The concept of the run-and-gun game has been around for a couple of decades now and during this time few franchises can boast the longevity or popularity of Contra. The appeal of Contra is as immediate as it is obvious, the player is not given a moment’s respite. Bullets must be dodged and platforms negotiated, whilst simultaneously engineering a position to return fire. The adrenaline hit is formidable, the challenge even more so.

Evolving a franchise of Contra’s magnitude is never easy. Take the game too far away from its roots and it loses its identity, keep things too conservative and the new generation of players won’t be interested. Neo Contra is probably as far evolved from its patriarch as can be, without being a different beast altogether. Bill Rizer from the original Contra is once again the main protagonist, but the finely tuned balance between running and gunning has been thrown out. Along with the ‘baby’ has gone the ‘bathwater’ of tried and tested 2D gameplay.

It’s not the first time that Contra has dabbled in the 3rd dimension and some would argue that the original tried to break out of its planar existence with its shoot-into-the-screen sections, so the thought of a 3D Contra is quite palatable. Neo Contra is played from a variety of fixed views which actually works extremely well. By fixing the camera Konami have escaped the problems of disorientation and space perception. Targets can be tracked easily with only the minimum of tracer fire required before shots hit home. Likewise enemy bullet trajectories are clear the instant the bullet is in motion. The absence of a jump, or indeed any obstacles to jump over further simplifies things and the new perspective feels quite natural after a short period of play.

Control too has been optimised for the shift in perspective. No longer bound by the constraints of digital joysticks, Bill can now run and shoot in any direction using the analogue stick. The precision of movement available is excellent and at no point is the player made to suffer by not being able to run or shoot exactly where they want to. Interestingly, Konami have opted to shy away from switching to a Robotron-style twin-stick arrangement. Instead, the direction of fire can be locked by holding L2 or Bill’s linear movement halted with the R2 button, allowing him to rotate on the spot. Although this method of control seems a little clumsy at first and has its limitations, it does mean the game retains a little of its heritage. It also serves to make the game a little trickier and this is no bad thing as, disregarding the boss battles, the challenge on offer is rather limp.

The problem is that the deck is heavily stacked against the bad guys, dubbed Neo Contra. It seems their munitions suppliers have given them some rather outdated weaponry. The enemy forces have come out to play with the military equivalent of a spud gun, whereas Bill is packing machine guns, flame throwers and grenade launchers to name but a few. Assuming the enemy soldiers live long enough to actually fire a shot, the resulting projectile limps across the screen at a snail’s pace. Considering Bill can either dive out of the way or make himself temporarily invulnerable by ducking, he’s not likely to need a change of underwear. Sadly a lot of the time it’s not necessary to resort to these drastic evasion techniques as most of the enemy fire seems to be woefully off target and sporadic (reloading a spud gun is a time consuming affair). Of course the Neo Contra arsenal isn’t entirely rubbish: there are enemies with rocket launchers and a number of other more effective weapons. Additionally there are respawning enemies, which prove to be a constant annoyance, although for some reason they think that katanas and halberds will be effective against a machine gun.

The result is a pretty pointless slog to reach the boss encounter at the end of each level; even the mid-level bosses are laughably rubbish and are despatched in a matter of moments once the more destructive weapon sets have been unlocked. The boss battles themselves offer up a good challenge and actually force the player to run. These are a joy to play as Bill weaves in and out of enemy fire, quickly spinning to attack before being forced to dive for cover once again. The balance between running and gunning is restored and the game comes alive, albeit briefly.

Finish off the boss and the game ranks your performance for that level, based on a hit-ratio scoring system. It’s not as silly as it sounds as in this instance hit-ratio simply means what percentage of the level’s enemies and objects have been destroyed. One percent is deducted for every life lost, with the highest ‘S’ rank awarded for scores of 98% and above. Unfortunately, finding and destroying everything along the linear path set out in the levels is easy and there are only a handful of situations where the game exploits the scoring system to its fullest. For example there is a short section in level two where Bill is being chased up a wall by a giant lizard alien thing. Enemies pop out of the wall and throw objects down to try and knock Bill off and killing all of these whilst avoiding a nasty lizard death can be quite tricky. Ultimately though, the system is flawed as certain weapon sets preclude the destruction of some targets, regardless of skill. Each weapon set gives the player two primary weapons and a third lock on weapon which must be used to knock out certain targets marked with a lock box. Pick a set with a weak lock on weapon and it will be impossible to obtain a 100% hit ratio on level four.

Progress far enough in the game and the second player character ‘Jaguar’ is unlocked, along with some more interesting weapon sets which contain a katana for powerful close quarter attacks. This changes the game substantially and is a welcome addition requiring quick movement and planning to reap the benefits of the more risky melee attacks. However in seasoned hands it ultimately makes the game even easier.

Neo Contra isn’t a terrible game; it simply fails to get the balance between running and gunning right, resting far too much emphasis on the latter. It’s fun for a quick blast, but doesn’t offer enough depth or difficulty to warrant extended play.