The story was probably the best for the Contra series, which doesn't say much regardless. That's like winning a beauty contest in a burn ward. Still, the story is decent, and gives a little bit of ''cool'' to a game that really doesn't need any more cool than it has, but more never hurts anything.
You play as either lovable cursing robot Brownie, typical Contra playing-dude Ray, new Amazon-type girl Sheena, or the cyborg-werewolf Brad. The group is the ultra-elite ''Hard Corps.'' Get it? Like, said ''hard core'' if pronounced? GET IT? HAHAAHAHAHH! Okay, bad pun and all, but the title really does speak a little too much about the game: hard core!
The first event that happens is that you're called into a city on the brink of collapsing from massive structural damage, which happens to be in the process of being attacked by a large unmanned robot, as well as a medium-sized manned robot, and several small to medium sized unmanned robots. Quite a variety of robots once you get there. As soon as your APC gets to this town, it crashes and you fly out the window, guns blazing. The rest of the game immediately follows suit. There's really no reason not to shoot everything in sight.
However, at the end of the mission, a character named Deadeye Joe is revealed to be piloting the *manned* robot, and flies away at the same time that you get a call saying that the research lab is under attack and you need to haul ass over there. So, you're left with the choice of stalking Deadeye Joe's cyborg self down or going and helping out the Doc. After that mission, you go after a hacker, then Joe again, and then the game turns out differently based on which mission you went after in the beginning coupled with a decision you make after your fight with Joe.
So these branching paths are great, as will be talked about in the gameplay section, but they don't really contribute to the story outside of the faux mission briefing that precedes each mission. The events that play out in the missions really aren't influenced by your actions directly, per se. However, the different endings do warrant plays through each of the 6 possible game outcomes, which is a nice replay factor.
Oh yeah, and there's a certain Colonel Bahamut you need to ''bounty-hunt'' (not a verb, but it should be), and the kindly old Doc decides that he's going to go rogue with the Colonel to make your life more difficult, because of course nobody understands his psychotic scientific vision but the Colonel.
The choices you make though determine the fates of the Doc, Deadeye Joe, and the Colonel. It's not a question of whether you choose to kill them or not, it's a question of whether by chance you're put in a position where you can brutally destroy whatever giant mechanical or bio-mechanical contraption that they'll try to kill you with, thereby killing them by extension. Really, the extent of the story choices you have are, in order and depending:
1) Go after Deadeye Joe / Rescue the research lab.
2) Surrender and fight later / Fight to the end.
3) Ally with the Colonel / Don't ally with the Colonel.
So it's really not as clear cut as ''Kill the Doc / Don't kill him''. Still, for the ability that you have to direct the course of the game, it's kinda neat. Unfortunately, it doesn't save the mediocrity written all over the game's minute amount of actual story.
By the way, every character has the same dialog, and they all seem to overuse the word ''Damn.'' Damn, it's not like damn saying damn all the damned damn time can ever damn improve a game's damn story. Damn! I guess that was the Genesis's way of seeming ''mature'' in the face of huge self-censorship issues.
The story was probably the best for the Contra series, which doesn't say much regardless. That's like winning a beauty contest in a burn ward. Still, the story is decent, and gives a little bit of ''cool'' to a game that really doesn't need any more cool than it has, but more never hurts anything.
You play as either lovable cursing robot Brownie, typical Contra playing-dude Ray, new Amazon-type girl Sheena, or the cyborg-werewolf Brad. The group is the ultra-elite ''Hard Corps.'' Get it? Like, said ''hard core'' if pronounced? GET IT? HAHAAHAHAHH! Okay, bad pun and all, but the title really does speak a little too much about the game: hard core!
The first event that happens is that you're called into a city on the brink of collapsing from massive structural damage, which happens to be in the process of being attacked by a large unmanned robot, as well as a medium-sized manned robot, and several small to medium sized unmanned robots. Quite a variety of robots once you get there. As soon as your APC gets to this town, it crashes and you fly out the window, guns blazing. The rest of the game immediately follows suit. There's really no reason not to shoot everything in sight.
However, at the end of the mission, a character named Deadeye Joe is revealed to be piloting the *manned* robot, and flies away at the same time that you get a call saying that the research lab is under attack and you need to haul ass over there. So, you're left with the choice of stalking Deadeye Joe's cyborg self down or going and helping out the Doc. After that mission, you go after a hacker, then Joe again, and then the game turns out differently based on which mission you went after in the beginning coupled with a decision you make after your fight with Joe.
So these branching paths are great, as will be talked about in the gameplay section, but they don't really contribute to the story outside of the faux mission briefing that precedes each mission. The events that play out in the missions really aren't influenced by your actions directly, per se. However, the different endings do warrant plays through each of the 6 possible game outcomes, which is a nice replay factor.
Oh yeah, and there's a certain Colonel Bahamut you need to ''bounty-hunt'' (not a verb, but it should be), and the kindly old Doc decides that he's going to go rogue with the Colonel to make your life more difficult, because of course nobody understands his psychotic scientific vision but the Colonel.
The choices you make though determine the fates of the Doc, Deadeye Joe, and the Colonel. It's not a question of whether you choose to kill them or not, it's a question of whether by chance you're put in a position where you can brutally destroy whatever giant mechanical or bio-mechanical contraption that they'll try to kill you with, thereby killing them by extension. Really, the extent of the story choices you have are, in order and depending:
1) Go after Deadeye Joe / Rescue the research lab.
2) Surrender and fight later / Fight to the end.
3) Ally with the Colonel / Don't ally with the Colonel.
So it's really not as clear cut as ''Kill the Doc / Don't kill him''. Still, for the ability that you have to direct the course of the game, it's kinda neat. Unfortunately, it doesn't save the mediocrity written all over the game's minute amount of actual story.
By the way, every character has the same dialog, and they all seem to overuse the word ''Damn.'' Damn, it's not like damn saying damn all the damned damn time can ever damn improve a game's damn story. Damn! I guess that was the Genesis's way of seeming ''mature'' in the face of huge self-censorship issues.
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