Honestly this almost looks better than the SNES game. I just found out that this only one of FIVE possible endings, each with a different final level and last boss. There's also 4 different characters you can play, at least in theory because why would you play anything but the cyborg gatling gun armed dog?

The pun in the title was wasted on so many kids who didn't know how to properly pronounce "corps".

It was really fun, but really hard, and that's coming from someone who beat the NES contra before he knew the code. I mean, it's Treasure so that's to be expected, but like Alien Soldier frustration kicked in well before the game froze up. I think Gunstar Heroes sort of had that perfect blend, as did Contra SNES. But I might try it again with a newer emulator. Great game.

I haven't played any of the newer Contras, but did they maintain this sense of humor and storytelling? The old ones were just kind of scary to me (don't tell me that the level 3 skeleton boss thing in Contra 3 didn't scare the shit out of you the first time) with a vision of an alien/robot apocalypse that was only captured for a few minutes at a time in the Terminator films. This one seems borderline wacky at times, almost like something out of 2000AD.

The PSX era Contra games were absolutely fucking horrible. The newer one that was an XBLA/PSN thing was not terrible, but not really anything like the classic Contra games. Treasure's PSX game Silhouette Mirage is probably the best "Contra" style game since the SNES/Genesis ones.

Hard Corps is way better than Contra 3 in pretty much every way.

The robot is the best character because he's teeny tiny, has a double jump and a strange yo-yo homing weapon that's a beast when you know how to exploit it. If I remember right this is the 'good' ending because you squish everything properly throughout the branching paths, but it's also one of the easiest final boss fights in the game.

This game IS better than Contra 3 in every way.

The Japanese version of Hard Corps give you a health bar that took three hits before you actually died, but it was removed from the American release. I guess somebody who didn't really play the game thought taking more than one bullet per life wasn't "Contra" enough.

Hard Corps is balls-out awesome insanity. Each character has their own weapon loadout (the wolf here gets a charge gun that can wreck bosses in just a few hits, but he's the only one without a homing weapon), you get multiple high-speed chases on a weird transforming bike, one boss fight pits you against a bunch of very angry constellations, and there's even a secret gag ending with a fight set to a Vampire Killer remix.

This game is my favorite contra (after the first one). The guy playing this makes it look like a cakewalk, when in fact, it is BRUTAL! I got this when it was fairly new, and it took me a very long time to get any of the endings. I could never get past the appendage that shoots bees at you on this particular stage.

Which Contra game was it that had the level where you're flying down a mountain using a missiles as a snowboard?

Then one of the bosses looks like it's going to be some giant robot but then an even bigger alien boss crushes it (or was it the robot crushes the turtle?)

Think that jet's flying him back to his home planet?

Needs a rusty chainsaw. No, rustier.