My New High Score - 805,000 - Contra NES

So during some downtime from a poker session I decided to do a Contra run. The plan was to beat the game without continuing - old school 1CC style. I knew I could do it because I remember beating it on one credit as a kid, but then again I remember beating Kid Icarus and TMNT and Ninja Gaiden 1,2, and 3 for NES, and those games kick my ass these days. Finally doing it took me 3 weeks of trying 4-5 times a night. You do the math: this game is tough.

Well, lets just say I had a good day for a 32 year old man because I made it all the way to the Energy Zone without losing a single life. That was by far my best start ever, and although the ridiculously tough Energy Zone got sketchy with 2 lives lost, I recovered and stormed into the Alien's Lair like a man possessed. I blasted the Mother Alien and started the game's brutal second loop, making it all the way to the Snow Field before losing my last life with a final score of 805,000. I didnt beat the game in under 12 minutes like the guy in the video above, but I wasnt far behind that time, probably 13-14 minutes. I had the spread gun, a turbo controller, and I wasnt taking any prisoners.

It really strikes me how Contra was the Gears of War for the NES. Big bad ass dudes with machine guns invading the Alien Base to blow it all up and save humanity. And you could play the whole thing coop, which of course was a huge draw then as it is today. While its hard if not impossible to say which is the "best" overall NES game ever, Contra really holds up with the best of them 22 years later. It is quite short (see the speed run above), with furiously intense pacing and the perfect difficulty curve - finishing this game on one credit, after trying dozens of times, really felt like an accomplishment. The 805K was just the icing on the cake for one of my proudest moments as a retrogamer. Next up? Beating Mike Tyson. One time! I mean holy crap, he makes the Mother Alien look like Mother Teresa.