The Nostalgia Bug Bit Me, But Not My Finger.

On 03/15/2014 at 04:35 PM by GeminiMan78

I decided to download some games from PSN and the Wii shop that I keep throwing on the back burner. And that bug must have been of the old school shooter variety. I got Contra Shattered Soldier of f PSN. This was one of two Contra games released on the PS2 , Shattered Soldier was awsome, the other one not so much. What made this game so much fun was it totally captured the feel of classic contra but added some modern touches to how power ups work.

I then grabbed the grand daddy of Contra games, Super Contra 3 Alien Wars from the Wii shop. This game is 100% nostalgia for me, its the first game I ever played on the SNES. My best friend and I spent years trying to beat this evil beast, only to get to the second form of the final boss with 1 life and 0 continues. Everything about this game is solid, grahics, music, and the set peices.

Next on the list Super Gradius III also on the Wii shop. This is another game my best friend and I use to play to death. I'm proud to say I actually did beat this one, The later levels can really test you flying skills. I think the coolest thing about Gradius III is that you can customize you ships power ups. You can choose from a preset build or go for custom build. You can choose how your missles funtion, what kind of laser,style of shield, or the flight pattern of the gun pods called options that follow your ship and shoot what you shoot (that is your lasers & missles). With maxed out options its like controlling a whole squadron instead of just one mere fighter.

Lastly I picked up Super Turrican from the Wii shop. So I never actually played this game back in the day, had never even heard of it until I was listening to some Del the Funky Homosapien. He mentions it in his lyrics on a coule of different songs, so that piqued my curioisity. Thin when I saw it in the Wii shop decided good or bad I gotta try it. This game feels like a mix bewteen Contra, Mega Man, and Sonic. Its a 50/50 mix of shooting and platforming, with large complcated levels. I say Sonic because something about the graphics and color palet scream Sega even though this was a SNES game.

I do miss these kinds of games, would be nice to see a modern reniasance of this genre.

Super Step Contributing Writer

03/15/2014 at 05:25 PM

I've never heard of Super Turrican and never played the other two, but there are tons of videos on Youtube about them.

GeminiMan78

03/15/2014 at 06:20 PM

Thats good because I think I'm going to need some help with Super Turrican, its a tough one or I'm just rusty at shmups,lol.

V4Viewtiful

03/15/2014 at 06:03 PM

That bug must be intercontinental, I got bit myself tonight.

03/15/2014 at 06:24 PM

Mwuhahaha! My swarm is spreading! Uh, I mean cool! You can't go wrong with oldschool shmups.

BrokenH

03/15/2014 at 08:16 PM

Gradius III was a beautiful shoot-em-up. Contral Alien Wars blew me away at the time too. Probably my favorite Contra game was the original "Hard Corps" for the genesis. If not for a good friend it would have remained in obscurity. (I was an snes kid) What was neat about it was it had branching paths and multiple characters.

03/15/2014 at 09:00 PM

I was a NES- SNES kid too, never had a Genesis. You would think a classic like that would be in the Wii shop with the Genesis games, but sadly like hundreds of other gems its nowhere to be found. I know there were a lot of crap games that they obviously have no interest in re-releasing, but there is shit ton that were good and they are lost. Sony's PSN is not much better. Nearly 7 years of games in the PS2 library, PSN might have maybe has 20%of those games. They are missing a lot of money. My money.

Cary Woodham

03/15/2014 at 09:06 PM

I actually played Gradius 3 on my SNES before Super Mario World!

03/15/2014 at 11:42 PM

Priorities! I would have done the same thing.

PixlBit