A playthrough of Konami's 1988 run-and-gun action game for the NES, Contra.

In this video I play through three loops of the game. The second begins at 17:57, and the third at 34:58.

In the eighties, Konami had a seemingly supernatural knack for creating groundbreaking video games that defined their respective genres. Gradius set the bar for shoot 'em ups, Castlevania became the high-water mark for action-platformers, and Contra became the defacto gold standard for the run-and-gun shooter.

Contra was one of the most popular NES games ever released in the west. Every kid with an NES wanted to play it, and every kid who had played it raved about it to anyone who would listen. For years after its release, it was virtually impossible to find an available copy to rent for a weekend, and for a long while, stores sold out of copies so quickly that it was only by a sheer stroke of luck that you could snag a copy for yourself.

It was the first game I ever played of its type on the NES as a kid, and I couldn't possibly guess at the sheer number of hours I sank into it before I ever managed to beat it without the 30 extra lives code.

It was the ultimate symbol of what home gaming could be in the late 1980s - despite the limitations imposed by the hardware, the Nintendo Contra was *the* Contra to play. However lacking the graphics were compared to its coin-op counterpart, it offered a far more satisfying experience overall. The controls were more responsive, the stages were expanded, the difficulty curve was smoothed out to make it more fair and accessible to the average gamer without sacrificing the challenge that the hardcore fans loved, and the music was significantly improved. It was also one of the NES's first fast-paced action games to deliver an uncompromised two-player co-op experience.

And you can't forget about the Konami code, or the super satsfying sound the spread gun makes as it demolishes everything in its path!

Contra is a fantastic game that's just as fun to play now as it ever was, and it stands out as one of the best games in the NES library. If you're a fan of classic gaming and haven't yet played this one, what could you possibly waiting for?

(Friendly tip: if you aren't playing on an NES, do yourself a favor and get a controller with a good d-pad. The mushy diagonals on PlayStation and Xbox controllers will get in the way and you'll get killed all too often because you couldn't duck something in time.)
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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