Co-Optimus Feed for Co-Op videogame news for .Contra

Contra Added to the Xbox One Backwards Compatible Horde

Sam Tyler

Contra is a classic title, but harks back to the vintage days when you could only afford one game every few months, so make what you have hard and timeconsuming. The two player couch and online co-op title still holds up well today, but is perhaps not as strong as its Super Nintendo sequel Super Contra.

Contra Action Figures Take Aim for Nostalgia

John Bardinelli

The Contra figures form a two pack of Bill and Lance, each standing seven inches high and holding a standard rifle with bullet-spraying shotgun. Detachable blast effects make your pew pew sounds look a little more realistic, but the pixelated paint jobs remind you that these are just video game dudes, not your IRL friends. The packaging emulates the game cart's look and feel, and there's even a floating power-up capsule with clear stand,

Happy 25th Birthday, Nintendo Entertainment System!

Marc Allie

To celebrate the launch of what many (including myself) consider the greatest video game system of all time, I asked the Co-Optimus staff to share their memories of the NES. We will then take a look at the Top 5 greatest cooperative experiences the original Nintendo had to offer.

Co-Op Classics: Contra

Marc Allie

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Select, Start. This sequence of button presses is still ingrained into the hearts and minds of many gamers today. It is the famous Konami Code, a cheat that allowed power ups, extra lives, and all sorts of other ways to extend your playtime. The first use of the Konami Code was in Gradius, a sweet little shoot em up from the glory days of the NES. But probably the most famous use of the code was in the subject of today's Classic Co-Op: Contra for the NES. You, the readers of Co-Optimus, voted for Contra as this week's Classic Co-Op game. Considering the other choices are fantastic games in their own right (especially Bubble Bobble, which will probably make it into this column some day), Contra clearly was an important and popular game. Co-op gameplay was pretty rare at the time of the game's release back in 1988. That may seem hard to believe today, in a time when many titles include co-op in some form. In Contra, players take on the role of two superbuff commandos, Mad Dog and Scorpion, as they take on an enemy army, infiltrate some seriously dangerous bases, and then eventually kill the big boss, a wicked looking alien called Red Falcon, which was certainly crimson in hue, but not very birdlike at all.