Contra: Hard Corps
1994
- shooter
- platform
- action
- science fiction
- single player
- multiplayer
- co-operative
The story
Kickin' cyborg butt... That's what it's all about, dude. Jack into this game of genetic engineering gone bad. Real bad. It's five years after the mother of all wars ended - and things still aren't right. Your job is to fix it. The ever-popular Contra series makes its Sega Genesis debut with a pulse-pounding new storyline. At 16 megs, HARD CORPS pushes the technology to bring you over ten gut-wrenching levels with huge boss characters, great graphics and dynamic sound. Find high powered weapons such as the homing gun, crush gun, needle laser or mine setter. Do you think you can handle it? Trust me, you can't. You still here? Okay, then get ready for the fight of your life. Pick one of the four heroes and begin your search across many dark levels of doom. The ending changes, depending on the paths you choose - but every pass crosses boss characters that will blow you away. Literally!
What it’s like
Hard-edged 16-bit sprites on a dark, grimy palette, with bleak industrial backdrops, rusted machinery and smoky skies that feel like a world long past its ruin. Side-scrolling stages are packed with bright explosions and muzzle flashes that pop against the murk, and the synth-driven chiptune score pushes a restless, urgent pulse under every firefight. The feel is tense and punishing: quick, twitchy movement, short runs that snap back on a single mistake, and bosses that fill the screen and demand precise pattern reading. Violence is stylised arcade action, with enemies bursting into sparks and debris rather than anything gory, though the tone is relentlessly grim, with cyborg enemies, a shattered future and a sense of doom hanging over each level. Its rhythm is relentless: short, intense bursts followed by hard, memorable confrontations. It suits a late-night session when you want a challenge, a high-score chase, or a co-op push with a friend on the couch. It is for players who enjoy old-school difficulty, cinematic set pieces and a gritty, cyberpunk-tinged war aesthetic, and who don't mind dying often to learn a stage.
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