Where were you in 1987? For me, that fall was my junior year in high school. Bowling alleys were cool, Rastan and Comet Pinball were the best things going and on the NES was a game by Konami called Contra was burning up a lot of free time. It was side scrolling heaven. It was also insanely difficult; it was one of the first games that caused tendonitis for me which is why I now heed those “take a ten minute break for every hour of gaming” warnings in the front of instruction manuals.

The Contra series was very popular back then but kind of fell off the earth or we all just pretended it did after the SNES. Recently though through Xbox Live Arcade and GameTap, we’ve seen people long for the good old days. Thankfully Konami and developer Wayforward Technologies have brought the magic back with the Nintendo DS release of Contra 4.

This game brings back everything you love about late 80s/early 90s gaming…as well as everything you hate. Although the manual has a backstory, basically you know the drill – move your player from left to right and kill everything you see. You’re probably thinking “what is there to hate about that?” Well, how about one shot kills you and the fact that you have a limited number of continues? When they are gone, it’s “redo from start”…even if you have a continue you’ll have to play that level over. This is either a “wonderful challenge” or “@@#$ing hard and unfair” depending on which way you look at it.

The gameplay is same as it ever was: one button jumps, one button fires and one button is your grappling hook. Oh, and the gameplay takes place over two screens. It is extremely important not to just look at the level you’re on moving left to right, because both screens have a lot of activity. Quite often you’ll die wondering where that bullet came from only to find out there’s a bad guy way above you on the upper screen. Again, this is either challenging or unfair – your choice. Although there are two screens in some levels you’ll notice three or four different platforms and of course all of your enemies’ bullets can come at you diagonally up or down. Yes, it most certainly is old school.

The good news is that the bad guy routines never change and there are shot patterns on bosses so you can figure out how to overcome them. Your strategy is to figure out how your opponent shoots at you and then shoot when you have a chance. The game isn’t timed so you can make sure to shoot wisely.

If there is a complaint to be lodged against Contra 4, it’s more a fault of the DS itself than the game. In order to beat this game, you’ll have to become very familiar with shooting diagonally and on the DS. Gamers from 1987 had this problem with the NES d-pad and the same issue is here with the DS. Quite often you’ll be trying to shoot diagonally and instead you’ll shoot straight up instead, and you’ll be dead. Somehow, you’ll have to compensate for this in order to beat the game.

There are multiple difficulty levels but you’ll truly be lucky to finish the game on easy – it’s that difficult. Once you complete the game (even on easy, although there are less levels on easy than there are on normal, but believe me it’s still an achievement), you’ll unlock challenges – 40 of them. Again, these are truly challenges – such as win the game with a limited amount of ammo, or no ammo. Good luck with that. Beating the challenges unlocks the original Contra NES game, which is a nice trip down memory lane. Multiplayer is only supported in the Contra 4 game, (not the original NES game).

The graphics very colorful and in glorious 2D – the developer sure has captured the early 90s extremely well. The graphics are very good for a DS game, and the background music also reminds you that you’re playing a platform side-scroller – that is, it just feels like the perfect soundtrack for this type of game.

Contra 4 has become my cartridge of choice for my DS. The game is a lot of fun, even if the challenge level is out of this world. If you’ve been around for all 20 years of Contra, this is a must purchase. Even if you’re new to the series, it’s time for an old-school history lesson. This game is highly recommended.