In quite possibly one of the largest franchise resurrections of this year, early in 2007 developer WayForward announced that they had made an official deal with Konami to create the next Contra game, Contra 4, for the DS. A quick look back at WayForward’s development history reveals a long string of licensed titles, everything from Barbie to Spongebob. These numerous games stretch all the way back to SNES days showing that WayForward at least has a well established background.

 An American development team, WayForward, hit their first cult title with Shantae. Shantae was a Game Boy Color title that was released very late in the life cycle of the Game Boy Color. The upcoming Game Boy Advance handheld stole most of the thunder from any titles, like Shantae, that were released late in the Game Boy Color life cycle. WayForward spent a large chunk of the GBA’s lifespan making licensed titles up until their release of Sigma Star Saga, a quirky yet thoroughly enjoyable retro game in the style of Guardian Legend for the NES. Once again, WayForward was hit by the curse of old hardware, as the DS was just becoming the juggernaut it is today. The colorful, hard, and fun Sigma Star Saga was lost in the backwash of DS mania despite many accolades from various gaming publications.

 I find it interesting to look at development houses like WayForward, not because of their genre choices in games, but as a company that seems to revel in squeezing every last ounce of computing power from whatever console or handheld that wish to develop on. What this leads to are original licensed titles that are worked on for three or four years before being swallowed up by the thrill of new hardware. What has happened in the DS life cycle is an incredible boon for developers like WayForward. Due to the incredible, but most important, steady sales of the DS, this three year life cycle has been extended greatly. This allows companies like WayForward to show their programming prowess to a still fresh and engaged audience. What the company has done with Contra 4 is nothing short of a miracle. In a landscape filled with touch puzzle games and brain teasers, WayForward has put together the definitive Contra package that encapsulates, and in many places exceeds, the ideas set forward by the original Konami entries into the same franchise.

 

 Picking up Contra 4 is the beginning of a true rite of passage for gamers of any age. Fellow podcaster James says that not even 30 minutes after inserting the title into his teal DS phat, he was given to tossing his DS to the side in frustration. When inquired as to why he would by a game that would put him in such a mood, he simply replied “I knew it was going to kick me in the nuts, and I like it.”

 Contra 4 follows the time-tested standard put in place by its forefathers. It is a traditional run and gun game which follows the basic premise of having your character move to the right mowing down whatever enemies appear in his path. Based purely in a gorgeous 2D game setting, the player is encouraged, and even required, to deal death out by the gallons with little time to sit and enjoy the surroundings.

 A run and gun game is nothing without precise controls. Contra 4 delivers this in spades. Each of the selectable characters have the same set of actions kept very simple so you can concentrate on the job at hand. The D-pad will get your character where they need to go. X will engage the grappling hook giving quick access to the top screen provided there is something to grapple to. The A button will eject your currently selected alternate weapon, of which you can have two. This is used mainly to drop a weapon for a 2nd player who is in need of something beyond the game’s default rifle. B will jump, with no double jump, double duck, or double cartwheel in the game. You are free to twist and fire through your jump animations, or even while grappled, which becomes a requirement in the later levels of the game. Get comfortable with that Y button which allows you to fire your currently equipped weapon. With a few exceptions, such as the machine gun and level 2 laser, all weapons have a higher fire rate when rapidly tapping the Y button instead of holding it down. Contra 4 brings back the age-old concept of spamming the attack button, similar to Devil May Cry’s pistols. The shoulder buttons find their uses as well, with L allowing you to toggle between your two held weapons and R freezing your character in position. You will find freezing in position is an extremely important skill because even though your character can fire in all 8 directions, there are many times you do not want to be moving while firing.

 The combination of running, jumping and firing is spot-on. You will not find any of the rubbery collision detection sometimes seen in 3D side scrollers such as New Super Mario Bros. Given the sprite based nature of the game you will soon become very familiar with your character’s hit box as well as the hit boxes of your enemies. Learning when you can scrape against a bullet without dying or just how close you have to get to the edge of that ledge to kill the sniper above you will become second nature. Appreciating the exactness of the weapon fire, both from you and them, is required because just as in previous Contra titles: one hit kills. You will have no life bar and no shield (with the exception of extremely rare barrier pick ups that give you a few seconds of protection). Dying lets you start from that spot with a second or two of flashing invincibility, whereas continuing lets you start off at either the beginning of the stage or a checkpoint somewhere in the stage. Contra 4 is a game of skill, not luck, and bullet patterns that can be memorized or at least predicted with reasonable accuracy. To die in Contra 4 is to fail, and to fail is to lose. The game makes no pretense about this fact. It does not excuse itself or make apologies. You are given the tools with enough room for growth in the occasional weapon upgrades that fly by, begging to be shot down. Alternate weapons include a full blown machine gun, a rapid-fire straight laser, a flamethrower, two forms of missile (concussion and homing) as well as the series classic, the Spread Shot. In an even cooler throwback, certain instances of the challenge missions (bite sized chunks of the stages with various conditions like kill all of a specific enemy) will give you the classic Contra laser or even a ridiculous homing missile weapon which fires five small Vic Vipers (the ship from Konami sister series Gradius) that hunt down enemies. Each weapon can be picked up twice to give a 2nd level of said weapon. In some cases this simply increases the sprite and weapon damage, such as the Spread Shot or Laser level 2. But in the case of the flamethrower, the weapon itself is drastically changed.

The story of Contra 4 follows Bill and Lance, two soldiers that have been unexpectedly drafted to repel an alien invasion led by the hideous Black Viper. In drawing from the previous Contra games, Contra 4 continues what is a basic, yet enjoyable, storyline that will remind most gamers of the Alien movie series. Not a bad comparison considering this game features face huggers. Given a blurb of story during the opening credits and a resolution near the end, Contra 4 features no cut scenes in between. There are no voice-overs, no text bubbles, and no monologues. This is precisely what I enjoy about the plot of this game. Death animations tell the story, not words. The environments you fight through give you all the background you need, the world is in flames and you are the last remaining saviors of your race.

 What I cheer WayForward on is that they do feature a museum of the entire series. You are free to flip through images of the cover art of every Contra game, regardless of region of release, and are given a small snapshot of the plot of each game. This allows the player to become familiar with the timeline the games, if they wish. It is kept out of the way of the player’s ambitious need to destroy the alien scourge.

 When you see the end bosses, you know they are evil. You don’t need them to spell it out to you, I am mean and I am going to eat you. The gnashing teeth, stinging tails and piles of bones and entrails strewn underneath them serve this purpose. To penalize a game on lack of plot when the root of the game is a war against mindless alien invaders is a mistake. I had a very hard time picking this score and will most likely receive some quizzical looks from my fellow staff members concerning it.

Lovingly drawn backgrounds are presented, featuring everything from sweeping mountainsides all the way to rusted blown apart cityscapes. A thunderous waterfall pours down just behind your character, cascades of blue frothy waves splashing against the side of the rock cliff. Contra 4 provides some of the richest deepest 2D art seen in a handheld. You may find a lack of ambition when comparing Contra 4 to other 2D titles, such as Konami’s own Castlevania series, but what you have is a deeply engrossing environment. From under the few spots of green grass you can see the blinking of circuitry. Fire erupts from the street in the City stage. Ducking in the water lining the bottom of Stage 1 completely swallows your character. Even with the unforgiving spawn points of enemies, that will allow nearly a dozen enemies on screen at a time, the game never fails to keep a steady frame rate. Weapons do not flicker like they do in Contra 4’s NES counterpart, Contra 1. WayForward has develop an engine that constantly amazes with detailed and huge sprites. The bosses featured at the end of every one of the 9 levels steal the show. Some are metal gods bent on smashing you beneath their fists. Others are engorged hungry aliens intent on eating you whole.

 Enemy deaths greet the character with spectacular animations. Your lowest level backpack soldier explodes when shot, due to the dynamite stored on his body. Bosses will collapse sending up piles of human bones dropped beneath them from previous meals.

 I do find the audio department of Contra 4 to be one of the weakest parts of the entire package. While technically the newer pieces of music (you will find many classic Contra tunes weaved in and out of entire game) are well done, they simply do not reach the same level of energy and pace as those found in the beginning of the series. I do enjoy the effects removed from the original game, such as the 'tink tink' of weapon fire on turrets. For some reason, that annoyed me in the original game. Weapon fire is explosive, without drowning out enemy actions.

Simply put, Contra 4 is a game that should be played with a friend. All of the above praise applies to the game’s built-in local co-op. Blasting through level after level of man-eating alien scum is a great way to spend an evening with someone you enjoy. I have found that every push I manage to make in the game, say reaching a level I haven’t reach before or killing a boss in one life that had previously taken me three, has nearly always happened with a friend firing at my side. I remember Contra 1 for the NES as one of my earliest and still most memorable multiplayer memories.

 That being said, WayForward has brought forward Contra 4 with the most basic multiplayer around. You can co-op locally through the standard Arcade mode and that is it. No Wi-Fi support, no support through the game’s incredible Challenge mode, and no co-op in the unlockable Contra 1 and Super C. While lack of co-op in the emulated titles is excusable, the lack of additional layers of multiplayer within Contra 4 is disappointing.

 Perhaps the two strangest issues are most likely due to the restrictions of the hardware, yet I still believe a developer like WayForward could achieve victory over these two problems. One is simply; each player must choose the same sprite. The player hosting the game chooses a character and player 2 simply gets a palette swap of that character. In addition, pausing the game in multiplayer will simply pause your character NOT the game. Very important to remember that you can’t answer that phone call or take that turkey out of the oven when you decide to sit down and play Contra 4 with a friend.

Having the a fairly vast library of DS titles to choose from, including the fact that the library grows nearly every two months, a game such as Contra 4 will stay on the top of the list for quite a while. It brings back all those memories of playing Contra 1 all those years ago. Game play is incredible and the finesse of WayForward’s sprite pushing abilities on the DS are great. The game is loud and brash in sound and execution, giving the player a no holds barred contest between man and machine. The choice of platform could not have been better as WayForward uses the dual screens of the DS as one large vertical surface, giving the series a sense of scope never seen.

 An incredible game for the hardcore crowd on the best handheld made, Contra 4 should see itself in the library of any self-respecting action gamer. My DS case has room for three DS titles, not counting the game within the unit itself. When Contra 4 isn’t in my DS, it has been sitting in the case since the day I bought it. Contra 4 has the distinction of being a great gift for anyone. Give it to someone you like so you can have a buddy to co-op through this incredible game with. Give it to someone you don’t like so you can make them cry themselves to sleep the night they trying playing this punishing game.