Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX [GBA]

Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX is one of the first real classic Konami games to receive the "quick-and-dirty" port treatment on the Game Boy Advance. Instead of creating, from scratch, a whole new Contra adventure, the company instead went back to the Super NES hit Contra III: The Alien Wars for its design. There's nothing entirely wrong with that, since the SNES game is admittedly one of the most energetic designs in the Contra line, and the game converts nicely to the handheld hardware. But it's not a complete port, as some of the more graphically intense (and unique) levels have been given the axe; in their place are more side-scrolling levels lifted from the Genesis game Contra: Hard Corps. The game's still an intensely hard (and sometimes extremely unfair) challenge, and will take some serious practice just to get through them. But there's only six levels in this GBA Contra, and that's not a lengthy game experience for any genre.

Features

• Six levels
• Link cable support for two players (multiple cartridge)
• Password save
• Only for Game Boy Advance

Aliens have invaded Earth, and its up to you, a commando with a taste for over-excessive weaponry to pull a little extermination action in all of the levels to eliminate all of the bad guys who've taken over the planet. This is old-school shooter action released at a time when side-scrolling action was king; it makes sense that the Game Boy Advance game gets this sort of game since side-scrolling action is where the hardware shines, and the GBA does a good job reproducing the same blindingly intense action that console gamers got a decade ago. In Contra Advance, players simply run, jump and shoot their way through the alien infestation, blasting them before they blast back. For every mile or so of run and jump action, the player will be stopped in his tracks with a mid-level boss to take out. By the end of each level, there will be a huge, full screen boss to defeat. This entire game is all about trial-and-error memorization, because there's no way any player can get through the game in one sitting; players will be assaulted on all sides with fast moving aliens and projectiles to avoid, and your character loses a life whenever he gets touched by enemies or enemy fire. Some of the attacks are just downright unfair; it's all about learning when these aliens show up and getting them before they even have a chance to get a shot off.

The majority of the game is based upon the best 16-bit version of the Contra series; the four extensive side-scrolling levels have been lifted straight out of the Super NES game. The impressive overhead rotate-and-shoot levels, however, have been left on the cutting room floor. Whether or not you were a fan of the overhead Mode 7 levels of the Super NES Contra III, you have to admit that these levels did offer some variety in the overall game design, giving gamers a break from the standard side-scrolling fare and offering something distinctly different to blast through. And that's where Contra Advance disappoints: there's no real variety in the action except for side-scrolling levels. The levels that replace the overhead missions are side-scrolling missions lifted pixel-for-pixel from the Genesis Contra title. Even on the NES the Contra designers didn't just focus on one style of level designs, offering the gamer a change of pace between one or two levels with some behind-the-character hallway challenges. The GBA title is just more of the same without any real surprises in gameplay.

Graphically, the character sprites and backgrounds haven't changed from their console counterparts, and that's both a good and bad thing. It's good because the Super NES title featured some really excellent pixel art using as many colors as the system could handle. Bad, because the Genesis obviously didn't have nearly the same color capabilities, and the two Genesis levels stick out like a sore thumb on the GBA screen; backgrounds are extremely dithered and washed out, and the contrast is made even more obvious when these levels are sandwiched in between the prettier SNES missions. Konami added a couple of hand-drawn portraits after each level, but that's about it.

And this game is very, very, very short. Six missions is just way less than what's expected for videogames nowadays, and though the game's a lot of fun getting to the end, once it's over, it's over. Konami didn't really do anything to offer the gamer anything extra once the game's over. The GBA game has link cable support for two-player co-op mode, but to take advantage of this mode you'll need an extra copy of the cartridge. Though Konami had the right idea to make the game more "handheld friendly" to let players save their progress after a level, the password save is a bit counterproductive since it takes longer to input the 18-character string of text than the time players will spend in the level they're loading. And that's not an exaggeration.

©2002, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved