Contra: Legacy of War

by Playstation

Product Features

• 3D Glasses

Product Details

• ASIN: B00002STIJ
• Item Weight: 8 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #22,766 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

GameSpot Review

The Contra saga started nearly ten years ago in the arcades. With two-player simultaneous action, multiple weapons, and extremely hectic gameplay, it rocketed to the top of everyone's wish list when it was translated to the 8-bit NES. Contra quickly became a legend, spawning sequels all the way up to Contra 3: The Alien Wars on the SNES.

Now Contra enters the 32-bit age with Legacy of War. It drops the side-scrolling motif completely, and instead favors a top-down perspective. The game also features a silly 3-D mode, which requires the super-flimsy red/blue 3-D glasses packaged with the game. If a second player wants to experience 3-D action, however, you'll have to dig up a spare pair of 3-D specs because the game only comes with one set. Not surprisingly, the game's 3-D effects aren't that good, and will probably make your head hurt after a few hours, so sticking with the normal mode is the best bet in the long run.

Players select among four characters, each with different weapons. These range from old-school Contra favorites, such as the spread weapon, to all-new additions that include a flamethrower and homing rounds. The game provides six levels of play, from jungles to rivers. The third level in particular is a standout, where players get to steer a boat around a lake, shooting scuba divers while avoiding mines.

The graphics in Legacy of War are pretty standard. The game sports a few good-looking explosions, and in 3-D mode a lot of explosions result in chunks of metal flying towards the screen. It's a nice touch, but nothing spectacular. The music is also standard military fare, but it sits in the background nicely and doesn't become an annoyance.

Legacy of War is a competent game, but Contra games have never been merely competent. Perhaps this offering would have been better were it not burdened with the Contra name, and the explosive expectations that accompany it. For those looking for a good shooting game with some new twists on gameplay, this title may fit the bill. But for those looking for a real game of Contra, break out the SNES and have at it. --Jeff Gerstmann
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc.

Product Description

It's the Contra you always new, fight aliens, earn power up, blast through everything discover hidden shields, one or two playsers together, 3D mapped, shoose your hero

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better on older systems, October 6, 2003

By 

TwistaG "Quoth the Raven 'Nevermore" (Moncks Corner,SC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Contra: Legacy of War (Video Game)

Contra from Konami was the premiere side scrollin' shooting game of the late 80's and early 90's. It was both on the 8-bit NES and both 16-bit game consoles, and it reigned supreme. In this Playstation version, Konami changed the gameplay a little too much to keep it viable in the shooter market. Contra's graphics aren't bad. In fact, the polygon environment is a great improvement over the old shooter genre. But, the characters are still bitmaps, and with the top down perspective they look squished and silly. All of the guns and battlements are made of polygons, have fluid movement, and are all around 'perty. But most of the enemies, power-ups, and items are bitmaps. This mix of graphics formats just doesn't fit well in Contra's case and shouldn't have been used, Konami should have stuck with one or the other. There are four different characters you can choose for your adventures. Ray and Tasha are humans. Also included is CD-228 and Bubba, a robot and a alien respectively. Each has a total of four weapons, and these weapons are different depending on which character you choose. Other than that, there are no differences. Konami should have included some different attributes for each character, for instance: Ray can jump higher, but Tasha is faster. Disappointingly, there are only six gun totin' levels. Although they are fairly large, you can run through the first two in about 5 minutes. Some of the deeper levels have some cool features, including a boat that you can drive around. In the second level, there is a "jungle arcade" that has two arcade machines with some old cheesy 80's games on them. Just walk up to them and it inserts the quarter for you! Get ready to play either Gyruss or Pactank. These little details and features are the ones that can really make a game stand out, but there just weren't enough of them in Contra. Throughout the game there are various big bad bosses that attack you. Most, if not all, of them are made of polygons, and they all have fluid motion and look great. Again, if they had made all of the characters polygonal, Contra would have been a much better game. But, then again, sometimes the game has some bad slowdown. When surrounded by tons of enemies, the game lost about 10 frames a second. Konami is trying to push the Playstation too hard in Contra and the slowdowns are annoying because of it. The sound is very good and the music follows suit. All the machine gun and laser fire sounds are 'realistic' (or at least sound good), and the ambient sound adds to the environment too. Even though the music is typical to a shooter, it's still enough to keep you going through the level. The game is really easy to control. Contra doesn't suffer any inconsistencies when slammin' buttons on the controller and it really shows as you go through the game. There is also a "strafe" button that allows you to side-step left and right. This is really useful while heading up in a level, you can just step side to side and keep firing instead of turning all around the place. Konami made it complex enough for advanced players and simple enough for everyone else. You also get some cheesy 3d glasses with the game. Turn on 3d mode in the game, but on the blue and red glasses, and get ready for a headache. There is some slight depth perception at the expense of all the color, and a flickering screen. It just a worthless gimmick. There was no point in including it, except for fancy packaging... I mean, who couldn't pass up 3d glasses!?
Contra is a decent game, but it's nothing like its 16-bit predecessors. If you want some real Contra action, just pull out your SNES or Genesis.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Konami., December 5, 2009

By 

Video Game History "Gamer 4 life" (United States) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Contra: Legacy of War (Video Game)

Konami had a hiccup with this game, but now it's a cool collectible!

Konami has released very few bad games, so I still give them my full support.

Contra as a series rules, so you have to pick this up to complete your collection!

fun, but not the greatest game in the series...

5 stars for Konami, though!

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Contra-Legacy Of Lame, February 15, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Contra: Legacy of War (Video Game)

When I first got this game I thought it would be fun. Instead, it was one of the worst games I have ever played, and I have played a lot. The graphics make me think of Atari 2600 and the sound is like 1970s and the game play is awful. You only have 8 health bubbles that every time you get hit, one goes like they're expecting you to live through the whole thing. And the cheat codes mostly don't work. When you hit some guy they explode up in flames, and whenever you try to blow up a gun turret, it hits you about 3 times before you destroy it. The levels are so long and they don't even have any checkpoints. I expected Konami to do better than this, but what were they thinking!