Super Contra

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Super Contra
Super Contra North American cabinet.
Developer(s)	Konami
Publisher(s)	Konami
Designer(s)	H. Tsujimoto
Release date(s)	Arcade version ^JPN ^NA 1988 NES version ^JPN February 2, 1990 ^NA April, 1990 ^EU 1992 Amiga version ^NA 1990 PC MS-DOS version ^NA 1990
Genre(s)	Run and gun
Mode(s)	Single player, Cooperative
Platform(s)	Arcade, NES, Commodore Amiga, PC MS-DOS, PlayChoice-10, PC Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360
Input	8-way joystick, 2 buttons
Arcade cabinet	Upright
Arcade display	Raster, 224 x 280, vertical orientation

Super Contra (スーパー魂斗羅　エリアンの逆襲, sūpā kontora erian no gyakushū^?, lit. The Alien's Counter attack) is the sequel to the smash hit Contra, developed by Konami and originally released in 1988 as an arcade game. In this title, the alien forces from the original game have taken over a base in an undisclosed region of South America and the player(s) once again assume the roles of Bill Rizer (Player 1) and Lance Bean (Player 2).

1 Storyline
2 Gameplay
3 Ports
4 Trivia
5 External links

[edit] Storyline

The game takes place during December 2634 A.D. A disturbing distress signal from General Hal is received, who was on his way to South America in preparation for the GX Army's 7th military maneuvers, reporting that the GX Army has suddenly revolted. The top branch of the federation forces calls forth Bill and Lance to investigate the situation. They arrive at the base ruins, only to find out that the GX Army's troops were being possessed by the same kind of mutated creatures they fought at Galuga (in the original Contra). Thus, the situation becomes grimmer taking into account the fact that Bill and Lance are killing their former comrades-in-arms. After a fierce battle, ultimately leading up to the alien nest, the alien invasion was once again thwarted. Naval records concealed the events of the mission, with a cover story being told to the public that the GX Army's destruction was the result of an accident caused by a discharged weapon.

[edit] Gameplay

The original arcade version of Super Contra played essentially the same as its forbearer. The main difference was in its versatility. While the original "Contra" had three versions of gameplay (side-scrolling, up-scrolling, and pseudo-first-person), Super Contra added a top-view perspective as well as improving the scrolling levels by including inclined surfaces. As a result of this and changes to the enemy forces, it was a more difficult game to master.

A quirk that it shared with the original Contra was the usefulness of the "Spread" gun. This gun made advancing through the levels much easier. It was a common occurrence that players reset the game if they lost this weapon, even though they were at a high level in the game. To beat the game required much more skill and experience than in the original.

[edit] Ports

Super C (NES version)

The game was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System, Commodore Amiga and PC MS-DOS under the shortened title of Super C in the United States (in Japan the NES port title went unchanged, dropping only the subtitle; the European NES version was called Probotector II: Return of the Evil Forces). The NES port remained somewhat faithful to the arcade original. However, the upgradeable weapons system were discarded (with the fire gun being the only weapon that could be upgraded by the player) and letter-based icons once again represented power-ups. All of the stages remain intact from the arcade, but many have been altered considerably from the original game. The NES version also added three new stages, plus a new end-boss (Beast Kimkoh). The extra lives code was changed from the previous NES release (which used the Konami Code) and was toned down to a ten-life code in the US version (The code is right, left, down, up, A, B in Super C) . In the Japanese version the code still gives 30 lives.

The home versions were named Super C in North America due to the controversy surrounding the Iran-Contra Affair of the mid-1980s. It was released on February 2, 1990 in Japan, in April of that year in the United States, and in 1992 in Europe within the Probotector label, as Probotector II: Return of the Evil Forces.

The NES version of the game was included as part of the Konami Collector's Series: Castlevania & Contra released for PC Microsoft Windows in 2002.

Super Contra will be released on the Xbox Live Arcade for the Xbox 360 in 2007.

[edit] Trivia

The programmers once said that they got inspiration for Contra from the Alien movies. In the later levels, some of the aliens resemble the ones from the film, particularly the face huggers. Some of the end bosses in the game also mimic H.R. Giger works in the Necronomicon. Coincidentally, Konami made an arcade game based on Aliens in 1990.^{[citation needed]}