This is a port that I would have laughed at you had you said it was happening. Sure, it is unofficial, it is still cool and quite interesting just how close this port is to the original run and gun title. Konami seems to have a decent track record of letting independent homebrew developers run with things – as long as the final works are not sold. Hopefully that stands true for this port as it is quite impressive already.
Contra is a run and gun style game, focused on action over solving puzzles. That means you only need your reflexes for this mission. The only puzzles you face in this series are how to get around an enemy, other than through them.
Released in 1987, Contra carried a strong resemblance with action movies of the time. It didn’t help that the protagonists were extremely stylized after popular action stars of the time. Seriously, I am surprised Stallone and Schwarzenegger did not sue of the box art for the Nintendo Entertainment System box art.
Your goal in Contra is to fend off an invading alien faction in an unknown jungle. Armed to the teeth with weaponry from supply drops that you shoot down.
Sure, graphically, this port takes a hit immediately. The essence of Contra is still there though. Run and gun gameplay, enemies coming out of nowhere, and hard to avoid artillery flying around the screen. Yep, the feel of Contra is here.
There is no word on if there will be a physical release of this port. There is a ROM download available. I could not get the ROM to work as I could not get an emulator working. I really wanted to check this one out but I will have to live vicariously on this one.
Let me know what you think, are you interested in this port of Contra to the Mattel Intellivision?
