Retro(game)spectives - Contra: Hard Corps

Retro(game)spective
Every day Ben “Ben Pack” Pack or one of his brave compatriots will play a retro game, and break it down for you. That’s right, every day. To complain about us eventually missing a day or suggest your own, go ahead and comment below the article, or email us at retrogamefunclub@gmail.com

9/20/2010

The Game: Contra: Hard Corps



Release Year: 1994

Skewes: Genesis

So what’s it like: Contra. Odds are you have heard of it, whether it be the original Contra on the NES, to one of several sequels/reboots. “Contra: Hard Corps” is the sixth Contra game and the first to not be exclusive to Nintendo consoles. Taking place thirty years after “Contra III: The Alien Wars,” you play as one of four commandoes who must take down a former military war hero and his plans to bring back the aliens, or something.

Why choose any other character when you can pick a robot?

Look, I don’t need to tell you much, if anything at all, about the story. You run to the right and shoot. There are several different weapon upgrades that are unique for the different characters, but all share a theme (such as homing or spread shot).

Retro(game)spective - Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose

Retro(game)spective

Every day Ben “Ben Pack” Pack or one of his brave compatriots (Mike Bachmann in this case) will play a retro game, and break it down for you. That’s right, every day. To complain about us eventually missing a day or suggest your own, go ahead and comment below the article, or email us at retrogamefunclub@gmail.com

9/17/2010


The Game: Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose

Release year: 1992

Skewes: SNES .... and that's about it.

So what's it like: Take Sonic, turn him into a rabbit, slow him down a bit (but let him spontaneously run on walls), give him a sweet back-flip donkey kick, and make it Tiny Toon themed. Actually, that's not like Sonic at all... forget I said that.

You're the best around. Nothing's gonna ever keep you down.

You start off being told by Babs Bunny that the school is overrun by animals from the zoo, which equates to animals wearing pants and hiding in lockers. That ultimately has nothing to do with anything and everything to do with nothing. From that point on, it's a nonsensical romp through six stages of the most random, unorganized collection of fan service and pop culture references I can remember in a licensed game. That's because there really is no story. It's clear that Konami developed the gameplay first and just threw together a sorry excuse for a narrative later. Ladies and gentlemen, that's exactly the way it should be.

Though it's coming in more than a little late, the long-awaited second episode of the RetroGame FunClub is finally here! As previously mentioned, the topic of this week's discussion is the Super NES classic, Super Castlevania IV.

But wait, there's more! We also have two special guest hosts this week. Joining us is the Editor-in-Chief of Wingdamage.com, Jonah Gregory, alongside our good friend Taylor Bliss. Below is the poll for next week. The poll will close this Friday, July 2nd, at which time we will announce the winner on this blog and on our Twitter account.

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This week's poll

Crack that whip, folks, it's time to take down Dracula for the fourth time! Narrowly defeating Rondo of Blood in our listener poll, Super Castlevania IV was chosen by you, our fans, as the focus of next week's show! If you wish to play along with us—Don't forget to send along tweets and emails if you do!--the game can be found on the Super Nintendo and the Wii's Virtual Console for 800 points ($8). We're sure there are other methods to play it, but we wouldn't know anything about that, would we?

Want to play this game with the FunClub? Be sure to send your feed back to RetroGameFunClub@Gmail.com or tweet us at our Twitter, or use the Hash Tag #RGFC. Any comment is a helpful contribution