A crowd of people surrounded the circular setup of the Contra series at Konami’s booth. Fighting through the crowd, I found the GBA’s Contra kiosk empty, as if it was lying there waiting for me to play. I

would just tell the other people waiting to play the new PS2 Contra to look here, since this is where the roots of the series are, not that black box with neon blue lining.

The version they had on display only had the first level playable, but that was enough. If you played Contra before, you will feel right at home. Lasers, spread gun, you name it, the weapons are all intact. Playing Contra reminded me of how difficult games used to be. For example, when you jump over fire, you have to make sure you are not anywhere in the vicinity of that fire when you land.

The good news is that it is not just purely a port as Konami took advantage of the R and L buttons. By holding down the L button, you can lock the position of your character and shoot in any direction. By holding down the R button, you can lock the direction of your gun so you can walk backwards while shooting forward. And another change I noticed was that when you obtain new weapons, the previous weapon bounces out from your character. This way you can make sure you do not get something you do not want.

I do not have much to say since it is a port of an old classic. What you have here is the original Contra, but now version 1.2 with those minor adjustments. If you are into retro gaming and you are a Contra fan, this is your game.