They just don't make them like this anymore. Contra 4 is a game about which that old cliche can be accurately put forth without coming off as selectively nostalgic. In this case, it is a simple statement of fact, not a qualitative statement. They absolutely do not make games like this anymore. Remember old-school Contra? Tough-as-nails, never-stop-shooting, dodging-hails-of-bullets, 80s-action-movie sidescrolling action? The series has strayed from that brutal but well-loved formula in recent years, with original creator Konami as well as Ecco and Jaws Unleashed developer Appaloosa Interactive taking some poorly aimed stabs at 3D gameplay--injuring the legendary franchise and leaving it a bit worse for wear. Looking to recapture the true essense of the series, Konami contracted portable specialist WayForward Technologies, notoriously responsible for the pointless DS chat software Ping Pals as well as, more importantly, unsung Game Boy Color classic Shantae and the recent inventive and irreverent Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck. Helmed by game director Matt Bozon, WayForward was clearly up to the job. For better or worse, depending on your perspective, Contra 4 is old-school Contra--more of it and, if you can believe it, harder than ever. The DS is certainly the system for it, too. It's well-suited to true pixel art--the game looks absolutely great--and it has amongst its massive userbase a sizeable contingent of longtime gamers with an appreciation for the classics. All four classic Contra heroes are here for this one: Bill, Lance, Mad Dog, and Scorpion, all of whom exclaim things like "Come get some!" and "Let's party!" during gameplay. This is fitting enough, because the gameplay is comprised of all sorts of elements from the first three Contra games. There's a reason Konami dropped the subtitles and decided to pick up where the numbered games left off. Though the bulk of the gameplay has you shooting your way on foot through jungles, enemy bases and labs, and ruined cities, there's a healthy amount of gameplay variety here. Massive boss battles in the vein of Contra III: The Alien Wars cap each level, easier-than-footslogging vehicular gameplay breaks things up, and the classic pseudo-3D corridor levels return. The tight control is back as well. It's still a great feeling to dodge a shower of bullets as you pull off a physically ridiculous but action-packed spinning jump while changing directions half a dozen times in mid-air. The main action buttons are of course jump and shoot, but there also the shoulder buttons for standing stationary while firing in any direction and for swapping over to your auxilliary weapon, a feature that allows you to hold on to one of your two guns even after dying. What's new in overall gameplay terms is the additional screen, and the greater prominence of vertical gameplay that comes along with it. For the most part this is handled well. In the traditional sidescrolling levels, it doesn't add much other than a larger playing field, but some levels are entirely vertically driven and are quite suited to the configuration. Frustratingly, if you stop scrolling up or down at just the wrong altitude, enemies will occasionally end up positioned in the "gap" between the two DS screens, which can lead to obvious dangers when they have guns. Still, the reality is Contra 4 is so hard anyway that such design oversights are but a drop in the bucket of the game's will-breaking challenge. There's a cooperative mode over local wireless, though it requires each player to have a copy of the game. This is actually one area in which the horizontal levels do gain more from the second screen, as it allows each player to more effectively stake out his sidescrolling claim. The mode has some give and take, with players having to compete for powerups and being able to share lives, but it's fairly straightforward. The package also has a veritable cornucopia of unlockable goodies, if you've got the stones to actually get to the Challenge Mode to unlock it. Headlining the bonuses are full versions of the original Contra and Super C. There are also even more characters to choose from, pieces of artwork and comics, and, unusually for a portable game, interviews with veteran Contra developers. Contra 4 makes me glad our publication does not use a score-based review system. The game is utterly confident and successful in what it is trying to be, but it is difficult to judge what it is trying to be on a standardized scale. Some will criticize Contra 4 for relying so heavily on what would term as outdated game design concepts. Certainly, within the context of viewing game design as a linear progression, which is the framework in which many reviewers and gamers perceive the industry, Contra 4 is something of a relic. Need game design be viewed in such a linear fashion? It's an open question, so hopefully this review will allow you to determine whether Contra 4 is for you. There are no modern-day niceties. One hit equals one kill. Continues take you back to the beginning of the level (or checkpoint, thankfully). A game over takes you back to the beginning of the game. There are no passwords. You can technically spend a continue to pick up from beginning of the level at which you stopped last time, but you might as well just put the DS into hibernation by closing its lid. As far as I can tell, not even the Konami Code will help you out. [Edit: Apparently, the Konami Code does help out a bit in certain situation. Try it!] The bottom line is that this thing is hard. It's really, really hard. Gamers itching for a true challenge, gamers who believe we've been mollycoddled by handholding gameplay and quicksaving, gamers who look at gaming as a genuine skill will find all the challenge they need here. It is so hard as to be discouraging even to generally dedicated gamers. Still, it's tight and compelling enough that unless you really have no stomach for this kind of thing, you'll want to keep coming back and trying to perfect your game. So what about Easy Mode? When you start Easy Mode, you'll probably initially find it to be a cakewalk, with its plentiful lives and continues and its powerups that are immediately absurdly powerful, even if the last two levels aren't actually available on that difficulty. Once you're fighting bosses and playing levels a bit further in, the horror--and potential depression--will start to sink in as you realize that this is still not actually "easy" in the context of video games as a whole. "Easy" in the context of Contra 4 is relative. Like Burger King, they should just skip that part and call the lowest one "medium." You may notice I haven't explicitly discussed Hard Mode. Really, though, do I need to? (The fact that the designers thought it appropriate to relegate the word "hard" to just one of the game's three modes main is vaguely frightening.) Contra 4 also features a harder-than-Hard goal-based Challenge Mode. There are no words. But enough about the pain side of this masochistic endeavor. What about the pleasure? If you're the type of hard-bitten gamer who has read this review thus far and, rather than being scared away, has responded by growling "Fuck yeah" through clenched teeth while a demented gleam sparkles in your eye, you know the sense of achievement that comes with conquering a game like this. This is the kind of achievement born of an earlier age--the kind of achievement that distinguishes you as a certified gaming badass, not the kind of achievement that says you collected a hundred dolls and gives you fifty points on the internet. Despite the insane challenge and the monumental frustration that comes with having to start over at the beginning of the game when you lose all your continues, it is satisfying and rewarding when you are able to breeze through the first level without losing a life on the way to the second. Then the second on the way to the third, and so on. Well, maybe losing one life. Or two. Just not, like, all of them. Make no mistake--this game is awesome at what it is. You, however, might not be able to handle it.

Contra's original hardass duo, Bill Rizer and Lance Bean, will return to spreadshot all over alien faces November 13 when Contra 4 from WayForward Technologies retails for DS. The date as well as the hardcore box art were revealed in a scan of the game's retail one-sheet on NeoGAF forums. According to the one-sheet, a dedicated Contra 4 website should launch this month. The game is a throwback to Contra games of yore, complete with two-player cooperative play. As implied by the game's title, WayForward picks up the Contra series where Contra III: The Alien Wars left off in 1992, ignoring the inferior titles made for the franchise since. For more information on Contra 4, check out Chris Remo's hands-on preview.

IGN has posted a Contra 4 preview, going hands-on with the Nintendo DS action game at Comic-Con. We have our own impressions posted here.

It is curious that the unforgiving, one-hit-one-life, Contra-style action game seemed to largely die out along with the uncompromising, muscle-bound 80s action flick from which the genre drew its inspiration. Particularly with the advent of the first-person shooter, video game heroes became much tougher, gaining vast health bars and the ability to weather sustained firepower. Of course, as video game protagonists became tougher, their games became less so. While in Contra, your character may be a bit of a pushover compared to his modern action game brethren, the Contra player is more badass many times over--which makes that character all the more badass in the hands of a skilled player. So what happened to those games? I don't know, but I do know what's next: Contra 4 on Nintendo DS. With the blessing of series creator Konami, developer WayForward Technologies is delivering the prodigal son of hardcore console gaming, here to shame our time-dulled, atrophied run-and-gun skills. Konami had the first level of Contra 4 playable in its booth at Comic-Con 2007. First things first: it is hard, and it is hardcore. Naming the game so simply, and numbering it as the first main series entry since 1992's Contra III: The Alien Wars, is a clear eschewing of Contra: Hard Corps, Contra: Shattered Soldier, Neo Contra, et al. Contra 4 isn't isometric, it isn't a string of individual boss fights--it's old-school Contra, meaning you'll be navigating two-dimensional sprite-based levels, facing off against an effectively infinite number of enemies while demonstrating ridiculous physical agility and never letting up on the fire button. The most significant addition to the formula is the machine's second screen. There is no stylus use whatsoever (and why should there be?). In the level I played, the additional upper screen was introduced well over time. At the start, it was largely empty, with the occasional floating weapon powerup sailing by overhead. As the level progressed, it became more and more necessary to keep an eye on both screens as enemies started to populate it and the game's platforming elements began to become more vertical. All that vertical space is certainly an adjustment, particularly given how familiar the rest of the gameplay feels, but it doesn't feel out of place or unmanageable. Crucially, I never felt as if enemies were "hiding" in the virtual space between the DS' two screens, a problem that occasionally plagues poorly-polished DS scrollers. Still, this is all hard as hell, of course, but the game would hardly be justifying its name were it not. Where the second screen is really likely to shine is in Contra 4's promised two-player local cooperative mode, which should allow for situations in which players can maintain a bit more personal space thanks to the greater number of paths. The jungle environment on display was extremely evocative of the original Contra, but with considerably more detailed sprites, backgrounds, and animation that make a strong case that the DS needs more games like this (new ones, that is). It just wouldn't work in real-time 3D--sprite work has that unique quality of possessing qualities of cartoonishness and interpreted realism while being able to somehow avoid actually coming off too much in either direction. From a control standpoint, Contra 4 has it nailed. Old Contra masters should be able to pick it up and find their instincts kicking in immediately. As before, you can aim diagonally while walking, or plant your character in a fixed point while aiming in any of the eight directions. A vertical grappling hook allows for quick vertical movement when a horizontal rail is present. The range of weapons is there: machine guns, spread fire, lasers, rocket launchers. Weapons now gain an additional level of power when you collect a second weapon powerup of the same type you have equipped, so a machine gun fires even more rapidly, and the classic spread fire weapon fires four fanned-out shots rather than three. Finally, you can now discard your last-acquired weapon with the touch of a button, in those cases where you mistakenly grab something not suited to the situation at hand. Amongst the packed Comic-Con crowds, I found myself continually drawn back to Contra 4, which even in its first level offered a stiff challenge. I would die, give up, walk away and check out a nearby booth, then invariably return and plug away until I was able to reach further into the level--at which point of course I would again lose my last life and repeat the process. I was able to make it all the way through the bullet-ridden level and reach the boss, though sadly I didn't have the time to perfect my strategy against the large track-mounted weapon platform that vaporized me within seconds. For the full version of the game, WayForward will include a three-tier difficulty setting, which should allow the softer gamers of today to make it through without being reduced to tears. But be warned--the hard setting is planned to be tougher than ever. Depending on how deep you delve into the company's history, WayForward Technologies may or may not seem like a sensible choice to helm the reincarnation of brutal scrolling shooters. WayForward's ludography is littered with licensed titles that would likely never register on a dedicated gamer's radar, but the studio also developed the unsung classic Shantae for Game Boy Color and the inspired-but-not-quite-there genre mashup Sigma Star Saga for Game Boy Advance. In any case, WayForward has vast amounts of 2D portable development experience, and comes off as one of those developers which has something great waiting in the wings that just needs the proper resources. Contra 4 looks to be that project.

1UP has a preview of Contra 4, coming to the Nintendo DS later this year. The article offers impressions and an interview with associate producer Tomm Hulett.

Marking this year's 20th anniversary of the Contra series, Konami has announced the first new numbered entry to hit the franchise in 15 years. Tentatively titled Contra 4 and scheduled to release on Nintendo DS later this year, production will be handled by independent developer WayForward Technologies, whose past projects include Barbie 12 Dancing Princesses (NDS, GBA), Sigma Star Saga (GBA), and Shantae (GBC). Set two years after the events of Konami's 1992 SNES shooter Contra III: The Alien Wars, Contra 4 pits Bill Rizer, Lance Bean, Mad Dog, and Scorpion against the vicious Black Viper. Retaining the series' traditional 2D perspective and two player co-op, the game adds new elements to take advantage of the Nintendo DS hardware, such as levels and bosses that span both of the portable's screens and a new grappling hook to aide in the navigation of the taller levels and exploitation of enemy weak points. While Contra 4 marks the first numbered sequel in Konami's Contra series in over a decade, the franchise has seen a recent surge of activity thanks to the inclusion of the original arcade Contra in Konami's DS compilation Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits, the release of Contra III: The Alien Wars on Wii Virtual Console earlier this year, and last year's Xbox Live Arcade port of the original arcade Contra by Digital Eclipse. Several non-numbered Contra entries have also been released since Contra III, the latest being Konami's Neo Contra on PlayStation 2, which arrived in 2004.