Super Contra

Super Contra

Manufacturer	Konami
Year	1988
Emulated	MAME

One year after the battle with the mysterious Red Falcon Organization, the Earth seems to be free. However...
The success of Gryzor ensured that Arnie and Sly, err... Lance and Bill would return in another alien-killing Giger-inspired rampage (and indeed keep on returning in the long-running Contra series for the home consoles).
This time, there is much less emphasis on platforming and Gryzor's '3D' stages have been replaced with Commando-style overhead view sections. I think they're crap, but there you go.

Super Contra also features an 'intro' of sorts, with some truly outstanding dialogue:
Bill : "What is this place?"
Lance : "Keep your eyes peeled!"
Alien : "Hisssssssssss!"
etc.

Controls

The controls are identical to Gryzor, except in the all-new overhead sections. Here, you can walk and fire in any direction, and your jump button is used to launch a powerful explosive shell. There is much less platforming in Super Contra than in Gryzor, and in my opinion this is to the game's detriment.

Weapons

In Super Contra you must shoot down the floaty-pod type things to obtain extra weapons. Picking up the same weapon twice results in it becoming extra powerful. We need bigger guns :-

Shotgun	Your default weapon, can (still) fire suprisingly fast.
Spread Gun	Shoots waves of blue blobs. Power up : wider spread.
Laser	Strange-looking blue beam. Power up : longer beam.
Grenade Launcher	Fires explosive grenades. Power up : bigger explosions.
Machine Gun	Rapid fire bullets. Power up : ludicrous rate of fire.
Shell	Large explosion of death. Only appears in overhead levels.

The spread gun is weaker than in Gryzor, so the machine gun (particularly when powered up) becomes the weapon of choice. Incidentally, this machine gun appears to be the same weapon as the Vulcan from Typhoon / Ajax.
In the overhead sections, the powered up weapons have longer range than normal and so become pretty essential.

Variants

There are two versions of this game, Japanese and Western. Apart from the title screens, the only difference is that the Japanese version allows you to play again after killing the final boss. In the Western version, the game is over once the credits have rolled.

Emulation

Super Contra is emulated faultlessly by Mame. There isn't a single pixel out of place, and all the samples & music are perfect as well. A triumph of the emulator's art.

Level Guide