Hard Corps: Uprising Scratches the Contra Itch

It walks like Contra, it quacks like Contra, but it’s actually Hard Corps: Uprising, an old-school platform shooter coming to Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network this winter. I was not expecting a Contra game of any sort at Konami’s pre-E3 press event last month, which made my time with the game even sweeter.

Hard Corps: Uprising stars Colonel Bahamut, the villain of Contra: Hard Corps for Sega Genesis. So while this game is tied to the Contra series, Konami’s keeping the connection lose in its marketing. But once I started playing the game, I was suddenly back in my childhood bedroom, torching foes with the spread gun.

The most remarkable thing about Hard Corps: Uprising is how similar it feels to the original Contra games. Pacing is not as fast as Contra 3: Alien Wars for Super Nintendo, or the more recent Contra 4. There also seemed to be fewer cheap shots. Most of my time was spent mowing down grunts and stationary cannons, and the boss I faced — a wall of cannons and placed enemies — had clearly recognizable attack patterns. That doesn’t mean the game was easy — it is Contra, after all — and I was warned that difficulty is subject to change in the final version.

Hard Corps: Uprising will have eight levels and roughly 3 bosses. For veteran players, there’s a straight-up arcade mode, but newbs will fare better in Uprising mode, which allows players to build up their character’s abilities as they progress through the game. Call it the next-generation 30 lives code.