Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX

You'd think cloning Contra would be the easiest thing in the world to do. If only it was. Then we wouldn't have to wait so long for something like this to show up.

The GBA is nothing but a repository for bad ports of SNES titles that weren't all that good in the first place. According to some people, anyway. Such close-minded folk will simply have to miss out on this lovely Contra remix, a combination of two of the 16-bit era's best shooters?The Alien Wars (SNES) and Hard Corps (Genesis)?with some extra stuff thrown in for good measure. (The only major omissions: The SNES game's overhead levels are gone, and you can't carry multiple weapons at once.) If you've never played them before, consider this game a handy pocket reference to an age that unfortunately passed long ago.

As you'd expect from Konami's 16-bit years, The Alien Wars EX features stupendously well-animated characters and a boopy-yet-catchy soundtrack. The control's spot-on, too, which is helpful 'cuz the smaller screen size means you have a much tinier margin of error during most boss battles. Of course, this being Contra, the game's mind-numbingly challenging?a fact that limited continues and an annoying 18-letter password system don't change much. Despite (or perhaps because of) this, this is one hot 'n spicy GBA remake that's actually worth the money for a change.

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