Week 2- Contra: the arcade game
Relating the game Contra (1987), by Konami to the Spheres of Meaning originated by Panofsky.
Primary:
I am presented with a view of a human character from a side view. He is standing on a flat surface that seems to be hovering in mid air, but is probably a sort of ground plane. The man is very strong looking, wears camouflage, has spare bullets strapped to him, and holds a large gun. The scenery is lush and green with various other details in the foreground that look more technological and man-made. It generally looks futuristic. I can control this character by using buttons corresponding to up, down, left, and right. Up and down are jump and lay down respectively. I also have controls to shoot my weapon. I can simultaneously do all of these actions while shooting and can jump in any direction. At times I have multiple platforms on which to walk, allowing me to choose where to progress. As I scroll to the right in walking, I come across opponents who fire at me with their own weapons. Most are seemingly robotic or completely alien. Some are human but wear suits that make them look futuristic. Multiple enemies at a time confront me. One gun shot from me can usually destroy an opponent and likewise one shot from them can usually cause me to loose a token unit, referred to as a life. I find several opportunities to increase the abilities of my weapon by coming across certain items in the game. These are presented at fairly regular intervals and allow me to more easily defeat enemies. After completing a section of the game I am presented with a new view. This time I am indoors in an industrial looking compound of sorts. The view is behind my character and the enemies and subjects of interest are places in front of me. I move forward, or towards the back of the screen until the game shows arrow icons which indicate to me that I can go in certain directions. If I choose one, the scene cuts and I am given a new view, supposedly corresponding to my direction. As I continue to shoot enemies I am blocked by what looks like electricity running across the hall. I find that by shooting certain targets at the end of the hall I can turn these off, and continue. The rest of the game goes on in this fashion, at certain points presenting me with a more powerful character that holds importance over the rest. Defeating these characters allows me to move on to a new stage until the game is completed.
Secondary:
The storyline in Contra has to do with the rising of an Alien race from an area in South America. As one of two characters you must go to this local and defend the human race from the impending takeover. This takes place either in 2633 or 1988 depending on the release of the game you're playing. I found the game to be a typical side-scroller by today's standards with some original gameplay elements in the use of third person pseudo-3D views when in the base missions that alternate with that of the more 2D sidescrolling portions. For a game of its time (1987) the graphics seem fairly complex and the game felt fully fleshed out for what it was. The number of weapon power-ups is satisfying and the intense, adrenaline-necessary play style was captivating. I found I needed to carefully balance my movements to avoid weapon fire from several enemy units at once. The difficulty was not too bad, and after a couple of restarts I could progress through a few levels without too many hangups. The visual style was appropriately over the top for the gung ho nature of the story, which is riddled with masculine archetypes, but more on that later. Overall, I found it to be far enough ahead of its time to be comparable to the Duke Nukem series, though DN did not have any changes in perspective so kudos to Konami.
Intrinsic:
As I said this game is most definitely appealing to the male hoping to enact some fictional shoot-em-up violence on some enemies. Basically an Alien ass kicking game with little to nothing left to the imagination. The characters, Mad Dog and Scorpion, or Bill and Lance (depending on the version) are the epitome warrior archetypes, with muscle shirts, bulging muscles, and huge, phallic compensating weapons. Their sole desire in the game is to destroy. No mention is made of the loved ones they seek to protect from the aliens, nor of their feelings toward the situation. Granted, in an arcade settings these sorts of things are hard to get across, but the intention of Konami is clear. As a whole I can see this as it lies in the lineage of violent games that we are all familiar with. I'm wondering if the original shooting sidescrollers are the first to feature human depictions of violence. If so, they are crucial to the development of games that allow the user to take part in these actions and set the precident for future renditions of violence that are often debated today. It might be interesting to keep these in focus when talking about the current issues debated by our elected officials relating to violence in games. Perhaps we could remind them that they or their children were pumping quarters into games like this in the 80's without so much as a societal twitch.
posted by Unknown @ 4:20 AM
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