Posts with tag contra4
Posted Jul 19th 2007 10:30AM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: News
Contra 4 Hype Watch continues. Current Hype Level:
Kool-Aid Man. Modojo's Justin Davis has joined us in freaking out over
Konami and Wayforward's new shooter, saying "Konami apparently said to hell with 'market realities' and made Contra the game I would have made, if I were given the team, the money, and told not to worry about sales potential."
The article is not just gushing about how
freaking awesome the game is. Davis found the space for some
new information about the game: specifically, that it would consist of nine levels, including three "pseudo-3D tunnel levels," presumably like the Bases found in
Contra. Also, we're going to have to make some friends before the end of the year, because there's cooperative play via local wireless.
Contra 4 party at our house!
Posted Jul 15th 2007 10:00AM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: DS Daily
We didn't see much in the keynote, but plenty of delicious DS content appeared over the course of
E3:
Brain Age 2, Flash Focus, Professor Layton, Advance Wars 2,
Contra 4-- the list goes on and on. It all looks nice! But us being gamers, and this being the Internet, we aren't comfortable with anything unless it's categorized according to arbitrary value judgments.
For that,
we turn to you. Which game of the pack was the winner, in your mind? And, if it wasn't
Contra 4, why not?
Posted Jul 14th 2007 7:00PM by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: Features
... but all good things must come to an end, eh? It's always nice to wallow in the explosion of news that surrounds a trade show, and even the diminished E3 was no exception. Sure, for Nintendo fans, at least on the DS side, things
started out a little slowly, but once the media hit, we no longer had anything to be disappointed about! So what was tops for DS owners? Here's the best -- according to us, at least.
Top E3 trailers:
- Contra 4 -- After all our Contragasms, you knew we were going to say this!
- Front Mission DS -- What can we say ... we're big fans of ass-kickery.
- Brain Age 2 -- We know you'll probably disagree with us here, but we can't help it. We a) dig a good, brainy challenge and b) think the selection of games looks even better than before.
Less-discussed games we desperately want right now:
- Professor Layton and all his mysterious locales -- Okay, we wanted this before. But it was mentioned in passing around E3, and now we're more rabid for it than ever!
- Nintendo Magic -- Another game we weren't sure would head our way, but that just sounds like fun.
- Advance Wars 2 -- The first is one of the best the DS has to offer, though it seems to rarely get a mention.
Worst trailer that should have been awesome:
Insecticide, hands down. Please pass us some Dramamine on your way out.
Biggest disappointment:
Probably the missing wi-fi for
Mario Party DS. C'mon, Nintendo, slip it in there! We promise not to complain about friend codes for at least a week.
Posted Jul 14th 2007 5:49PM by Andrew Yoon
Filed under: Reviews
Contra 4 is, for better or worse, a new
Contra game. It looks and plays just like
Contra games before it: it's classic 2D side-scrolling action gameplay, with a notoriously difficult 1-hit KO system. Of course, would
Contra fans have it any other way?
Those worried that the Nintendo DS would not provide the hardware capable of offering a decent looking
Contra can rest their fears: the sprites are fairly impressive, with a good amount of detail and animation. The game's action takes place over both the top and bottom screens on the DS, but it seems like interaction with the top screen is fairly minimal at this point. That's a good thing: if too many things were firing from the top, the player would certainly be at a serious disadvantage. The game promises a lot of vertical platforming, which certainly sounds exciting to us. The new grappling hook helps players get to higher areas faster ... but didn't seem too consequential to gameplay. Maybe they can take a few pages from
Bionic Commando?
The legions of
Contra fans have a lot to be excited about, but for everyone else, there isn't much new to appreciate about this DS-exclusive sequel. We're sure that it'll be a good game, but without any noteworthy gameplay additions to the game, we can't say that we're too heavily excited for it.
Posted Jul 14th 2007 10:00AM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: DS Daily
We're not going to say a word. You already
know how we
feel about the issue. And we're not even asking if 2D is
better than polygons, but just whether it has a place in the gaming world. We just want to see how this discussion
plays out, to be honest. Just remember, as in all DS Daily topics, and every other post in which you comment, as well as
pretty much everywhere, be courteous to your fellow gamers!
Posted Jul 13th 2007 10:40AM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: News
Game|Life's Chris Kohler got to live our most recent lifelong dream of playing
Contra 4, and he likes it! (Hey Mikey!) Upon hearing that
Contra 4 is actually as good as it looks and
doesn't rely on DS gimmickry, we reacted in a manner that is best illustrated by this video clip.
Kohler cites the classic weapons, the cleverly dual-screen-enhanced level design (which we don't think counts as DS gimmickry) and the
Contra-appropriate sound design as features that contributed to his positive impressions. Oh, and the difficulty. Apparently action games are
hard when you've been at a trade show all day, doing interviews and lugging a bunch of computer equipment around. We hope
Contra will be sufficiently challenging even in more comfortable conditions.
We think we're going to have to find an excuse to
post about Contra 4 every day until more developers get the message that there are plenty of strategy RPG's, sports games, mascot platformers, first-person shooters, puzzle games, and such out there. But there is a huge hole in the market for REAL ACTION GAMES like this one that are about
jumping and
shooting and synthesized guitar, and God knows there's enough of a userbase on the DS to support both awesome run & gun games and whatever else people want to put on there.
Posted Jul 13th 2007 9:00AM by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: DS Daily
One is all new as of E3, and the other got a great media boost ... and together, they're about as different as DS games can be and still be played by roughly the same groups of people (and also have the potential to be any good at all). So, c'mon, we've
been here before. You know what we're going to
ask. Which one sounds like the game you'd prefer, if you had to choose?
Contra 4 or
Mario Party DS?
Posted Jul 12th 2007 2:50PM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: Video
If your
face hasn't been sufficiently rocked by the DS showings at
E3, then we suggest watching this video of the first boss battle in
Contra 4. Even if you feel like you've been rocked enough, you should go ahead and watch it, and allow Virt's brilliant cover of the Stage 1 music to rock your face
clean off.
No
brains are being
trained here, people. Unless you count the brains of
alien soldiers, which are being trained to
blow up. We know it's early to declare a winner of E3, and we also know that E3 is not technically a competition. Even so,
Contra 4 wins.
Continue reading E307: Contra 4 video wins E3
Posted Jul 11th 2007 4:25PM by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: News, Screens
My friends, we are at war ... with minivans. And let us be the first to tell you -- the minivans are losing. Hoorah!
Frankly, we
take it back. We're not in any way upset any longer about the Nintendo keynote. In fact, we've already forgotten the keynote, because we all keep fainting at all the hotness that's been released on forthcoming DS games. These amazing new
Contra 4 screens are just the beginning.
Let's all celebrate these screens by taking off our shirts and flexing a few muscles! Well, all you
fellas in the audience, anyway.
This blogger will be skipping that part in favor of simply
drooling on the gallery.
Posted Jul 2nd 2007 11:30AM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Fan stuff
We gasped when we unfolded the poster included with this month's issue of
Nintendo Power. JC, reading over my shoulder to see if there were any updates on
Barnyard Blast, fainted at the sight of its retro design.
Lance and Bill look just as badass as ever, but who are those other two characters firing away in the background? According to
NP's preview, they've inherited Mad Dog and Scorpion's code names; we're of the opinion that they look like Bill Bellamy and that dude from
Prison Break. Which dude from
Prison Break, you ask? All of them.
Don't let their identities or the fact that the top-left guy isn't even paying attention to whatever he's shooting at get in the way of enjoying this fantastic work of art. Tie on a headband, throw your shirt aside, and head past the post break for more shots of the
Contra 4 centerfold.
Continue reading Nintendo Power poster: Contra 4 porn
Posted Jun 30th 2007 10:00AM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: DS Daily
Contra 4 looks awesome. That was almost the entirety of today's daily topic, although we were considering making it a question just to fit the format. One thing (other than the apparent awesomeness) sticks out as a topic of
discussion: can WayForward deliver a true, series-defining experience? We sure hope so. They've got some big shoes to fill, since they're trying to follow up
Contra III; and, as history has already taught us,
Contra III is awesome.
Posted Jun 29th 2007 5:30PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Video
Don't just walk -- run, flip, and shoot your way past the post break for the first
Contra 4 video footage to hit the interbutts.
The 1UP Show interspersed clips of the
WayForward-developed title in this week's episode, supplementing the 1UP staff's
hands-on impressions with scenes from
Contra 4's various levels, throwing a boss fight in there for good measure.
Our thoughts on the game so far, especially considering
Virt's involvement with its music and sound design, echo Jeremy Parish's: "It's like they said, "Let's make the best fan game ever,' and
Konami said, 'That's so good, we want to make it a real game.'"
Continue reading Contra 4 video even awesomer than our article image
Posted Jun 29th 2007 2:00PM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: News
We're going to cut out the introductions and get straight to it:
oh man, Contra 4 looks awesome. It's fully 2D,
just like we hoped. It's designed as a direct sequel gameplay-wise to the excellent
Contra III: producer Tomm Hulett said "Anyone who's played
Contra III on Virtual Console recently should be able to jump right into
Contra 4 and feel right at home." New features include the ability to hold two weapons and toggle between them, weapon upgrading (two of the same weapon result in a powered-up version), wireless two-player, and a grappling hook.
WayForward is taking inspiration from
New Super Mario Bros. for
Contra 4, in the best way. They're returning to what was great about the series, and designing a new game based on that.
Can you believe that two guys who are supposed to be great commandos
keep forgetting their shirts when they go on these missions? Check the screens and see how many enemy soldiers forgot their shirts. Preview:
none.
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We're taking that whole walking in a straight line and jumping on everything to heart, because, y'know, we're linear like that. We also like our destruction with a heavy dose of bouncing around. And also, guns.
