Contra 3: The Alien Wars is a continuation of the NES series of Contra games and was released in 1992. As one of the earlier games for the SNES I was always impressed by it. The gameplay was definitely improved from the NES era. This game definitely made use of what the SNES was capable of. The story continues on from the end of the previous Contra games. The aliens have returned and instead of trying to take over a small part of the Earth they are waging full scale war. It is your job to fight them off but this time you have more weapons to do it with.

Graphics 8/10 – I loved the graphics for this game. From the moment you start you can tell there was a lot of time and effort put into the level design. From the foreground to the background there is something to look at all the time and it looks awesome. A nice change of pace for this game is that the levels are a lot more interactive. You get to blow up cars that get in your way, jump into a tank that you can drive around and blow up buildings as you pass by. There are also moments where you think something is part of the level design but instead it becomes an enemy you need to fight. It is so well done.

I love the look and feel of the character you get to play as well. The movement is so fluid. You have total control of the player again with regards to jumping and running and the responsiveness is top notch. I also love the new look for the weapons. I like that the spread gun shoots consistently now instead of only some of the possible 5 locations it used to shoot in the original game. I really like the flamethrower weapon on the side scrolling stages. Especially when you get 2 and do the double weapon jump. You almost seem invincible that way. The other weapons also look great and function as expected.

The only thing that I do not feel like was done as well as it could have been were the top down stages. They are not bad but I feel like they could have been improved. I do enjoy those levels but the design and animations for those levels do not feel as polished. I also was not a fan of the gameplay for those stages as I was in Super C. Still, I feel the graphics were well done and deserve high praise.

Sound 8/10 – I really enjoyed the music for this game. It really fit the overall style and theme of the game. Most of the tracks have a dark and hectic feel to them. Basically what you would expect the soundtrack to a high-paced alien invasion game should be. The music helped the game along and fit the gameplay really well.

I also enjoyed the sounds of the enemies and weapons for the game. They also felt like they belonged and made sense. Nothing felt out of place or artificially done. Bullets hitting metal or hitting flesh all had sounds that matched properly.

In the end though while I thought it was all well done there are always small rooms for improvement. Not every single track was as good as it could have been. It fit the game but I feel there were changes that could have been made that would have really put the game over the top.

Addictiveness 9/10 – this game is FUN! Serious amounts of fun. The single player alone is great and then you can also do 2 players. I have played this game so many times before and I keep coming back to it to play it again, though I am not as good at it as I was when I was younger. This is one of the only games I can think of that I was much better at when I was a kid than I am now. Still, I highly recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of side-scrolling shooters like Contra. This game does everything right with its gameplay to make you want to come back over and over again.

Story 4/10 – What is there to say about this really? The same aliens that invaded the last 2 times are back…. AGAIN! Unlike last time though they are not happy to just try and take over a small military base or something before taking over the world. This time they are here in full force and ready for war! It is your job as the strangely named marines or whatever you are to get your weapons and take the aliens out. It might have been a cool storyline the first time or 2 but it feels so rehashed by this point that I can not give high marks for it. The story does the bare minimum it needs to in order to give you a reason to blow everything up and kill aliens and no more.

Depth 6/10 – The number of levels kind of limits how much of a depth rating I can give this game. There are not tons of weapons or anything to get so there is little to talk about there. There is more interaction with the environment which is fun. Jumping from missile to missile while shooting the flying ship thing was fun and a good change of pace. That is something this game does do well. The level styles change up often enough that no one aspect gets boring. I can not think of any secrets or anything like that in this game so you do not get much in the way of that sort of mechanic. The game is not bad but it follows the very straight forward side scroller gameplay pretty strictly. It is fun but beyond the level variety there is not much else going for it.

Difficulty 10/10 – this is one of the most difficult SNES games ever made. It regularly gets listed in top 10’s of the hardest SNES games ever made. And not hard because the controls are buggy or the gameplay is terrible but hard because the game is just hard. There is nothing cheap about this game. You have every opportunity to jump, duck and fight your way through every level but sometimes no matter how quick or agile you are you are going to die. There is no way around it. That is a big part of why you can pick 3, 5 or 7 lives to start the game and why you get more continues on the easier difficulty levels. Even with 7 lives on easy the game is still a challenge and like most games with difficulty settings you have not truly beaten the game until you have played it on hard with 3 lives. If you can do that then you have mastered this game.

Overall 7.5/10 – solid rating for a solid game. Obviously I feel like the graphics and sound, while well done, have room for improvement. Nothing drastic for either of them but some minor touch-ups in places. The gameplay is probably the best part of this game. It is extremely fun to play and really addicting. The variety in the levels is also great. Driving a tank, then a motorcycle and the hanging off of a helicopter and missiles is great. Keeps the game fresh and exciting. The story is a spot where the game could be improved but at the same time does not have to change. The story for Contra does not need to be complex for the game to be good. However, something slightly new to the story might have helped. A kidnapped girlfriend perhaps. That has not been overdone right? And the difficulty of this game is nearly unmatched for the SNES. I would only put the Star Wars games as being more difficult than this personally. The difficulty does not ruin the game though. In my opinion it has the right kind of difficulty which makes the game even more fun to beat because it feels like you really accomplished something rather than simply figuring out a fault gameplay mechanic. I highly recommend this game to anyone who enjoyed the previous Contra games or others like it.

Another good review from the Elder Slime, keep up the good work and may I suggest you play Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team? It's very different from the main games an has in my opinion a better story than the main games.

18mlivingston : I have no intention of playing a Pokemon game. I don't care how good it is. Pokemon games have absolutely no appeal to me. Nothing against the people who play them but they aren't my kind of game.

Such Pokemon hatred... 

Excellent review again. :3
This is probably the hardest SNES game made. Honestly, I don't know if I actually "mastered" it as you put it on hard mode with 3 lives...

Another great mechanic that kept the game interesting was that you could carry 2 special weapons at once too.
That was great for some of the more annoying boss fights....

What's with this rapid storm of reviews from Slime Man here? Were these pre-written so they could be posted all at once during the Tour De Vizzed? Whether that's what's going on or not, these reviews are still decently well-written. This reminds me, I should be doing more reviews myself.

NovemberJoy : I write threads on the day I post them.

Vanelan : I don't hate Pokemon. I just don't like it.

yeah, the 2 different weapon types were a nice feature that the other games didn't have.

geeogree : Alright. Sorry for the confusion. I'd just heard that there were some people who did that in the past, and I thought that might have been the case here. Thank you for the information.

NovemberJoy : there were some people who did what exactly? I'm confused as to what you were expecting....

geeogree : I heard that someone had written a bunch of reviews in advance and then just uploaded a whole bunch of them during the Tour De Vizzed season faster than they could write them to increase their chances of winning. I was confused, sorry about that.

NovemberJoy : ah, that has happened before. I don't write in advance though.

Glad I was able to clear that up though.

geeogree : That reply tho. 
It was like, "No! Get those Pokemons away from me!"