Island Contra

Island Contra is a run and gun game

You can play simultaneously, with one player as Lance, the blond-haired commando in the red bandanna.

The controls consists of an eight-way joystick or directional pad and two action buttons for shooting (left) and jumping (right). But currently shooting is automatic. The joystick controls not only the player's movement while walking and jumping, but also his aiming.

During side view stages, the player can shoot leftward, rightward or upward while standing, as well as horizontally and diagonally while running. The player can also shoot in any of eight directions, including downwards, while jumping. Pressing the joystick downwards while standing will cause the character to lie down on his stomach, allowing him to avoid enemy fire and shoot low targets. When the jump button is pressed while crouching on a higher platform, the player will drop down to a lower level.

The player's default weapon is a rifle with unlimited ammunition that can be upgraded into one of four other guns. During the battle you will be rewarded after each game and can use the money to buy more guns with more firepower. They consist of a machine gun that fires rapidly when the fire button is held down, a laser gun that shoots a powerful beam, a fireball gun that shoots its rounds in a corkscrew pattern, and a spread gun that shoots five individual bullets in individual directions. There are also three auxiliary power-ups that only appear in certain areas when the player is armed with his default gun: a rapid bullets upgrade that increases the firing speed of the player's shots, a barrier that makes him invulnerable for a limited period, and a bomb that wipes out all onscreen enemies. With the exception of the machine gun and the laser gun, each item comes in the form of a Falcon-shaped symbol marked with a letter representing its function (F, S, R and B).

The first and second stage is a side-scrolling level where the player is dropped into the island, city and must fend off the enemy's initial line of defense and destroying the boss in two times. Stage 3 is a vertically-scrolling level set in a energy in which the player must jump his way across various platforms. Stages 4 and 5,7 follows a similar pattern to the first stage in the snow area and inside the space ship. Stage 6 returns a similar stage 3 but it vertically-scrolling level in automatic. Stages 8 and 9, 10 increase difficult of a similar 3 with angle, movement levels.