami code, but it is the one that popularized it.\u00a0 Most of the games on here you can play the Japanese version of as well.\u00a0 And you\u2019ll definitely want to play the Japanese version of Contra on the Famicom.\u00a0 Not only did it add cutscenes and a map, but it also starts you out with 30 lives so you don\u2019t have to enter in the Konami code!\u00a0 I doubt a lot of people could ever beat the game with only 3 lives!<\/p>\n

Super Contra<\/strong><\/p>\n

I remember when my friend and I first saw this in an arcade, we were excited because we knew it would eventually make it to the NES.\u00a0 And it did under the name Super C.\u00a0 I think they changed the name on the home release because the Iran contra scandal was still fresh on everyone\u2019s minds in the 80\u2019s.\u00a0 I know my friend and I rented the first Contra a lot, but I know my friend bought Super C when it came out.\u00a0 You know, playing Super Contra in the arcade again made me realize I don\u2019t remember it as well because it really didn\u2019t improve much from the original game.\u00a0 And just like arcade Contra on this collection, you can only continue three times.\u00a0 The first game mixed up sidescrolling with a third person viewpoint on some levels, but this sequel takes those out in favor of Ikari Warriors style top down levels.\u00a0 The NES version is pretty close to the arcade, but takes more liberties than Contra did.\u00a0 Both games are even harder, and I didn\u2019t get very far in either.\u00a0 You can also play the Japanese version, but there aren\u2019t any significant changes like there were in original Contra.<\/p>\n

Operation C<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is just a portable Game Boy version of Super C.\u00a0 It was hard for the Game Boy to win me over because at first, most games were just truncated versions of NES games.\u00a0 I would always think, \u201cWhy would you play this when you can play a better version of it on the NES?\u201d\u00a0 But that idea all changed when I played Link\u2019s Awakening, my favorite Zelda game.\u00a0 Anyway, the Japanese version of this lets you pick stages, so that\u2019s nice.\u00a0 Jumping feels off, though, and I would always miss the next ledge by a hair, so I didn\u2019t get very far.<\/p>\n

Contra 3: The Alien Wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

I remember renting this game a few times and playing it with my friend on the SNES.\u00a0 It was a pretty neat early near-launch title.\u00a0 I know we beat it, but I\u2019m sure my friend did better than I did.\u00a0 I even liked the \u201cMode 7\u201d top down levels.\u00a0 Pretty awesome giant bosses, too!\u00a0 You can play both the US and Japan games, which are pretty much the same.\u00a0 Or you can play the European version.\u00a0 At the time, Germany had some strict laws about violence in video games, so for Contra, Konami changed the characters to robots.\u00a0 They still scream like humans when they get hit, though, so it wasn\u2019t much of a change.\u00a0 They also renamed it Probotector.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure Bender would\u2019ve objected.<\/p>\n

Contra Hard Corps<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was a SEGA Genesis exclusive Contra game!\u00a0 I bet Genesis fans were glad to have it, although I still like the graphics and gameplay better in the SNES Contra 3.\u00a0 You can also play this one on the Genesis Mini.\u00a0 Anyway, even though I think SNES Contra 3 looks better, the Genesis game does pull off some neat tricks here and there.\u00a0 You can choose from four characters, a guy, a lady, a robot, and a wolfman.\u00a0 Can you guess who I picked?\u00a0 I love the homing laser weapon, I wish that was your default one!\u00a0 You can also play the European \u201cProbotector\u201d version of this game where everything is a robot.\u00a0 Still human screams, though.\u00a0 While Contra Hard Corps is great, if you want a truly excellent run and gun game on Genesis, nothing beats Gunstar Heroes!<\/p>\n

And those are all the games.\u00a0 Even though it\u2019s only five games, the Contra Collection is a well rounded selection of the popular 8 and 16 bit titles.\u00a0 I do wish it had more games.\u00a0 I know that the NES Contra Force game wasn\u2019t very good, but I\u2019ve never played it so I\u2019d like to have seen it on here. \u00a0Some of the Contra dudes were playable on Wai Wai World 2 on the Famicom as well. And I know that Contra 4 was on the DS and it may be hard to play it here since it used two screens, but I still wish it was on here as well.\u00a0 Contra 4 was made by WayForward and Konami liked it so much that they chose to make it a true sequel to the franchise.\u00a0 I played a demo of it once and couldn\u2019t get very far, so I never bought it.\u00a0 But I\u2019d still like to play it.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t played any of the newer Contra games.\u00a0 I know a lot of people don\u2019t like them, but I hear one of the newer ones lets you play as a panda, so that sounds awesome.\u00a0 Anyway, in the comments section, tell me what Contra games you\u2019d like to see on here, and which ones are your favorites!\u00a0 That\u2019s all for now!\u00a0 Later!\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last classic collection I got on sale recently was the Contra Collection.\u00a0 I\u2019m not a big fan of Contra either, but I do like it a lot better than Castlevania.\u00a0 I was never very good at Contra, though.\u00a0 I do remember it being very popular when I was a kid in the 8- and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20196"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20198,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20196\/revisions\/20198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}