I can't wait to see what else Konami can do with this engine. Still Contra. Still freaking awesome.
User Rating: 8.7 | Neo Contra PS2
Neo Contra is like a 3-D adaptation of those rad overhead levels you play in Contra 3. Among the cool things new to it, are multiple weapon scheme options. When doing two player there's actually quite a bit of strategy to picking which awesome weapons to use when. Wow, can you tell I'm biased to Contra games? There's probably a good reason for that. CONTRA IS STILL WHAT IT USED TO BE Konami has yet to sell out to the modern industry and sacrifice gameplay for graphics. Sure Neo Contra is pretty to look at, but most importantly it plays pretty. This game has one of the top combat engines. It's full of bosses and plenty of guys to blow the crap out of. It doesn't hurt that Konami opted to go to the M rated approach to the violence. Now when you shoot something it blows up everywhere. And if that something used to be alive, it's remnants are SPRAYED across the landscape. And then you move on to the next guys. And Contra has still been enforcing the KILL EVERYTHING policy by keeping the hit rate system from SS. A few awesome things about Neo Contra- THEMED BOSSES. The last bosses to each stage are actually Contras. It's awesome. I love themed bosses. If you don't, get some taste. THE SPREAD GUN IS BACK. As a super high powered sawed off type shot gun. And when you shoot people with them, their body parts fly. That rocks. COOL TECHNO SOUNDTRACK. Oh yeah. Contra has yet to dish out a bad soundtrack and this fresh and welcomed approach is no exception. YOU GET TO USE A SWORD. One of the characters, the futuristic samurai Jaguar, can use a sword for his alternate weapon. It hurts things like hell but he has to get close to use it, putting him in danger. And yes, even with a sword it still feels very much like Contra. AND WE LOVE CONTRA. There's not a bit of this game that seems slow, and it's still fine tuned perfection for combat but Neo Contra does fall short in a few areas. I'm going to just list my gripes out here. - Areas are too big sometimes. Not empty or anything. Just a bit too big. There should be less room to dodge things. - It's short but I don't care that it's short. News flash everyone. EVERY CONTRA GAME IS SHORT. But if that's something you may actually whine about I'm throwing it out there. - It's hard but not as insanely hard as Shattered Solider. A lot of people were being pansies and complaining the last one was too hard anwyay. Too bad. This game will still own you. Especially the true last boss. I love this new engine and I'd really like to see what else Konami can do with it. I just want to take this last sentence to thank Konami for keeping it real. We love you. 
