Retro Gaming Australia

Contra: Shattered Soldier, the last traditional Contra game for home consoles, will join the PS2 Classics range in North America next week.

The game is best remembered for putting the series back on track after the dire Contra: Legacy of War and C: The Contra Adventure.

Expect to cough up $US9.99 for this one.

Contra III: The Alien Wars (or Super Probotector: Alien Rebels, or Contra Spirits) marks the debut of Konami’s platforming shooter series on the 4th generation consoles. Like most Konami SNES/SFC releases, we recommend going after the Super Famicom version: it’s cheaper (especially if you want it complete) and it’s easier (thanks to unlimited continues).

This is a dual game ad from Konami, featuring Snake’s Revenge and Super C (or Super Contra) for the NES. Before the release of Metal Gear Solid, most in the West treated Snake’s Revenge as the sequel to Metal Gear, not knowing of the existence of the MSX only Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. There seems to have been a backlash against the game in the years since as a result of its non-canon status, and lack of Kojima involvement.

Contra: Legacy of War was the first of two maligned 32-bit entries into Konami’s popular series of run and gun platformers. Konami outsourced development of the games to Appaloosa Interactive, better known as Novotrade International, the developers behind Ecco the Dolphin. Due to poor fan reception, Konami has effectively retconned the game out of existence.

Axiom Verge is a retro-style action-adventure game, featuring the familiar mix of side-scrolling, exploration and power-ups synonymous with classic Metroidvania-style titles.

Taking inspiration from such titles as Blaster Master, Contra, Rygar and Metroid, Axiom Verge boasts classic 2D sprite-based graphics, upgradeable weapons, and oodles of items and equipment – wrapped in a sci-fi setting.

The games first trailer (above) has just been released, and it is looking (and sounding) a treat.

Axiom Verge is set for release in 2013 for both PC and XBLIG.

Apparently today marks 25 years since Contra debuted in Japanese arcades way back on February 20th, 1987. You should celebrate by playing Contra, or by watching this video of Neo Contra.

Yes, he is running on top of a helicopter propeller.

We’ll have some sort of feature on the series in the coming months. Maybe Konami will get around to revealing that reboot before then.

The Contra series’ darkest hour.

It seemed like a good idea on paper. Give Contra to a competent developer, bring it into 3D, make money. Unfortunately, the first part of this experiment, Contra: Legacy of War was a shameful effort. Yet Appaloosa managed to do worse on its second attempt – C: The Contra Adventure. These games are so bad that Konami refuses to acknowledge them as part of the Contra series. The game ended up being released exclusively in North America.

Search for C: The Contra Adventure on eBay

One of a handful of Contra games not released here.

Contra Force is the third and final game in the series released for the NES. It was originally scheduled to be released in Japan as Arc Hound, a title completely unrelated to the Contra series, but Konami decided to cancel the Japanese release and localise it for release in America as a Contra game.

Search for Contra Force on eBay