Dan Geeks Out: Video Game Review #371: Contra Force

Contra Force

Nintendo Entertainment System

Nostalgia Factor:

Now that the abomination known as Blaster Master Boy is in my rearview mirror, it's time to move onto my next game review from 1992: Contra Force for the NES. I had never heard of Contra Force before, so as soon as I became aware of its existence I knew I had to check it out.

Within the last year or two I had played through the entire Contra Anniversary Collection for the PS4. I was really curious why this game wasn't on the collection. Turns out that this game was originally not a Contra game. It was known as Arc Hound overseas before its Japanese release was canceled. The game was still brought to the US, however, where it was rebranded as a Contra spinoff.

The game is absolutely terrible, however, so I can see why Konami wouldn't include it on their anniversary collection. I'm sure they want everyone to forget about this game's existence. It didn't work! Here I am to tell you how terrible this game is.

Story:

I played through this entire game twice and I still couldn't tell you what is going on with its storyline. There are "cutscenes" before the game and in between each level, but the characters seemingly speak non-sequitur nonsense to one another. I'm going to chalk this up to an extremely poor English translation. Long story short: you play as the good guys and you have to defeat the bad guys and save the world/the country/the city... whatever makes you feel the most important.

Gameplay:

Right off the bat you can tell this isn't your typical Contra game. You can pick from four different characters to play as. Each character has two lives. When you run out of lives with a character, you have to use a continue and restart whatever level you are on. If you play strategically, you can switch your character mid-level to someone who has all of their lives left. So if you know you're about to die and waste a continue, switch over to someone else!

The action is a lot slower than your average Contra game. Whereas you might have something like five or six enemies on the screen at one time in a mainline Contra game, there rarely seems to be more than two or three in this game. Your character moves VERY slowly. Most of the time you can see your enemies coming a mile away and position yourself to take them out before they can hit you. Each stage ends with a boss character. Each of these boss characters are major bullet sponges. Some are easy, some are a pain in the neck to destroy.

Contra Force uses a Gradius-like system to upgrade your weapons. Unlike past Contra games, you can't pick up weapons like the spread gun or the laser through item drops. Instead you pick up little briefcases that contain one upgrade point. You can see a little meter on the bottom left corner of your screen. You can hang onto these points to cash them in for a powerful upgrade (but risk losing all these points if you get killed) or you can use these points right away for more minor weapon improvements. This is probably the thing I liked the most about the game, how it attempts to do something different. That's about all the praise I can muster for Contra Force. I guess it's got a good soundtrack too, but I will get to that later.

Before I start bashing this game, let me talk about its overhead stages. There are two of them in the game. In these stages, you can move up, down, left, and right on the game board. You shoot enemies. You make it to the end of the stage where you fight a boss. You can do everything you can normally do in a side-scrolling stage except for jump. As far as fun goes, these stages are... fine. They're about as fun as the side-scrolling stages. Which really isn't saying much.

Contra Force on the whole is a giant drag to play. It's slow. It's ugly to look at. When there is a lot of action happening on the screen (and sometimes when there is not) the action gets choppy and slows to an absolute crawl. And this game is slow to begin with! I don't know if I've ever encountered more intrusive slowdown in a video game before. Sheesh.

I just didn't have any fun playing this game. It's such a sloppy game, not worthy of the Contra title. Again, I can see why Konami probably wanted us all to forget about Contra Force. It sucks.

Graphics:

This game takes a giant step back from the original Contra, which came out in 1988. The original Contra has color. It has personality. This game just looks so incredibly drab. The characters are unremarkable looking. The pixel art is very half-assed. I've already harped on the slowdown. This looks like an early era NES game, as opposed to something that came out near the end of the system's life cycle.

There are a few well-designed areas in the game that have nice backgrounds to look at. They are few and far between, however.

Sound:

I won't completely bash Contra Force in the sound department. The sound effects are on par for what they should be for this type of game. Some of the stage tunes are catchy. Really, the music is probably the best thing about this entire shit show of a game. There were a few moments where I felt like I was playing Batman or Mega Man for the NES because the music was so on-point. I wish I could say it was enough to make this game enjoyable.

Overall:

Coming off my miserable experience playing Blaster Master Boy, I'm really disappointed that I had to suffer again with yet another crummy game. I'm going to have to pick something fun for my final 1992 game review, because sheesh.

Is Contra Force as bad as Blaster Master Boy? No. While I derived zero enjoyment from Blaster Master Boy, I will say that this game had its occasional moment. I like what this game is trying to do, it just doesn't execute its vision very well. With a little polish and a little added attention, this game may have actually been something. Instead it will have to settle for its place in history - a mere shadow of the Contra series it is based upon. Only play this if you are morbidly curious about this "forgotten" Contra game that is not available on any of the collections out there. This is not a good game, but I wouldn't say it is an absolute piece of trash either. Contra Force avoids a failing review score by the skin of its teeth.

THE GRADE:

D-

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