Contra

Genre: Action

Developer: Konami

Total time played: approximately 20 minutes

Short review:  Contra needs no introduction.  It is the original arcade classic on the NES.  Although it is over 20 years old it still is one the best action games of all time.  The controls are spot on, the weapons all have unique strengths and weaknesses (except the spread gun which has no weakness), the boss battles are epic, there is no slow down when the screen fills with enemies and the difficulty is brutal but manageable if you know the Konami code.  The music is also some of the best on the system.  It is a hard rock, adrenaline filled soundtrack that is ingrained forever in my brain.

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Interesting links related to Contra

• My 2020 Contra Review (No Konami Code)
• Original Soundtrack
• Heavy Metal Contra Soundtrack
• Speedrun (11 minutes 34 seconds)
• Contra Live Action Short Film
• Contra memories (James Rolfe aka Angry Video Game Nerd)

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2013 was the first year that me and my wife hosted a holiday at our house.  We chose Easter and invited my parents, my in-laws, and my brother and sister-in-law.  After we ate my brother and I played Bible Adventures to get into the Easter spirit but it was short lived as the game is pretty awful.  He wanted to get in on beating some NES games so we played a game both of us had beaten countless times.  The entire family watched; not because they wanted to but because we were playing on the living room TV and they had no choice.  My father-in-law asked why we kept shooting even when no enemies were on screen, we couldn’t give him a reason it was just how we played.

I should probably mention that we did use the Konami code to gain 30 lives as neither of us has ever been able to beat the game with the 3 lives.  For me, stage 6 with the flames that shoot from the walls keep me from being able to beat the game with 3 lives.  One of these days I will beat the game without that code.