Contra | Code Like It's 198x

Konami’s Contra reached arcades in 1987 with two muscle-bound commandos, modelled on Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, fighting their way into an alien base. In Britain the coin-op was Gryzor, and Ocean’s home versions of it split the magazines: Zzap!64 gave the Commodore 64 game 86% while CRASH marked the Spectrum one down to 49%. A few years later European NES owners got the game again as Probotector, with the soldiers turned into robots. In America the NES Contra became the game that made the Konami Code famous.

Fast facts

Developer and publisher: Konami.
Arcade: 1987, as Contra; Gryzor in Europe.
Home computers: Ocean’s Gryzor for the Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC, winter 1987–88.
Famicom and NES: 1988, as Contra.
European NES: Probotector, 1990.
Players: one or two at once.

The game

The arcade game sets its two heroes, Bill Rizer and Lance Bean, on an island in the year 2633, according to Retro Gamer’s history of the series. One bullet kills. The action switches between three views: side-on scrolling through jungle and snow, into-the-screen corridors inside the enemy base, and a vertical climb up a waterfall. Weapon pods drop power-ups such as rapid fire, a spread gun and a laser, and dying takes the new weapon away.

Gryzor at home

Ocean announced Gryzor as its “second major New Year licence” for 1988. The Games Machine named the team: David Whittaker wrote the music, Paul Owens coded the Spectrum version and John Brandwood the Amstrad. Two different artists called Mark Jones drew the Spectrum and Amstrad graphics. Colin Porch, who programmed the Commodore 64 version, later admitted he was “so rubbish at arcade games” that he asked the tester, Lee Cowley, to play through to each level so that he could see what to convert. With every other move on the joystick, he “had to use the SPACE bar on the C64 for jumping”, which reviewers questioned. On a 48K Spectrum, Your Sinclair explained, Owens made the game a multiload, with some of the finer graphics left out.

The reviews

Spectrum (£7.95): CRASH, in February 1988, had three reviewers. Two gave it 56%. One of them found it “surprisingly addictive” but thought this was “outweighed by the rubbish graphics and sound, poor presentation and high price”. The third, at 35%, called it “poor, bad value, and unattractive”. The magazine’s overall rating was 49%, with the verdict “not living up to the arcade original’s high standards”. Sinclair User disagreed: “Another coin-op conversion pays off”, its verdict began, praising “fast slick action” and scrolling that was “certainly the smoothest I’ve seen”, built with techniques Owens had developed for Ocean’s Cobra. Mark Jones, who drew the Spectrum graphics, recalled that the game “was universally acclaimed in all the magazines apart from Crash”.
Commodore 64 (£8.95 cassette): Zzap!64 gave it 86% in June 1988. It found the game “full of neat touches” and “worthy to be in anyone’s collection”, despite some “ungenerous collision detection”.
Amstrad CPC (£8.95 cassette): Amstrad Action called it “a very good arcade conversion”, and The Games Machine found the Amstrad version “just as tough and exhilarating as the arcade original”. The Amstrad artist, also called Mark Jones, later said it was the game he was proudest of.

Contra on the NES, and the Konami Code

The Famicom and NES versions arrived in 1988. Retro Gamer notes that they changed the level layouts and split the arcade’s long final level into several stages. It also notes that the Japanese and American cartridges were built by different teams on different hardware. The Japanese one has map screens and extra animations that the American one lacks, and the American manual moves the story to South America in 1988.

On the title screen of the NES game, pressing up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A and Start starts the game with 30 lives instead of three. The first issue of Nintendo Power, in 1988, printed the code as a way to “start your game with over 30 extra men”. The sequence was older than Contra. Kazuhisa Hashimoto had put it into the Famicom Gradius, he told Retro Gamer, because “the arcade version of Gradius is really difficult”. The Konami Code entry follows it further.

Probotector

European NES owners got the game in 1990 as Probotector, a name made from “robot” and “protector”. Two combat androids replaced the commandos, and some of the enemies became robots too. Club Nintendo’s Christmas 1990 review set the story in the year 2633 on the planet Apocalypse, and called it “a brilliant game” and “a game not to be missed”. Total! was puzzled in 1992. “For what reason we really couldn’t say,” it wrote, the programmers had “taken Contra, changed the sprites from humans to robots, and called it Probotector”. Retro Gamer has since reported that the change is said to have been made to satisfy Germany’s strict rules on violence against human characters in video games. The Probotector name stayed with the series in Europe until the PlayStation 2 era, when it became Contra everywhere.

Later history

Konami’s arcade sequel, Super Contra (1988), added overhead stages. Its NES version was Super C in America and Probotector II: Return of the Evil Forces in Europe. Contra III: The Alien Wars followed on the Super NES, sold in Britain as Super Probotector, and the series carried on into the PlayStation 2 era.

Sources

Computer and Video Games issue 68, June 1987, p. 122: Gryzor among coming coin-op conversions.
“The Definitive: Contra”, Stuart Campbell, Retro Gamer issue 35 (2007), reprinted in Retro Gamer Collection volume 3 (2009), pp. 216–218: the arcade’s heroes and setting; the NES and Famicom differences; the 1990 European release and the robots; the later games and titles.
Retro Gamer issue 109, December 2012, p. 55: “Probotector (a portmanteau of robot and protector)”; the German policy on violence as the reason given.
The Games Machine issue 3, February 1988, p. 53: Gryzor review (the team; the Amstrad version).
Chris Wilkins and Roger M. Kean, The History of Ocean (Fusion Retro Books): Colin Porch on the Commodore 64 version (pp. 226–227); Mark Jones Jnr on the Spectrum graphics and the reviews (pp. 110–114); Mark Jones Snr on the Amstrad version (pp. 188–190).
Your Sinclair issue 25, January 1988, pp. 28–29: preview by Joe King (Paul Owens; the 48K multiload; £7.95).
CRASH issue 49, February 1988, pp. 22–23: Spectrum review (Ocean, £7.95; P Owens and M Jones; the three reviewers’ 56%, 56% and 35%; overall 49%).
Sinclair User issue 69, December 1987, pp. 8–9: Spectrum review (the multiload; Paul Owens and Cobra).
Zzap!64 issue 38, June 1988, p. 11: Commodore 64 review (£8.95 cassette, 86%).
Amstrad Action issue 29, February 1988, p. 41: Amstrad CPC review (£8.95 cassette).
Nintendo Power issue 1, July/August 1988, p. 60: the Contra code.
Contra (Konami, arcade, 1987), the game itself: one hit kills, the three views, the weapon pods, and losing the weapon on death.
Retro Gamer issue 109, December 2012, p. 57: Super Contra as Super C. Computer and Video Games issue 183, February 1997, p. 58: Contra 3: The Alien Wars as Super Probotector in Britain.
Retro Gamer issue 53 (2008): Kazuhisa Hashimoto on the Konami Code in Gradius.
Club Nintendo (UK) volume 2 issue 6, Christmas 1990, pp. 10–11: Probotector review.
Total! issue 4, April 1992, pp. 30–31: Probotector review.
Wikipedia, “Contra (video game)” (web, secondary): exact arcade, Famicom and NES release dates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_(video_game)