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GBA

North America

Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX

by Steven Rodriguez - May 23, 2002, 4:14 pm EDT
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Up up, down down, left right left right, B A, Start saving up for this one.

Contra is back baby, and its looking great. This is not a port of the NES game; it’s an entirely new version with a few new gameplay tricks that help prevent you from dying every 30 seconds.

The characters on-screen take up about a third of the GBA’s screen, so they’re pretty large sprites. Makes it easier to see what your character is doing. You can still shoot in 8 directions, as well as crouch and jump just like the good old days. You’ll also die a lot, too, but the nice thing is that the game starts you with 10 lives (this could have been just for the E3 version, but it would make sense if it did), so there will be a great many a bodies flying, including yours. (If you’re wondering, the Konami code didn’t work. Shucks.)

While the basic gameplay is virtually intact, the new things they put into it really makes sense. When you pick up a new weapon, instead of losing your old one, you switch it with the one you picked up, meaning that if you grab a weapon you didn’t want by accident, you can get it back. You also have the capability to hop into enemy vehicles, such as a tank. You can fire tank rounds at targets that would normally require a steady stream of fire from your regular gun, and it wipes them out in one shot. You also now have the ability to climb straight up walls, as well as hang down from bars and ledges.

It’s Contra on the GBA the way it should be. It should be ready before Christmas, so hopefully you’ll get a nice gift from Santa.

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Genre Shooter
Developer Konami
Players1 - 2

Worldwide Releases

na: Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX
Release Nov 03, 2002
PublisherKonami
RatingEveryone
jpn: Contra: Hard Spirits
Release Nov 14, 2002
PublisherKonami
aus: Contra: Alien Wars
Release Mar 17, 2006
PublisherKonami
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