C: The Contra Adventure
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 Too bad the rest of the game didn't impress them.
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C: The Contra Adventure is a third-person shooter and run and gun game for the PlayStation, developed by Appaloosa Interactive of Ecco the Dolphin fame and published by Konami, released in 1998 for the PlayStation. It was never released outside of North America. It is the next game following 1996’s Contra: Legacy of War, by the same developer; the game itself serves as a sequel to Contra: Hard Corps. Both Legacy of War and The Contra Adventure, along with Contra Force for the NES, would then be ignored by Contra: Shattered Soldier.
Plot
Following the defeat of Colonel Bassad and his alien allies, the sole survivor of the alien army managed to sneak away inside a meteor that falls near a Mayan temple in a South American country. The alien proceeds to infest the temple and rebuild the alien army which then begins to wreak havoc. Tasha (from the previous game), is sent to infiltrate the temple but goes missing in action.
The player character, Ray Poward (also from the previous game and Hard Corps), the sole survivor of Contra Force, is brought back into action when the aliens attack the country's capital city. After the aliens are driven from the city, which forces them into a defensive position, Ray proceeds to eliminate the rest of the alien invaders.
Why It's a Contra Misadventure
- False first impression. The first level is a side-scrolling level, like most other Contra games. The next level (and almost the rest of the game save for the very last level), however, plays like a non-linear third-person shooter.
- The third-person shooter levels of the game suffer from terrible camera angles, poor draw distance, and clunky controls, all of which makes it hard and frustrating to navigate said levels. Sonic Adventure 2, which came out three years later, had non-linear levels that were more playable.
- Terrible collision detection for a Contra game. Which is surprising because a lot of Contra games' collision detection is not terrible at all. C: The Contra Adventure is absent from that category.
- Generic soundtrack, along with equally generic sound effects. Even for a game that's Contra. The sound effects are on par with Superman 64, as they sound pretty familiar to this game.
- Unfair difficulty caused not only by bosses with overly high hitpoints but also by the lack of any checkpoints. Notably, both James Rolfe and Mike Matei got stuck on the first level because of this.
- Bad voice acting with one-liners that come across as being lame and awkward.
- Terrible graphics that are very blurry, even by PlayStation standards. And for a Contra game, even for the PlayStation, it can be surprising, as most Contra games have good graphics than this.
- False advertising; the poster above has two screenshots, both of which are taken from the first level, while the back cover has four screenshots of the game, two of which are also taken from the first level.
The Only Redeeming Quality
- Introduces the ability to keep your aim still while moving in the side-scrolling levels.
Reception
The game was met with worse reception from most critics, fans, and players alike than Legacy of War, and is considered by many to be a failed attempt at making a 3D Contra game.
Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot gave the game an overall score of 3.6/10, stating that "It's hard to believe that Konami would release yet another sorry game with the Contra name on it". Randy Nelson of IGN gave it a 1.0 (right down there with The Crow: City of Angels), saying "Definitely not the game Contra fans have been clamoring for". Jeremy Parish and Sam Kennedy, in their Contra retrospective for 1up.com, wrote: "C: The Contra Adventure managed to be even worse than Legacy of War, giving it the distinction of being the worst game in the series".
GamePro's review of the game was more positive, stating: "although flawed, C: The Contra Adventure carries on the franchise with style, picking up bonus points for the variety of its gameplay modes".
Following this game, the Contra franchise slowly began to get back on track with games like Contra: Shattered Soldier, Contra 4, and Hard Corps: Uprising, at least until Contra: Rogue Corps was released, which is also considered one of the worst games in the entire Contra franchise of all time. There is frequent debate over which game is worse: this game, or Rogue Corps.
Trivia
- The Rolling Eyeball boss in this game is likely a reference to the Big Eye from the Castlevania series.