Gryzor / Contra

In 1987 Konami released Gryzor, a platform shoot-em-up with two familiar-looking heroes. In the same way that Nemesis updated Scramble, Gryzor could be regarded as an evolution of Green Beret. In the US, the game was renamed Contra, presumably to cash in on the publicity surrounding the Iran-Contra scandal.

Controls

Your bloke (who looked a lot skinnier in the game than on the title screen) is moved with the joystick. Pulling down makes him lie down. He will fire his weapon in the direction you hold the joystick, so you can run along firing diagonally up or down if you want. It is this flexibility that raises the game above the normal platform dross.
A seperate jump button is also present, since pushing 'up' to jump (as in Green Beret) has been banned by UN convention. Jumping whilst lying down will make your warrior drop down to the next platform below.

Weapons

There are two ways of getting weapons in Gryzor : shooting down floaty-pod type things, or shooting symbols embedded in certain parts of the level. Your arsenal is as follows :-

Shotgun	Your default weapon, can fire suprisingly fast.
Spread Gun	Shoots waves of expanding blobs. Outstanding.
Laser	Hold down fire for a longer beam. Powerful, but awkward to use.
Fireball	Fires spinning red blobs. Strange.
Machine Gun	Rapid fire bullets. Sounds like a drum machine.
Rapid	Speeds up shotgun, fireball & machine gun bullets. Handy.
Barrier	Complete invulnerability for a limited time. Nice.

Emulation

Gryzor is well emulated by Mame, barring a few minor graphical glitches. ROMs exist for the Japanese version, the US Contra, and the European Gryzor. This version differed from the others in that in two-player mode, the players took turns rather than playing co-operatively.

Level Guide

See Also:
Gryzor / Contra
Super Contra

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