Contra



What if you were to take H. R. Giger 's Alien, Arnold "The Governator" Schwarzzenngdsgds, and Syllvester Stallone, and threw them on an island together?Well, rather than a wacky misadventure, you'd get Contra. Despite the game's 8-bit roots, its cover is actually rather accurate. Two guys, the best of the best, fight an army of soldiers until they destroy the alien controlling everything behind the scenes. In that last sense, the cover art is brutally honest. Bill and Lance don't know an alien is behind the conflict right away.

See the comparison image to the right. It's animated in its full view.

We'll call this an interesting observation. Perhaps it is just coincidence.

Gameplay Features
Contra might as well be the first run 'n gun, literally a game about guys who run and gun.

Contra features the ability to grab temporary weapon powersups.

One of these weapons is the spread shot. Combined with the rapid fire powerup, it borders on being unstoppable. This is considered gameplay imbalance.

However, Contra inherits from arcade games, especially since the original Contra was an arcade machine. Everything in the game is a one-hit kill. So, even with the most powerful weapon, the game finds ways to test the player in other ways, particular in ways of mobility. For an example, the end of the game requires some platforming as enemies approach from multiple angles.

Contra features continuous enemy spawning. In certain iterations, like Contra III, this breaks scoring and allows for infinite life generation. This was rectified in later installments that used a ranking system based on single-spawn enemies destroyed.

Intelligent level design provides certain points where two different powerup weapons will spawn. In two player mode this can give each player a choice in firepower, allowing the players to balance each other. In one player mode, these situations can be used as weapon selection points, or as ways to recover after a death. This provides multiple ways to play the game successfully, a typical sign of a good video game.

Narrative-Gameplay Intersection
The final boss of the game is the heart of the alien forces. Likely meant as some sort of literal symbolism, the heart is actually a straightforward fight. The players need only destroy a few eggs spawning facehugger knockoffs before cracking at the nigh-defenseless heart. Interesting design choice, given that Konami's own Gradius series takes a similar approach.

Music
Like a number of classic video games, Contra's music is famous. It's stage 1 theme is remixed in a number of other Contra games. Typing in "Contra Remix" on YouTube yields a number of fan-made remixes. It's almost like fan-fiction when the original Sherlock Holmes stories were written. People taking the work of others and remixing and expanding it in other ways.

Just some food for thought.