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The dead franchise: Contra (1987-1994)
Contra defined the “run and gun” platformer of the 8- and 16-bit eras, delivering intense, tough-as-nails alien-blasting action heavily inspired by 1980s action films like Commando and Rambo. The series was also famous for mixing up its familiar side-scrolling formula with unique, unexpected overhead and third-person over-the-shoulder stages… as well as for huge, challenging bosses that pushed the consoles’ hardware limitations to the edge.
Although the franchise reached its height of popularity in the Super Nintendo / Sega Genesis years with Contra III: The Alien Wars and Contra Hard Corps, publisher Konami was hesitant to bring it into the next generation of gaming. The company finally released a new Contra in 1996… but as you can no doubt guess, it wasn’t worth the wait.
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The failed resurrection: Contra: Legacy of War (1996)
Rather than handle the first 32-bit Contra in-house (as it smartly did with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night), Konami chose to hand the game off to a lesser-known developer. And instead of making the expected side-scroller, that developer – Appaloosa Interactive – decided to transform Contra into an incredibly ugly, headache-inducing isometric 3D action nightmare. The pacing was slow and the animation was sluggish. Worst of all, the stage and boss design was completely uninspired.
That’s the bad. Now for the bizarre. Konami shipped every copy of Legacy of War with a special set of 3D glasses to “enhance” the experience. Did the company receive the code, realize the game was awful and conclude that a gimmicky stunt was the only way to fool fans? If so, the ploy didn’t work. The sequel didn’t sell and, after Appaloosa failed again with C: The Contra Adventure on the PSOne, Konami finally returned to the traditional Contra formula with Shattered Soldier on PS2.
NARC
The dead franchise: NARC (1988-1990)
The US government’s War on Drugs began in earnest during the 1980s, and could quickly be seen across all popular forms of media – books, movies and “very special episodes” of our favorite television shows told us that narcotics were bad news, then taught us how to “just say no” to them. Eventually, even videogames got in on the public safety fun.
NARC, produced by Robotron creator Eugene Jarvis, is by far the best and best-remembered example of this. The arcade game boasted then-impressive digitized graphics, some entertainingly campy action gameplay and, despite the anti-drug enforcement theme, an overall tone that didn’t take itself completely seriously (as evidenced by bizarre bosses like a knife-wielding clown and a giant, blubbery head on a pedestal).
The failed resurrection: NARC (2005)
Midway’s PS2 and Xbox revival of NARC, on the other hand, takes itself very seriously indeed. In a post-GTA III industry, you can’t merely reboot a cops-and-crime series – you have to make the new game an open-world sandbox and, of course, add several unnecessary layers of controversy-courting grit.
In NARC’s case, the developers added more drugs. Drugs like speed, marijuana, ecstasy, crack and acid that your police protagonists could confiscate, then actually use themselves for temporary skill enhancements at the risk of addiction and other long-term drawbacks. Sound like mature, consequence-laden storytelling? No, it was just a manufactured distraction from the subpar gameplay, and it wasn’t enough to overcome a combination of poor design decisions, troubled development history and overall press indifference.
NARC released at a budget price and was quickly forgotten.
