Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Games That Changed The World Vol. 5

AHHH!


Hello again. Remember last time, I was talking about games that made you angrier than that time God caught Jesus masturbating or the time you read that and got angry at the concept of Jesus playing with himself? Well, this is the opposite. This is about a game that made you want to tie up and keep whoever the hell was playing it you at the time so they could never leave and you could finally beat that snow level? I mention that because while Contra was fun by your self, you aren't going to fucking beat it. You get 3 lives and it's one hit kills. Sure, I'd be hung, drawn, and quartered if I didn't mention the Konami code (which appeared in Gradius first, not this game) and it's ability to pretty much let you walk through the game, but that's not a challenge. That's not any different then watching the Harlem Globetrotters play a basketball game. The outcome is pretty much written, it's just a matter of how you get there.

No. Single player isn't the selling point. The multiplayer is where it's at. Except back in those days, nobody used a stupid term like multiplayer. What are you, a fucking a English teacher? Firefox hates that word. I really should add it to the dictionary, but that's besides the point. No no. We called that shit 2 Player. "Wanna play 2 player Contra?" The answer would always be yes. And if it was no, they immediately stopped being your friend. And you were always Player 1. Why? It's your god damn system that's why. And if it wasn't your system, you couldn't say shit about it. You were the blue guy or you didn't play. Then you played. It was what the kids today call "co-op" gameplay. You worked together, and if you were lucky, you got to put 11 million bullets (and by bullets, I mean red circles, flames, or lasers) into a giant alien heart.

That's right, the final act took place inside of an alien apparently. Although, this was before it was normal to tell people what the hell was going on outside of a blurb in the manual, and maybe an opening cutscene. One minute you're shooting what appears to be dudes, next thing you know, aliens. I guess that makes sense. I mean...well. Whatever. You also could try and beat the other guys score, but by this point in gaming, getting points was pretty much pointless now. Also, the game had a cheat where you could steal a life from your partner. Which as you would imagine, lead to fist fights and hair pulling.


Oh, and the fucking Spread Gun. Really, forget everything I said about the game. Buy it, and everyone of it's sequels (Including Contra 4 for the DS, since you get a brand new Contra, and the 2 original NES games) right now.



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