Contra: Legacy of War

Overview

Contra: Legacy of War is a 1996 third-person shooter game developed by Appaloosa Interactive and published by Konami for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. It is a follow-up to Contra: Hard Corps, and was the first of two games in the Contra series that were externally developed by Appaloosa; the second game, C: The Contra Adventure, was released in 1998. Legacy of War marks the series' shift to three-dimensional graphics and gameplay, the game was released packaged with a pair of 3D anaglyph glasses, which enables the player to view the 3D effects incorporated into the game's graphics.

Each character plays exactly the same except for the type of weapons they wield and their movement speed. All characters start with a machine gun and flamethrower, but the remaining two slots are for character-specific weaponry. The game plays from an isometric angle. Since the game takes place in three dimensions, enemies come from all angles. Ducking and strafing have been added to the player's abilities, as well as an auto-aiming feature to help attack airborne enemies.

Colonel Bassad, a dictator of a small country, has become a threat and is amassing an army of soldiers, robots, and alien mutants. Bassad has allied himself with an unknown alien entity for his bid to world domination. Ray Poward (returning from Hard Corps) is deployed to thwart Bassad's scheme along with three of the newest members of the Hard Corps team: Tasha, a female mercenary; CD-288, a robot; and Bubba, an alien. After making the way to Bassad's Mountain Stronghold, the team defeats him in his armored pod, but is dragged into his mind for a final battle. With Bassad defeated, they are teleported to the alien entity, which turns out to be a small living planet.

The game was first unveiled at the 1996 Electronic Entertainment Expo, during which Konami distributed 3-D glasses to attendees so that they could see the 3-D effect. This somewhat backfired, as journalists in attendance at the show reported that the 3-D feature was a "gimmick" and did not improve the game's visuals.

Reviews of Legacy of War differed in how they compared the game to previous installments in the series. Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot advised, "for those looking for a real game of Contra, break out the SNES and have at it", and said the game would have been better if it were not saddled with the Contra name and the unrealistically high expectations that come with it. GamePro's The Gun Nut said it fails to live up to the standards set by the series, and even to less prestigious action games such as Loaded.

Official trailer

Gameplay Video. Watch on YouTube

Screenshots

Game details

Genres

Shooter

Developer

Appaloosa Interactive

Publisher

Konami

Series

Contra

Platforms

Sega Saturn, PlayStation

Age rating

ESRB T

Modes

Single player

Yes

Local multiplayer

No

Online multiplayer

No

Co op

No

Age ratings

ESRB

T

Release dates

Playable today

Playable offline todayYes

Single-player only, with no online features.

Online

Plays offlineYes

Credits

Region

US

Time to beat

about 5 hours