Contra Rebirth (Review)

Contra Rebirth (Nintendo WiiWare)

Rated “E10+” For Everyone 10 and Up

Chief Salamander has sent his alien forces to take over the Earth. It’s now up to Bill Rizer and Genbei Yagyu to take on the role of Contra and prevent the aliens from taking over. Big guns blazing versus the menacing aliens, who will be victorious?

=====Story=====

To prevent Chief Salamander’s alien invasion from happening, Bill Rizer and Genbei Yagyu are woken up from the long cryogenic slumber to once again take arms and put a stop to the massive onslaught.

Yeah…there’s not much to the story. Aliens are invading and you have to stop them.

=====Gameplay=====

If you have ever played any of the traditional Contra games, then you’re already familiar with how to play. You take your gun, you run, and have fun. Gun Run Fun. It follows closely to the gameplay style of “Contra III: The Alien Wars” and/or “Contra Hard Corps.” Pretty standard affair.

Those that are new to playing Contra, it’s an action platformer that has you shooting aliens while running and jumping from platform to platform towards your goal. The aliens shoot at you or do kamikaze kills and it only takes one hit for you to die. You’ll need to master the art of shooting and not being shot.

And you can’t Gun Run Fun without guns to run and have fun with. Even though the variety of weapons for Contra has grown over the years, only a few are available which include your normal gun, Spread, Laser, and Homing.

=====Difficulty=====

Like previous Contra games, there is a certain degree of difficulty to be expected. One hit kills you and the most lives you can give yourself is 7 before it is game over. Thankfully, Rebirth allows you to be reborn with unlimited continues. That doesn’t necessarily make it easier, but it can help deter some frustrations of having to start levels over instead of starting the whole game over again only to end up dying at the same spot again.

There are difficulty settings that water down the alien swarms coming at you, but you will always be vulnerable to being taken down in one shot. Veteran Contra players will find the level of difficulty familiar and possibly not as difficult. That doesn’t mean it won’t be any less frustrating for those with a few Contra scars on their bodies.

=====Content=====

There are short scenes of text and dialogue in between levels to tie the story together, but many would probably care less to nothing about it. Aliens are here and they want to kill you and you don’t like that idea. It’s pretty campy so it’s nothing you need to take seriously.

The game is short. There are only 5 levels with a boss in each one. Contra veterans could go through the game in an hour or less on the Normal difficulty.

The degree of difficulty is what may draw the game out longer for players. Dying multiple times and having to restart levels will happen and will add many minutes in your battle to save the planet.

Unlocking extra characters is nice, but they play similar to the default soldiers you have. Unlocking the Nightmare difficulty might be what players want as Nightmare adds to the degree of challenge you already have. Every enemy you kill, they let off a final shot adding just one more thing to avoid in the maelstrom of bullets and aliens you are already trying to avoid. All unlockable content can be attained by beating the game once on every difficulty setting.

=====Final Thoughts=====

“Contra Rebirth” gets a lot of points for nostalgia, which can be and is a main selling point. There is also enough to offer other than nostalgia. You get a challenging game that you and a partner can enjoy, there is a small degree of replayability with the unlockables, and a short game does sometimes lead to repeated play simply to see if you can beat the game faster and (in this game’s case) with fewer deaths.

For $10, this might be a game that will appeal to long time fans more than newcomers. Those that have played Contra in the past should give the game a try and have some fun defeating alien invaders.

Gun Run Fun.

Rated 4 out of 5

Game Knight's Review