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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Aside from the jumping and the rest of the rough controls, the rest of the game isn't all too bad. The alien shooting action is pretty fun in spurts and the patented Contra difficulty level is there even on the Easy setting. But really, if you've played any overhead shooter before you know the drill. Legacy of War doesn't add anything new to the genre, it's just kind of altogether average.

What's not average though are the camera angles and frame rate. Both are decidedly below average. Normally the frame rate is good, everything's peachy, but when there's too many enemies on screen at once or more often in two player the game just crawls. It's not a common occurrence, much less common than the camera problems. Yes, even an overhead game can have camera problems. The camera of Legacy of War just moves too fast. Often your Contra soldier will be creeping on the edge of the screen because the camera has already advanced all the way beyond him. It's frustrating and when combined with the semi-awkward controls, the game is often not fun. Most common though is when the camera parks itself right above a building or overhanging roof or some other structure that blocks out half the screen. When the words "most common" are followed by that sentence, you know a game's in trouble.

Legacy of War has at least one thing going for it: it at least looks and sounds like Contra. Or as much as overhead Contra can look like old Contra. The graphics are passable for the time, nothing earth shattering but not too bad. They give off that appropriate Contra vibe. But the garbage monster of level 3 is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. Seriously, where have all the good bosses gone? A garbage monster, his torso was literally an old refrigerator. You can't make this stuff up. Soundwise there's some decent music with most of it eventually being recycled into the soundtrack for C: The Contra Adventure. And the sound is good, but really how hard is it to not screw up the three sounds used in Contra? There's a machine gun, explosions, and a death scream, that's all.