Contra: Legacy of War

Written by John Scalzo  on December 05, 2002

Review: This game isn't part of any legacy I know.

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Contra had it's first appearance on a next generation system roughly a year after the PlayStation debuted. It was actually a game of many firsts. It was the first Contra game not developed internally at Konami, that task was passed off to Appaloosa Interactive. It was also the first non-side scrolling Contra game. There was actually quite a bit of hype for the game considering the fact that there were a lot more Contra fans in the world before Legacy of War was released than there were after. This isn't to say that Contra: Legacy of War is a bad game, but let's face it, making a joke about the "legacy" that this game helped destroy would be too easy.

Contra: Legacy of War takes a different tack on the gameplay than previous entries in the series. Instead of a traditional side scrolling shooter, Legacy of War takes the overhead levels from Super C and Contra III and makes an entire game out of them. It's definitely a different way to play Contra, and I always enjoyed those overhead levels, but something just doesn't feel right. There's still no plot to speak of, just a straight, kill all the aliens, shooter. Actually I think I know the exact reason why Legacy of War doesn't work: you can't shoot in every direction.

By adding a third dimension to Legacy of War the ability to aim up and down is needed more than ever. In two dimensions this isn't a problem. But now in three dimensions aiming up and down is much more difficult to pull off. And the sad part is Appaloosa didn't even try. This would be fine if Legacy of War only featured enemies on an equal plane as you, like in the Super C and Contra III overhead levels. But no. In Legacy of War there are enemies on the same level as you and those above you. And the weapon eagles still fly over your head, requiring you to shoot them for special weapons. So after all my rambling, Appaloosa's solution to this problem is the big problem with Legacy of War. You have to jump to hit the enemies and weapon eagles above you know now.

This shouldn't really be a problem, Contra has always required some quirky moves to position yourself in that good kill spot, but the jumping motion in Legacy of War is so awkward it takes you right out of the game. It's downright terrible. The control is not much better in the rest of the game. The awkward jumping motion causes more problems than just shooting high targets. The precision jumping required to dodge all of the enemy fire and to successfully navigate some of the platforms just isn't there. I'll say it a third time: the jumping is awkward and kills this game. The rest of the controls are a little rough, trying to run circles around an alien is sometimes a chore, but they're nowhere near as awkward as the jumping.