Perhaps one of the reasons I appreciate Contra so much is because of all of the stories I have to tell, about how I aquired Contra. I first got Contra way back near the end of 1988, but I didn't buy the game. I was riding my bike when I noticed a game just laying near the side of the street, almost to where cars could run over it. Whoever put it there, I figured they must not want it anymore, so I took it and claimed it as my own. I put it in my NES, it gave me a little trouble like all NES games do, but I got it to work, and I played all day and night, with my brother and 2 sisters, trying to get past the first level. Just as my brother made it to level 2, my parents drove up and I quickly took it and hid it, I didn't want them knowing anything about it, so over the next few days I was dying to play Contra but couldn't for fear of my parents finding out.

What seemed like a week later, I was playing Contra when my brother walks in and turns the NES off, takes the cartridge out and begins walking out. "What are you doing man?" I ask him. So then he explains to me that his friend had left Contra on the back of his car as he drove off, and that it's his game and he's giving it back. "Well that sucks", I thought, but at least now I was guilt free. Not long after, my bro and his friend come back with Contra, and have made a deal to trade Contra for Pro Wrestling, a game me and my family are sick of. So now I have Contra and can play it all I want!

Over the next few months I played Contra a lot and learned the game inside and out. I found out about the 30 lives code and beat the game right after, but then I felt dissatisfied and began trying to beat the game legitimately. I wasn't a very experienced gamer at the time, so it took many months. I still remember the day I first beat the game with 3 men, right after my brother did it. I played Contra constantly even after I could beat it with 3 men, it was just an awesome game I didn't easily get tired of.

I finally had to say goodbye to Contra on Christmas 1991, when, like so many other people, I got a Super Nintendo. I don't know exactly why, but our NES was given to my sister who was in college at the time. So many times after that the conversation would center around our old NES, and how much we wanted it back. "Remember Contra?", me and my siblings would often say to each other, "that game was so cool, I wish we still had an NES". Once I called my sister at college, turns out she gave the NES away a few weeks after she got it.

Over all of these years, I still thought about the NES and Contra a lot. Sometime in '98 I finally got the idea of starting an NES collection. The first game I set my sites on was Contra. I went to the local Goodwill, they had an NES for $10! Luckily, they had one game for sale for just $1, Contra. Unluckily, the game had a few.. problems (read about it in the other story, "curse of the 'fuck you' Contra"). So I figured I could just find it somewhere else, and I focused on playing my other games. Nowhere I went had any trace of Contra. When I got my computer I tried to buy Contra online, but everytime I bought it the seller backed down, or someone would pop up at the last minute and raise the price too high. Some websites had the game for ridiculously high amounts of money. I couldn't believe it, one of the most common games in the entire world and I couldn't get ahold of a copy. It was more than a year before I finally got Contra again. I bought it at a new flea market that opened up in my town, in October '99, along with Super C. Just as I had done when I first got the game, I played Contra all day long, and Super C every now and then. It was a massive experience that hit me with a flood of memories. I continued to play the game, and haven't stopped playing the game on a regular basis since. I've mastered the game inside and out, I hardly ever lose a life when I play now. I've been trying to make it as hard as possible, sometimes playing without using my gun except on bosses and main targets, and I can get to level 5 that way. Sometimes I'll try to play with the controller upside down, and I can get up to level 2 playing like that. It's a simple game that's much more complex than it seems, the gameplay is what makes this game stand out, it features the best gameplay of any action game ever made. I don't create sites for just any game, only games that deserve it, and so far this is the only one that holds that title.