CONTRA: ROGUE CORPS
Pandering to a base instinct
Put down your pitchfork and pick up your pad – this retro-inspired sequel isn’t the (total) wretch we expected. Adopting the controls of twin-stick shooters, Contra: Rogue Corps puts you up against waves of zombies, mechanical monsters, and bulbous, vomiting aliens. Just surviving is your first aim, then you want to rack up the combo kills, chase the loot, and do it in style. The oddball characters – a ninja girl with an alien in her abdomen and a cyborg panda – grab the headlines, but it’s the gunplay grind that keeps you hooked.
Story mode can be played alone or in fourplayer co-op and mixes a variety of mission styles, from wave rooms to explorable dungeons to screen-filling boss fights that tease the series’ roots. 1 Controls are tight and there’s a tactical edge to the action – as weapons overheat hot-swapping between your two guns becomes essential.
Between missions you can develop new weapons2 and upgrades using loot, or visit the doc, who’ll implant your hero with new brains, organs, and skeletons. It’s fun experimenting with the weird weapons, and combined with the wave-shooter setup and weirdo enemies it feels like series director and senior producer Nobuya Nakazato has been dining out on Earth Defense Force.
Is this enough to overcome the scrappy visuals and repetition? Not quite. The addition of a couch-play co-op mode with its own story is nice, but the procedurally generated maps lack the finesse of the main story. Rogue Corps is an odd release. It’s not Contra enough for fans but just about fun enough for the casual shooter crowd.