Contra

Contra

Oh 80's with your shirtless actions starts

I wasn't able to post yesterday because I was stuck playing Contra attempting to get past the 2nd level. Not really, but seriously it took me forever to beat my way to level 5 (I finally resorted to the Konami Code) and I have been messing around seeing what other stuff I could do with this site. What would you think about in-game music that I would record? Not sure if I would put it on auto-play for the sake of all you people pretending to work right now.

Anyways, back to the hardest game I have yet to play (and I only got half way through!). The story seems simple yet completely ridiculous at the same time. Some mysterious asteroid hits Earth and everyone decides it's nothing, then all of a sudden aliens start swarming out. What does the US decide to do? Send one guy (two if you play co-op) in to take care of it. But don't worry, this guy can shoot while he flips around the screen. Even the manual continually tells you that you can't possibly beat it... Now compare this to any modern game and tell me if you have played anything even remotely this difficult recently. You know why? Because today's generation of gamers don't like to die in our games. We don't like the difficult games that make us practice levels again and again until we finally get it right, just to go die at the next level and have to start all over. Many older gamers will hate on this fact, but it's a simple difference of taste in games (probably based on the games we grew up on. N64 games were way easier, meaning I prefer easier games?)

Because apparently flipping makes you jump better

So as I started the game, I immediately knew that this was going to be one of the most frustrating games I'll ever play. I had heard of the difficulty before, but I was a little skeptical until I was already restarting the game after 5 minutes. This usually would have just made me angry and quit the game, but I was determined to get past the first level. The upgrading system was nice, except for R. I have no idea what R does (help me in the comments please!). And after retrying for about an hour, I finally was able to beat the first level and I felt this odd feeling. It was a sense of accomplishment that washed over me and, to my surprise, made me keep playing this game that I kept dying in (Konami Code used around then-ish). I do not know why, but this urge to keep playing kept me going through the end of level 4 with the same gratifying sense of accomplishment coming at the end of each level.

I'm pretty sure I died more in 3 hours with this game than I have
all year in other single player games

What I Loved: In case you couldn't tell, I loved the game after that first level. Once I finally was able to beat it, I just couldn't stop playing it. The game became more fun and dying simply stopped making me mad; I was more focused on learning from how I died, rather than the fact that I had died. I don't remember ever feeling like this towards a game, but then again, I have never played a game where I died so much.



What I Hated: The first level. It's like jumping into a freezing cold pool. It sucks, but once you're numb, it's not as bad. Also I disliked the laser upgrade, but that was just random. And that's about it. After you get used to the difficulty, this game is really enjoyable.

They send one guy after all of this? Good idea!

My General Impression: This game was ridiculously hard, by far the hardest game I have ever played. But it also is the most enjoyable game I have played in a long time. Sure, it's annoying to die a lot, but it only makes victory that much sweeter. This is something that we gamers of this generation are missing out on, especially since game developers are most likely too afraid of backlash from fans to make anything with this sort of game difficulty. After playing this game, I have to say that I feel everyone must experience this to truly call themselves a gamer. Awesome