What is CONTRA for you? Depending on the age and the presence of the console in childhood, you can have one of 2 options. If you thought about the network jester about special forces and terrorists, then I will grieve you, we will talk about another game. But if you grew up in the 90s and you had a dandy, then probably before your eyes to the proprietary music and the sounds of the explosions, the main menu of the game with two pumped-up men left. Eh, yes, there was time. In short, the essence of the game comes down to total destruction of everything on the screen (except for himself and his partner of course) and it was fun and dentist! Meanwhile, the game had already released 30 years ago and became the most popular game of the Run and Gun genre, that time. I will begin, perhaps, with the first representative of this game – Contra Contra, I will try to illuminate subsequent games in new releases as part of this story of the Contra Games (unless of course I hit the mud).
Start
Let’s start from the very beginning. Konami was formed in 1969 by three like -minded people, it was: Kagemas Kodzuki, Yoshinoba Nakama and Tatsuo Miyasako, did not think for a long time over the name, but collected from names – Kodzuki, Nakama, Miyasako.
At the beginning of their journey, they were engaged in the rental and repair of music machines, but after 3 years the business was transformed and resulted in the production of gaming arcade machines. Contra was not the first game in such a genre created by the company. In 1985, an automatic machine was released with the Green Beret game, which became quite popular in due time, even published in 1987 in America called Rush’n Attack (I actually remember it under the console under that name).
The game used the horizontal scroll from left to right, we controlled a certain special forces, who was supposedly abandoned at a certain Soviet military base. Mostly I had to wield a knife, but there was a weapon that could be collected from the killed enemies.
Having noticed that Green Beret went perfectly for the audience, Konami decided to engage in the development of a similar concept and already in 1987 an automatic machine with the Contra game was on sale and she shot so well that she had already begun to actively porten for all possible platforms the next year. It is interesting that the game has as many as 3 names – the usual Contra, Probotector – the European version of the game for NES, where all the characters were replaced by robots, apparently censorship already inserted sticks into the wheels of the gaming industry, and Gryzor is also a European version, but for arcade machines and ports for home computers ZX SPECTRUM, Commodore 64, and Amstrad CPC.
Nes version
Despite the huge number of ports, the most canonical versions are considered to be NES, and the most complete and designed Japanese version, in which, thanks to the use of the Konami VRC2 chip of their own development, there are improved sprites and an animated rear background (at the first level the leaves of the trees tremble; at the fifth level, the branches of the Yolka are swaying and sometimes snow begins to go at the eighth level; The impression of the presence of the main characters within a living organism is created). There is also a small intro in the Japanese version that briefly describes the plot of the game, and before the start of each level, animation inserts and the island map are displayed. By the way, on the network there is an image of the Japanese version of the game, completely translated into Russian, I extremely recommend!
The game begins on September 12, 2631. In the Galugo archipelago, located twenty kilometers northeast of the coast of New Zealand, a meteorite falls. Two years later, a terrorist organization called Red Falcon captured the island in preparation to destroy humanity. To neutralize terrorists, the government sent two fighters to the island, Bila Raizer and Lans Bin. As the game passes, it becomes clear that the aliens from the same meteorite are standing behind Red Falcon and they need to be erased from the face of the earth. Having successfully completed the task, the player leaves the island by helicopter. By the way, their names are based on the names of the actors from the film "Aliens": Bill Paxton, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, Michael Biehn.
The cover of the game is decorated with familiar faces. The similarity of heroes with famous actors turned out to be non -accident. Work on creating a memorable poster, which decorated the boxes with the game, entrusted the artist Bob Bakelin. In the 80s, he was one of the most popular brushes, whose drawings decorated more than a dozen games. Starting the creation of the cover for Contra, Bakelin reasoned: “A mixture of the films“ Predator ”and“ Aliens ” – this is what this game was. Therefore, I decided to make such a picture – with a guy like Arnie ".
An interesting fact is that Contra was given thanks to the war, which was raging in Latin America in the 80s. A militia appeared in Nicaragua, which led the armed struggle with the ruling Sandinist regime. The rebels called themselves Contrarrevolucionarios, t.e. counter -revolutionaries. Or simply Contras. The developers really liked this name, in the view of which the main characters of the game were exactly the same warriors: soldiers with the first -class tactic of the rebel and partisan.
I almost forgot to mention Konami Code. For those who do not know, this is a secret combination of keys, which is often found in games from Konami, was first introduced in the game Gradius. So, this code gave as many as 30 lives!
Locations of the game
So, let’s go through all the locations in the game. In total, 8 levels of game were created for NES:
Jungle. The game begins with night landing to the island where we need to find the entrance to the Red Falcon database. Anxiety rises to the player a rod of crowds of terrorists, leave the hidden panels of the turret, snipers shoot from the bushes. The boss is the front door to the terrorist base (this does not surprise anyone?), and after the execution of the core of the system, everything explodes beautifully and we are moving on.
Terrorist base No. 1. Suddenly, the https://piratespinscasino.net view of the game changes to the pseudo-3D and we are already looking at our contrast to the back, we have a linear projection of the room. The goal is to go through all the barriers and go outside. However, nothing unusual – enemies also run out of us and guns leave, from innovations – barrels appear who roll on us on the floor and a new type of terrorists who drop weapons for the player after death. The final boss is a certain design with nuclei and guns. I don’t even know what to call it, and the purpose remains a mystery. The boss spreads quite trivial – aiming at everything red and shooting.
Waterfall. Again a change in gameplay! Instead of moving on the left and right, we are forced to climb up. Now the opponents have become smarter – they learned to jump between the ledges and stopped rushing in crowds under the bullets. In general, such a pattern will manifest itself at the following levels, depicting more experienced soldiers. At the very top – the next boss is a huge alien (not well, obviously the creators were inspired by this film! Typical Gigerian style), which protects the entrance to the database No. 2.
Terrorist base No. 2. Now, unfortunately, the developers began to repeat themselves. Practically no different from the first base, including the boss, with the exception of increased complexity.
A snowy forest. Here, some players may start problems. Firstly, grenades appeared, which some cunning partisans throw from the forest towards the player, and therefore have to run to the sounds of explosions at the same time evading bullets. Secondly, 2 minibosses were introduced – bulldozers with a gun and spikes, which seem to be not very problematic, but they can crush. At the end of the boss helicopter … oh no, this is from another part. Okay, not a helicopter, but also a kind of flying baida, from which drips drops fall into a fan. Understands so quickly that it is not clear why it is a boss.
Power station. Pipes, many pipes from which the pillars of flame break out, which can condemn the further passage. It’s better not to overturn. The level itself is quite short, there are few enemies and if you are not in a hurry, it runs relatively easily. The boss here is some big man in the armor, who knows how to already as many as 3 things-jump with a blow of a leg, walk and throw some smart mines. Thick -skinned one, if you’ll be hesitated, then you can die.
Hangar. It is very similar to the plant, here you will be trolleys and sinking gear manipulators and extending walls with spikes … Wait a minute, walls with spikes, what the hell? Although we can write off the defense system. The level is complex, enemies appear in unexpected places and shoot much more often than before. But the boss at the end of course disappoints – an analogue of the boss from the jungle, shoot yourself in the core in the wall and go on, does not represent much difficulty.
Love of aliens. The last location, here you will not find familiar opponents from previous levels. This territory of strangers and looks alive, everything around is made of biomaterials. At the very beginning, we are met by a huge head, which spews embryos, just like this and miniboss! Well, having dealt with her, we make a race past toothy mouths that again spit plasma clots. There are no more opponents at the level. The final boss is the Queen’s heart, surrounded by eggs from which Feysgaggers hatch (well, they look like one to one).
Shoot the heart and ready. The game ends, showing us Katsen where the helicopter leaves the exploding island. We are congratulated and called heroes in the credits. The game is over!
Weapon
It’s time to talk about weapons. The player begins with a rifle, whose bullets fly at low speed. After death, he appears with her. Weapons and improvements are in containers, sometimes flying on the screen or located on the spot, and also fall out of enemies in red robes at levels from behind. So that the contents of the container falls out, it needs to be shot.
(M) (machinegun, machine gun) – shoots automatically, so simple and convenient in handling – you do not have to constantly and often press the fire button yourself. Bullets fly quickly.
(S) (Spreadgun) – releases five medium speed bullets per shot. Bullets fly an expanding fan, which allows you to shoot not accurately whether to get on several goals at once or damage the targets with several bullets, causing large damage. If you press the fire button very often, then Spreadgun can create a very dense stream of fire, which can be destroyed by almost any enemy in a second. In practice, such shooting is obtained at gamepads with Turbo buttons. The most effective weapon.
(F) (firegun) – inefficient weapon. Slowly flying flames, move in the direction of the shot with wide circles, capturing a large area. In the levels with the back view, it is even more useless, since the bullets have a point area of the lesion (like everyone else except S).
(L) (laser) – shoots a beam, in fact, a chain of short rays flying at an average speed. It recharms instantly. If you shoot when there is a previous ray, then it will disappear. When shooting by the “turbo” button, it turns out that the beam is always in front of the player. Very powerful weapon.
(B) (barrier) – temporary invulnerability. Opponents themselves die when a collision with the player.
The orth icon kills all enemies within the screen.
® (Rapid) – increases the maximum number of simultaneously flying bullets and their speed.
Contra has a certain limit of simultaneously flying bullets on the screen, and if you notice that Spreadgun begins to spit out one or two bullets instead of a fan after several shots-this is exactly what I’m talking about. Another feature is attached to this feature – if you stand to the enemy, it is very close, then Spreadgun will generate each shot of a full fan of bullets, because the restriction does not have time to turn on. Accordingly, if you shoot point -blank, the boss receives a full charge of a fraction, and very quickly understands spare parts.
Music
Almost all music in Contra came from an arcade game, which was composed of Cazuki Muraoko. She was simply transferred to Famisom version of Hidenori Maezava and Kiehiro Garden. They also created all sound effects for the game. This is a rather impressive soundtrack for 1988, where each level of the game has its own unique topic.
Version for arcade machine
As I said earlier, Contra was ported to many systems, including dandy, but let’s see how the game in the original on an arcade machine looked like. Firstly, the graphics here look more detailed and worked out, and bullets fly on the screen without lags even in large numbers! I was actually surprised that the ancestor of the Contra on the dandy was created so well. First of all, I studied the iron of this machine, maybe there was simply a more productive chip there? Everything turned out to be more complicated.
Plates for such machines contain many components and one chip is responsible for the music, for the calculations of the other and it makes no sense to compare for graphics and in the end, the load is distributed and therefore there are no problems of performance. It is also noteworthy that in the arcade version of levels is exactly 2 times less. The fact is that in Contra for Famicom the last 4 levels (starting with a snowy forest) combines the final, long and complex level of the predecessor, divided into 4 parts.
There is still a difference in 2 and 4 levels: there, firstly, they displayed the base plan, according to which it was necessary to pass it, and secondly, and at the second time, it was limited to passing them (70 seconds (70 seconds. and 110 sec. respectively).
Let’s take a closer look at other ports that were released at about the same time as NES version. I sorted them exclusively by my feeling of beauty, I will start with the best and finish the worst.
MSX2
Machines with Software Exchangeableability-the name of the standard for household computers of the 1980s. He was an attempt to create uniform standards for hardware development, initiated by the Japanese branch of Microsoft.
A port came here – to all ports port. I’ll start with the plus – it has as much as 16 levels, four times the original game. The pluses are over. The graphics, although bright, but lost animations, some of the opponents are drawn on the back and do not move at all. No scrolling, we are moving between the screens. No special dynamics is felt. There are complaints from sound support – it is borrowed from the version under Famicom and from 9 to 16 the level begins to repeat itself.
Let us return to the levets design – the first eight levels correspond to the NES versions, but then the fierce dodger begins, devoid of interesting solutions – we are waiting for the caves alternating with the passage of the same bases as at the 2nd and 4 stages of the original game, which looks like a distances. Here is clearly “more – it does not mean better”. And the most important thing for me is disappointment – Spread Gun was drank here, no bullet fans, get by. He was replaced with Rear Gun – who shot both before the player and behind him, a strange weapon.
Commodore 64
Given that this home PC could display only 4 colors (16 shades of each) then do not be surprised at the degradation of graphics. And the sound in comparison with the NES version sounds much worse. They cut out the level 3 (waterfall) from the game but left the time for passage and a map with a plan on the levels of terrorist bases. Well, the last level looks like one large and long race like in the arcade version.
Amstrad CPC
Another personal computer, I did not suspect about the existence of this (by the way, was a competitor to ZX Spectrum). CPC in the title meant Color Personal Computer – "Color Personal Computer". So what we have? A very low resolution is striking, 160×200 pixels, in this form, Amstrad could have already been in 16 colors per point and therefore we have a very bright and juicy picture.
But there are problems – scrolling the screen did not bring it, you will have to be content with a spasmodic load. There was no music, and the sound was displayed through the speaker of the motherboard, what a horror. The levels migrated from the arcade version in almost the same form, except for the latter – a stage with a snowy forest was mercilessly cut.
ZX Spectrum
Worse than this version only DOS version, seriously. Graphics look especially wretched. In fact, everything is black and white, and in some places the background is flooded with some color, and the player and enemies are painted in the background colors. This is especially evident at the level of "waterfall". Levels were postponed in accordance with the arcade version, there are no complaints here. Sounds and music … well, they are. The musical theme remains the same and the same from the very first level and at the end of the passage probably begins to drive crazy.
DOS
So I represent the very bottom of Contra. It’s just terrible! Thanks to CGA technology, 4 colors were displayed on the screen at the same time, and from a fixed set of colors. Therefore, we see a wonderful picture of how the artists were fired trying to at least somehow convey the schedule of the original, you can evaluate themselves how they did it. Levels also migrated from the arcade machine. There is no music, sounds are a dull location of the speaker, which would not be better at all. There is still scrolling the screen, he mercilessly slows down, like everything in this port.
From the differences – they introduced a new type of weapons (instead of Lazer) – High Impact Gun (H) – works the same way as a standard rifle, but shoots large bullets that fly through enemies and walls.
Conclusion
In fact, there are much more ports, but they appeared later. Contra was ported to mobile Java, Windows, Nintendo DS, Xbox, PlayStation, Android, iOS and other devices. But this is either an almost complete clone or remake, so it’s not very interesting in the context of the original game.
In addition, I also got information that they want to make a film in China in China. Film, Karl! But more detailed information, except Tizer and Date 2019, unfortunately could not find.
If you were interested, then vote like, I can understand whether it is worth continuing. Well, I go up, I take ahead, thanks for your attention!